Originally Posted by
FlyingWithers
Good move. I love it when U.S. consumers have choices. For me, I am sticking with Delta because other airlines are pretty much the same or soon will be. What one airline does they others almost always follow. So, devaluation on AA, UA, and DL ensures the other follow.
So, another airline. Go for it.
Who says you have to go to another airline? I plan to ignore status and purchase every flight based on price and/or schedule. I've bought Delta tickets countless times over the years when Delta wasn't the cheapest. I might keep doing that next year, my last as a Diamond (at least until my regional upgrade certs run out), but I will not spend one extra penny for a Delta flight in 2019. I'll still fly Delta if its cheaper (ha!) or if it has a more favorable schedule worth paying extra to get.
I'll also take my $120,000+ in Amex spend and move most of it, if not all of it, to Chase. I won't need so many bonus MQMs any longer. I used to fly at a Platinum pace and top off to Diamond. Now that I'm stuck at Platinum, the bonus MQMs are worthless. I'll cancel one reserve card, downgrade the other to Platinum Skymiles Amex, and put
barely more than $25,000 on the Plat SM card. (I don't usually need the waiver for Platinum in many years, but better safe than sorry.)
This is business for us just like it is for Delta. When Delta changed the incentives, I don't think it contemplated what would happen to the newly demoted frequent flyers. It appears Delta just assumed that we would take the downgrade without any repercussions. Instead, many of us are going to price shop, and Delta will not see nearly as many purchases from us.
In short, I may not be the most profitable Diamond by spending about $10K on domestic tickets and putting over $120K on my Delta cards. But I have been profitable. Going forward, I'll be much less profitable for Delta and start adding some profit to other air lines.