MNAudiS4, as a NW FT regular I urge you to not wait much longer. I have been holding out as long as possible but as soon as the Fuel Surcharge went away I pulled the trigger. At least get a few WBC trips for very late next year booked.

There will be a short period of time when we NW fliers will be at a HUGE disadvantage. Miles in the DL program are flowing like water (hell you could get 8000 for a single car rental!) and those folks have MILLIONS of miles and are realizing how easy/cheap it is to book on NW. As soon as the programs merge for awards I think there will be a run on the remaining NW inventory. I would hate to see you get stuck with miles that are devalued by half. At least for now you can always cancel and re-deposit but you really should try to get something spent. As an example, I looked at my last 6 months travel/other mileage earnings. If I was in the DL program I could have easily put 500K in the bank while on NW I only earned 290K......very big difference and our inventory will be up for grabs to them very soon.