[QUOTE=iahphx;18511655]I'm usually very impressed by the perceptiveness of the flyertalk community. But voting Delta's program as being better than United's (albeit barely) strikes me as bizarre.

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/a...vantage-p.html

Now reasonable people can disagree on which airline is actually better to FLY, but reasonable, educated people (I think) cannot believe that Delta offers the better frequent flyer program. And I think everyone knows why. The number one purpose of a frequent flyer program is to earn free travel. You would have to be living in a cave not to know that it SUCKS to try to redeem your miles in the Delta program and get good value from that redemption.

What scares me about this result is that it says to airline management that you can gut a frequent flyer program and your best customers are too stupid to realize how badly you've devalued the program. So why not devalue?}

It all depends. Many people on Flyer Talk are frequent business travelers who are mostly into status and upgrades when they think of a program. They have miles to burn and want to be as comfortable as possible while burning them. Nothing wrong with that. You and I are probably after free trips to fun places, will never qualify for status, and would generally rather save miles by traveling in coach and get more trips that way. I think mostly the former group must have voted for Delta, because you're right, for people like us there's no comparison. To me a United mile is usually worth about two Skypesos. I have yet to find Delta seats at low mileage rates on dates and to places I want to go; it's fairly easy on United or American. And the latter programs offer one-way redemptions. I hope next year FlyerTalk divides up the awards into more categories so that programs can be better cited for their special strengths.