Unfortunately, this throws a bucket of cold ice on all the other great news announced at the event.

For my leisure travel, if I could pay 2x a standard fare + use 2 SWUs (or even a little more), I'd be very likely to do it. When M fares are 75% of full fare business, typically a 3x or more multiplier from lowest economy, it hardly seems worth the hassle of gambling on Z availability when I could actually just book the full ticket in J.

I would be really interested to hear if there was any back and forth discussion, or if Jeff pretty much just laid it out while making this gesture and that was it.

I'm glad they're making revenue off of someone with the M fares, but it certainly isn't me. I want to give Delta substantially more revenue and fill J seats on a space available basis - but there's absolutely no incentive for me to buy anything higher than a T fare right now on my international flights.

Ironically, the only time I could see actually using an SWU under the current system is when flying for work, when I would otherwise be allowed to actually expense a real business ticket! It's bizarre to me they've got a scheme in place that directly cannibalizes real business travel revenue - while letting BE seats go out empty without driving any marginal leisure travel dollars - and that they're convinced it's the right move.

If they're sure they've got the economic analysis right, more power to them, but despite liking Delta miles more than the competition, this one issue alone will likely cause me to reconsider my loyalty in 2011. That's not me trying to pull the "give me free stuff or I leave your airline" card, it's just a fact of life now that UA/CO will soon offer E+ and a comparable route network matched with real opportunities for international upgrades.