And the SkyMiles grinch delivers more Christmas joy.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Delta will be the innovator when it comes to minimizing (or in MBA speak, normalizing) value customers receive from its loyalty program. UA and AA will follow. There will be exceptions over time, but this trend has been apparent for the better part of this decade. If you’re flying DL for any reason other than its price and product, prepare to take the first blows.

The end state will be fare-based award redemption. We’re already practically there in all but the name. Award fares are filed with fare basis codes that map to revenue booking class codes. We’ve seen advance purchase requirements, and one-ways costing more than round trips. Delta has effectively achieved fare-based redemption on its own metal without calling it that. Boiling the frog slowly.

Just like with cash BE fares, the result of this latest change will not be lower mileage award tickets for all, but rather extracting that many more miles from a subset of passengers who they can squeeze for it.