The interesting part about these changes is it will begin to reward high-spend hub captives who pay premiums for nonstops. In a vacuum this makes sense but in full spectrum when looking at the industry as a whole these are not customers DL needs to entice to fly DL - you said it yourself in that you have no alternative if you want to fly nonstop. Status and benefits are not your primary driver in flying DL. Conversely these changes will negatively impact those of us at outstations who have to connect to get most places and these changes significantly narrow if not outright closes the gap between DL and other options. Having status was a large part of what continued to push us to DL when other options were otherwise about equal but without status, the other options appear more equal in value and return.