FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - "Sky Miles... will be the surviving program"
Old May 4, 2008 | 9:20 am
  #61  
pmaddock
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Originally Posted by GTITAN
With all due respect, I don't know about that. In CLT for instance, DL elites are very plentiful. DL does not have enough seats from my discussions with its GAs here in CLT to accommodate its own ranks as is. Lord only knows, what 2x eqm will do to that. I don't blame DL, AA or UA one iota for running the related promo for whatever reason each may have (including without limitation, making the April to June nos. look better, to recover from negative press, etc). What I find shocking is that NW did not respond in kind, back in 05 when UA shot across the bow with 2x DEQM, NW responded in kind. One would have thought it would have responded in kind as well here. The fact that it has not is quite disappointing (at least to me). NW elites are rightly nervous (both high rev and high mileage flyers) as best as I can tell, and the defections are beginning as others can chime in on. Going to get really interesting over the next little while I think.YMMV Safe travels to all my Red Tail Flying Compatriots!
I'm guessing NW has decided not to match because of some combination of:
1. They probably remember negative fallout from matching the 2x EQM in 2005. I actually leveraged the 2X promo to make a switch from CO and observed several issues with the way it was handled and encountered at least one testy agent along the way because of it.
2. They may be in a sort of fatalistic point of view - they are essentially being acquired by DL - why bother messing with matching promos. I can't help but notice that NW has become very non-competitive on price lately which might go into this thinking.
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