UDH,

As usual, I agree with nearly everything you say. And deeply buried in all the recent postings from everyone is one from me saying that this new system is NOT the work of morons. Delta is not crazy to want to pare back the benefits given to high-mileage, low-revenue passengers (which may include me, although I'm not as low as some, I'm sure).

But I want to quibble with one point that you make. Delta keeps harping about the free CRC membership for PMs as if that's worth a lot! I have been using the CRCs as a PM for many years now, and I like them, but I don't believe that this "free" membership is so valuable that it would tempt me to strive for PM over my lifetime (maybe!) GM as a 2MM. After all, you can BUY a CRC membership for a few hundred bucks. That certainly caps the value of a "free" membership, doesn't it? And free booze is valuable only if you drink alcohol, which I generally don't. The CRCs have no food -- or nothing edible that I would call food -- in contrast to UA's RCCs, for instance, which have snacks.

I expect that Delta will end up backing down on some of these changes, particularly if other airlines do not follow. We'll just have to wait and see.

Bruce