Originally Posted by
factorr
It's almost like Delta is doing a defacto study to determine hygiene factors. They are seemingly trying to determine which "benefits" they can remove without strong customer dissatisfaction.
The question is: where is the tipping point? At what point do enough customers defect to other airlines before Delta determines that they need to undo some of the changes? Maybe there is the prevailing belief that their fares are competitive enough that losing some of the "loyalty" customers will not appreciably effect their bottom-line. It'll definitely be an interesting study to keep an eye on, but not a pleasant one be a participant in, over the next few years.
Originally Posted by
matthew64832
I agree that I don't understand all the DL hate when really all the FF programs have seen similar devaluations (not to the full extent, but certainly in the same ballpark). Honestly, as a DM, I fly to get places on-time, on the day that I planned. DL has been the best at this for my personal flying, and I think the data backs up that this is true in general as well.
While I can't say I am happy about the FF benefit changes over the past 3-4 years, I've always considered the benefits to be freebies and didn't factor it into the price of the ticket.
I can certainly understand that some would fly UA/AA because they care more about getting useful miles to get a free flight once or twice a year than they do about their actual weekly itineraries being executed as planned. But I wouldn't make that trade-off myself.
Originally Posted by
BOSTransplant
I still think that the majority of the complaints about the SkyMiles program are driven by an irrational comparison to the past. Comparing DL's current FF program to the FF program it had ten years ago is silly. All you can compare it to are the other current FF programs like AAdvantage and Mileage Plus. In 2016, AA has the most rewarding program, but the difference between SkyMiles and AAdvantage is not as big as you might think from reading some of the doom and gloom threads. It's certainly not as big as the difference between SkyMiles today and SkyMiles ten years ago, which is the mental comparison that many long time flyers make...
I think a lot of the anger stems from the fact DL leads the way in watering down benefits. It was Delta, years ago, who limited Platinum award ticket changes to only 3 per year; one had to pay fees after using 3 free changes. As a Plat (back then the highest), I wound up paying over $600 in fees for award tickets. That was near the end of my loyalty; having to pay for fees that are questionable in the first place as a top tier elite. It was so ridiculous that they rolled that back. They also removed the ability to cancel an award ticket within 24 hours, among a whole slew of other "enhancements".
For current comparison, DL is also the worst in terms of benefits among the legacies for the FF program. They continue to make their loyalty program less valuable than the other airlines. If one compares apples to apples in terms of restrictive features from each airlines FFP, DL is the worst, a couple that stand out to me is no award chart and ridiculous amounts of miles for redemption on some flights.
I agree with the author that it's a question of whether it's worth putting up their industry-leading anti-loyalty policies for an operationally better airline. The question is what happens if the other legacy carriers catch up operationally? You can only improve your product to a certain point; and it's not a unique advantage. Then what is the hook you have to keep customers coming? Southwest has a no change fee, no baggage fee policy that they use to great effect. What will be Delta's if AA/UA gets up to par from an operational performance standpoint?