Originally Posted by xliioper

Nobody here is claiming that. Obviously, no airline makes all the right decisions. There is almost certainly money being left on the table here, but quite possibly not the huge sums being imagined by FTers. The alternative was potentially alienating a bunch of travellers with their original program changes and losing them permanently. Perhaps DL didn't think it through entirely, but it's also possible they realized they would be some shorter term pain in exchange for longer term gain with their walkback in October. I just exchanged 240K MQMs for MQDs and will be putting my Reserve card in the sock drawer except for DL purchases for the rest of the year. I don't have an investment in DL (nor do I view my relationship with DL as personal -- you are not actually "cheating" when you fly other carriers), so really don't care if the DL net here is overall negative or positive.