Since I'm unfamiliar with things, I'm just curious as to why Delta is seeming to "gut" the Skymiles redemptions.
Upgrade with miles is about $0.01/point (yes?)
Mileage Upgrade awards are gone apparently (although this seemed to be a YMMV as to whether it was better/worse than the $0.01/point), yes?
It seems Skymiles aren't nearly as easy to get/churn (at least via CC bonuses) as compared to UA/AA due to Amex one-in-a-lifetime limit. So does Delta just have a huge "outstanding" number of Skymiles that people have not redeemed and they're just trying to get them off the books? Although I'd think with lowering the redemption rates wouldn't cause people to redeem them, unless perhaps they're going to devalue further?
I know you could use Amex MR (and possibly MSR) to get tons of MR points, but that wouldn't seem prudent to transfer to Skymiles.
Although I don't really want to redeem my Skymiles for domestic coach/economy tickets (which apparently is where the "good deals" are) as I can do that easily enough with a churnable SW Chase card, I'd rather redeem for Business/First on international (or Hawaii) fares, which seems to require a huge amount of points (compared to AA/UA).