Originally Posted by
Gators300
I think DL is aware of the hand wringing the credit card has brought on, and with the $250k waiver made a significant move toward reestablishing the exclusivity of Diamond. Their other choice was to create another tier, which they may still do, but I think DM's will see the herd thin significantly.
Further, I'd venture to guess that a not insignificant number of people outright dropped their AMEX and went with another airline/Chase and won't even be in any status group now.
I don't understand why people really care about the MQD waiver Diamonds.
People will fall into two camps:
1) Those who fly at peak times and pay a lot for airfare and will always hit their MQD metric
2) Those who fly at off times on cheap fares that get a lot of MQMs but not MQDs.
The intersection of flights where both (1) and (2) are present is - while probably not zero - not that high. But if you are, then MQD waiver Diamonds is on a lower fare class and will lose out anyways. You're not in competition with each other. The only people getting hurt are possibly Platinums.
There are some exceptions to this (e.g., those who took a break from flying but had lots of MQM rollover and then start to travel again) but I hold the above to be rather axiomatic. I say this as someone who will be 2-3x over the MQD waiver who would theoretically "benefit" from the MQD waiver.