Originally Posted by
SAT Lawyer
That's the truly inexplicable thing. DL hands out elite qualifying miles like candy for a whole host of activities that don't directly involve flying DL. Given that reality, why would DL shy away from generously rewarding very lucrative economy class purchases with bonus elite qualifying miles?
If they can get millions of people to hand over cash to them through e.g. AMEX's mafioso arrangements with merchants without having to do anything in return except display on their website "your miles have expired but don't worry under the new rules you wouldn't have had enough to do anything with them anyway", why would they want to do something difficult and expensive like fly people around in airplanes?