Originally Posted by
Intl359Widget
Indeed but when I was a Platinum with Delta, I was rarely upgraded to the pointy end so loyalty isn’t necessarily all about the upgrades. There are a lot of other valuable components of a loyalty programme such as customer service, service recovery, options for award travel, and additional mileage bonuses that stretches the value proposition.
Sure, it’s a basket of benefits. Everyone values each item in the basket differently, but in the end I think upgrades are a significant benefit that comes at a cost to the airline, but it is presumably worth offering.