Originally Posted by
Super Mario
I'm pretty sure the strong majority of those claims are co-branded, not vanilla. Hell, on the purchase of a flight ticket alone, Delta would probably save more in transaction fees on a Reserve cardholder than they would make on a lounge visit.
There's a reason every large company and their mother has their own co-branded card. The perks are limitless and far better than external cards would give.
I don't disagree with this point entirely - but this would point to Amex doing something like limiting the number of free Amex Platinum swipes instead of eliminating SkyClub access, and keeping Delta Reserve access unlimited. Also remember that Delta probably gets a good amount of revenue from Membership Rewards to Skymiles transfers, so they want to keep the vanilla Platinum Delta fliers engaged.