Seems the coverage through several blogs, including VFTW, OMAAT, and TPG, softened from Sunday to Thursday (TPG posts: Sunday, "Why I Dumped Delta"; Thursday, "I Am Cautiously Optimistic"). Does this reflect genuine surprise around the blogosphere that, at the moment, there was no change to the highest and lowest redemption levels (of course, with one new level apiece slipped in between the low and middle and the middle and high)? Or a sudden realization that maybe they were biting the feeding hand just a little too hard?

Criticism of earning rates with the tie-in to actual revenue spent on tickets seemed a little rash since the airlines, rightly or wrongly, have for several years now made it clear that the path to earning miles (and now even partially earning status) was easier through non-flying methods than BIS. I've flown a total of 2 paid revenue seats on US, AA, and UA since joining FT, redeemed for six award tickets, and have gone from a combined 43K miles on those three carriers to nearly 900K--and I know I'm small fry compared to many. Furthermore, it would appear to me that concern about further "official" devaluation was equally overblown--US has also made it clear that you can keep your "official" levels the same while making low-level nearly impossible to find and allowing all the award tickets you want at the highest level.

I'm certainly not defending DL here--there's a reason my stash of miles hasn't included DL despite their presence at my home airport. But the reversal of tone this week seemed a bit difficult to understand other than that perhaps a few DL and Amex warning shots got fired over several folks' heads. Although I guess it's possible that sheepishness overcame the blogosphere when it became apparent that the "sky is falling" mentality brought to stirring fear of potential further "official" devaluation of the DL award charts proved way overblown, especially for these three blogs whose authors certainly seem to have become, in various ways, voices in the MSM for the FF community.