Originally Posted by
bgriff
All that said, there's a good chance that the VS loophole specifically will be closed soon, since with Delta having so much control over VS, it seems likely at some point they'll be brought into the same scheme as KLM where earnings on a VS ticket are effectively the same as on a 006 ticket, regardless of marketing carrier. So I wouldn't go booking VS PE tickets for next September hoping they'll still constitute an MQD run by then...
I'd agree that the JV partners are the "low hanging fruit" here, since presumably (for the JV routes) DL does know how much each ticket costs. Since VS now uses Delta's IT, DL could plausibly have access to all ticket data, but that's still a bit different than the KL arrangement. Regardless, keep in mind that not all routes operated by a JV partner are within the JV. eg: If I book AF for CDG-TYO, there's no DL involved. So even if VS is "fixed", there's still AF, CI, VA, etc.
Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
DL could decide that only spend on DL flights (however that's defined precisely, maybe including JVs in some cases) counts toward MQD. That would be easy.
That's exactly how it worked when DL introduced MQD (earned only on DL coded or 006 ticketed flights). They then added the partner earn, presumably somehow related to the huge disincentive they had created against booking Skyteam tickets. Restoring that model would restore whatever negative behavior they apparently decided they needed to correct.