Originally Posted by
xliioper
I suspect because at the time they went revenue-based earn, everyone else was pretty much still mileage-based and it would be difficult to earn more than 75K in a trip in most other programs at the time and thus they did not see going over 75K as a significant competitive advantage. Circumference of earth = 25K miles + 25K class of service bonus + 25K elite bonus = 75K miles.
Kinda makes sense, but it would seem like a clear slap in the face of your big-ticket buyers. We're small-fry, in that this only happens 1-2 times per year (x2, since it's usually both of us flying), since we're poor and rarely buy refundable J. Perhaps this is something more keenly felt by we basement dwellers since it doesn't happen too frequently, and probably because the real Big Cheese don't think about RDMs.
Anyway, we'd sure like those 200K RDMs rather than feel like we had to give those to DL in addition to our hard-earned Benjamins to fly up front in their pretty Sky Tubes.