Originally Posted by
chipbennett
This sounds like a difficult math needle to thread. Push that AF too high, and it becomes a viable and attractive option to 1) buy individual sky club membership, and 2) downgrade the DL Reserve AmEx to DL Platinum Amex: a combined cost of $900, and providing a compelling, if not better, value proposition.
Exactly. For the changes about to go into effect, I'm sure they looked at raising the AF on the existing cards and determined a cap on access was the better option for them financially. No doubt they are threading a similar needle now. If a ton of people started pushing spend towards a DL Amex this year to get unlimited SC access back, they could be making a boatload off those interchange fees (getting to that $10B Amex renumeration they keep talking about). They wouldn't want to choke that golden goose by coming up with another sock drawer card (albeit targeted at a much more niche population that can stomach an even higher AF). Truth be told, understanding the math and Delta and Amex's analysis behind this would be fascinating.