Orwaid

Count me as one of those that has quietly gone away.

After being a NW Plat since 2004 (and coming up on 2,000,000 BIS miles since I joined WP in 1983) I just came to the conclusion that DL simply did not want my business.

As any MBA will tell you, when you have bad news:

1) Tell it all

2) Tell it fast

3) Be honest with the customer from the get-go

Delta did none of this.

As so many people here have pointed out, all Delta had to do was send out a letter (no email) stating:

1) DL has had to look at new and different ways to generate revenue to stay in business, including various fees for revenue and non-revenue tickets

2) Skymiles generates substantial revenue, both from selling miles and generating fees

3) We do not wish to alienate our best customers, so we are looking for ways to reduce or eliminate the negative impact on our current Platinum DL/NW members. This will likely include the addition of a 4th higher level tier that will include most of the benefits that DL/NW Platinum members used to enjoy, along with some additional benefits that Platinum Elites should find desirable.

We appreciate your continuing loyalty to Delta ... blah, blah.

I think a letter like this would have eliminated most of the anger and silent hostility .. and there would not have been all of those NW threads about status matching to other carriers (which a lot of us have done, myself included) or how many miles we burned off at Perksaver levels before the big devaluation came (again, myself included).

All in all, very sad, as it appears that JeffBob et al is starting to get the message, but it seems a little late.