Originally Posted by
ruckzac
I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. Delta didn't get rid of their award chart to spite consumers – they got rid of it because not all flights within the contiguous 48 states are created equal ...
It has nothing to do with "not all flights within the contiguous 48 states are created equal".
The changes date back to late 2007 when Delta added a 3rd tier, ostensibly to protect premium flights (Jeff's specific examples) such as Nice during the Cannes Film Festival and Beijing during the Olympics.
Until then it was possible to get a seat on any flight for double miles.
What Delta had really done (and FlyerTalkers quickly figured out) was to tie award availability to the availability of discounted fare classes. And there turned out to be a lot of those so-called "premium" flights all over the place.
As people wised up to what had happened and made the connection between the award tiers and fare-class availability, the award charts disappeared and a "4th tier" was introduced.
Today you just roll your dice and see what comes up, then see what you can do elsewhere. I usually start elsewhere.