Originally Posted by
PMMMDL
I think Delta has specific customers in mind WRT the Skymiles program's structure. I also think that DL expects to lose some top tier Skymiles members, while gaining some others from other programs. Obviously DL thinks they will gain more than they lose with these changes.
You make a good point that they may well expect to lose some. I don't see a lot on the gain side. If you're on AA or UA as top tier, and you fly on the sort of Y/B fares that DL SWU's would tend to apply to, you already have deep discount upgrade privileges with miles-- no need for SWU's at all for those flyers. On UA, the cheap miles privilege applies on a host of *A partners as well. Also on UA, you can use their SWU (or will be able to soon) on deep discount Business and upgrade to 3-class First-- a move AA has not matched, at least so far. How would such flyers ever have incentive to hear about, much less contemplate switching to, DM on DL?
Originally Posted by
raehl311
I'm waiting to see how the CO/UA thing shakes out I think. AA looks pretty good; would be great if UA ended up with unlimited upgrades at their 100k level as a result of getting together with CO. I'd probably prefer UA+CO over AA alone.
The CO/UA combo sure does look attractive, but to offer reciprocal domestic upgrade privileges would seemingly require a huge realignment of their elite programs. UA no longer even offers E+ seats to partner elites (a sore point on the US board).