Originally Posted by
Gargoyle
It's not the whole 160 m, but it's the biggest individual piece. I don't recall the exact number, somewhere between 80 and 120. IIRC that's the total for change and redeposit fees extrapolated to the number of changes/redeposits in the combined DL/NW system, and therefore the annual cost/revenue after the merger is complete.
A lot of people even request redeposits after the flight has departed.
I view this differently than you, but I see a change and a redeposit as being very similar; they certainly have a similar effect on the overall system and award availability, and processing costs are similar. To me it's nit picking to separate them, but to people who do those changes a lot I'm sure they are entirely different animals.
I guess they did the math, and decided it's better to tick those few individuals who do lots of changes, and thereby lose a few thousand in business, rather than to lose a hundred million in revenue. They indicated that when they ran the numbers they were quite surprised at how large the amounts are.
I wish someone could say how many are redeposits and how many are changes. Surely they are quite different. I find it almost impossible to get a perfect itinerary on the first pass going overseas. I end up with open jaws, bad connections, etc. if DL and their partners had space open, even 300 days out, this would not be a big problem.
DL limits awards, very well noted all over these threads, and than wants to charge to get it correct.
Please someone from DL break the redeposit from changes. There just can't be even $5 million of the 80 to 100 million. In the long run at this small number it is a loser. If the problem is technology and their systems are designed to treat a redeposit for a change than change their software, they sure did that to implement the $50 nonsense.
I still think the numbers they are talking about is to RIF people.
I do have a question.. Was there a fee to redeposit or change for all members or just PL? If it was only PL than the numbers are even more apparent to be dishonest.