Originally Posted by Robert Leach

Well, I finally got through all 100 pages of this thread. Every single post.

Sigh.

Lots of observations, I have. By way of background, I haven't flown on an award ticket (other than a short hop for 25,000 when the fare was ridiculously high) in a long time. Frankly, the award calendar is so screwed up that I have basically given up, for the time being, on using miles for "free" travel. It's just not worth the hassle. Therefore, technically, I am not likely to be affected by the new rule.

But I am terribly offended by the way the rule was announced and put in place with basically zero advance notice, no regard for those already ticketed, and only spotty notice to the customer base. This is the sort of substantial rule change that deserves three or six months of notice. And I am offended by the tone of all official communications on the subject from DL. It is basically, "screw you, we are in charge, we will make the rules, and any rule we make clearly is the right decision that had to be done, so shut up." The tone is just terribly condescending, worse than that if this is to be considered a "conversation" on the topic.

And I am equally offended by the math Delta uses in spouting these large numbers of unused award tickets, reissued award tickets, etc. They clearly pulled some stuff out of thin air for shock value, thinking that a big number like one million would send everyone rushing to their defense.

Going through the 100 pages of posts (so far) I jotted down some notes. In no particular order, here they are:

1. The 400,000 figure for those uncanceled award seats (and is it 400,000 individual seats on single flights, or is it 400,000 award itineraries that may involve one, two, three, or even four individual flight segments? This is never really made clear) is really hard to interpret in light of SDC. For example, if someone has an award reservation booked for the 10:00 a.m. flight but decides to SDC for the 7 p.m. flight, then by definition that person does not show up for the 10:00 a.m. flight and the flight departs with that award seat unfilled by the passenger who booked it. By definition, under the SDC program, seats you don't intend to use because you want to take a later flight using the SDC program don't have to be canceled; your reservation remains in effect; the seat you had booked is not flown by you. If a DL manager is running a report on "unused" award seats (i.e., award seats booked but not flown) I suspect that these seats that were unclaimed would be included, even though the passenger did indeed fly on the award the same day, just on a later flight.

The mere fact that SDC exists in its current form is pretty much proof that DL does not get perturbed when a passenger elects not to use a booked seat. With no requirement -- whatsoever -- to cancel an earlier flight reservation, the passenger (whether on a revenue ticket or award) is entitled to SDC to a later flight. Hence, the impression is that a flight-not-flown is not a big deal. This undermines all of the expressions of doom the airline spouts forth over these no-show award seats.

If the health and well-being of the airline depended on every reservation being honored for the flight booked, SDC would not exist. (And, yes, I realize that SDC is for domestic itineraries only, which is a big shortcoming given the new rules limiting award ticket changes within the last 72 hours).

2. The 400,000 or 1,000,000 unflown/reissued/whatever award reservations are not all on full flights. Only if a flight is full, and customers with cash in hand are being turned away from booking a flight, would a no-show matter. With a load factor somewhere in the 83% range (last I heard), it means the average flight is not full. Hence, the hysteria on the part of the carrier over unflown award reservations is further shown to be just that: hysteria, without justification.

3. The thought that a res agent would now have some discretion to make exceptions for personal circumstances/emergencies within the 72 hour window is in direct contradiction to Delta doctrine established during the reign of King Leo, which was that "you shouldn't have to play 'Let's Make a Deal' at the airport." In other words, rules should be in place and be clear, so that it did not depend upon an individual agent making a judgment call. But now, the mass of frequent flyers is dependent on just that sort of judgment call, which I don't think the res agents and DL personnel will be comfortable handling after a decade of having this authority stripped from them.

4. Delta doctrine of late has been to encourage the usage of the most efficient routing between two cities. Many fare rules have been written/rewritten to restrict authorized routing between two airports to promote this doctrine. Once upon a time, one could fly ATL-TYS-DFW-SLC-LAX on a trip to the west coast. Try that today . . . it won't work; the fares often require nonstop travel in markets where non stops exist and connections, if authorized at all, are limited to natural/efficient connecting points. The reason for this is simple: there is a cost involved with each mile a passenger is transported and there is a cost involved in handling a passenger at each connection point. Ergo, connections in place of a nonstop flight are inherently inefficient/costly and should be avoided if at all possible. Yet, when it comes to award travel, by prohibiting changes within 72 hours even if a more efficient routing opens up, the carrier is encouraging this sort of inefficient behavior.

5. Delta claims that 1,000,000 "award tickets were canceled or changed within 72 hours of departure" within the past year. Ok, given that the vast majority of award tickets are booked by those who aren't PM or DM (as the number of PMs and DMs relative to the entire FF population is tiny), this means that most of these changes or cancellations resulted in a $150 fee. Try multiplying 1,000,000 by $150 and see what sort of figure you get. Seems like one could tolerate a few no-shows for this amount of money. Unless the only people who change or cancel awards are PMs and DMs, there is a huge amount of money generated by last minute award ticket changes.

6. As bad and as boneheaded as this DL decision might be, it does not begin to approach the level of the New Coke debacle.

7. The bottom line is that the figures quoted by Delta (e.g., 400,000 and 1,000,000) are tiny given the scope of the carrier's operations. Others have pointed out how few this number really is when a carrier operates as many flights as Delta does.

8. As others have noted, there is no incentive to cancel a ticket now if the miles are unrecoverable. This only worsens the identified no-show problem, which we really know isn't a problem at all (else SDC would not exist as it currently does).

9. Even if we assume that there will be abundant "Low" seats during the last 72 hours, and as a result everyone changes his/her practice and starts looking for award seats 72 hours before one wants to depart rather than months in advance, it still doesn't solve the problem of the return flight. It looks like the new paradigm will be to get the "Low" level for the outbound flight and be consigned to the "Medium" or "High" level for the return, since the low inventory won't open up for the return until 72 hours out. The only way around this would be if one-way awards were offered.

10. As others have noted, since a one-way award costs as much as a roundtrip, many will book a return leg they probably won't use. This further inflates no-shows (and may account for a substantial number of the 400,000 that don't use a booked award seat). There has never been a better argument for offering one-way awards than this, particularly if award no-shows are the widespread menace we have been led to believe they are.