nk15

First, it is very unprofessional of AS to give only one month's notice for the changes, it should have been at least 3 months, i.e., starting March 1. I actually think this is what they should do even now, move the start date to March 1.

Second, does anyone know if the MVP Gold bonus on the reduced earning rate on Delta flights will equal 100% of miles flown or 100% of miles credited? So, if someone flies 5k on 50% (2.5k) earning Delta fare, will the MVP Gold bonus be 5k miles, or 2.5k miles? Someone above suggested the latter, but on another forum it was implied that it is the former, which one is it?

Seattlenerd

And you assume AS has control over DL's policies and procedures on partnership changes how, exactly? It is, after all, DL's program, and if DL wants a change to be effective as of a certain date, it's unlikely a partner has veto power (if the partnership is to survive at all).

I suspect AS got the best deal it could for its frequent fliers; it's in AS' best interests to do so. It's not exactly like DL has been playing nice over the past year when it comes to AS.

nk15

I am not sure about the specifics of who and how decisions are made, all I know is the outcome. In any case, my guess is that both DL and AS knew about this for some time, it didn't just happen last week.

beckoa

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Well there was a strong suspicion something was up on FT- but I imagine details were finally ironed out.

CDKing

It likely wasn't finalized thus could not make public knowledge until recently. Please note Delta has yet to publish the 2015 earnings for any of its partners.

edgewood49

Ah, the age of "entitlement"

nk15

It's not entitlement, it is basic professional behavior. There are many people who have booked tickets on Delta with the assumption that they will get full miles and status on AS, and had they known that this won't be the case they would have booked AA instead. So, it is not right for DL/AS to change the rules in the last moment (essentially costing people money, coz miles/status=money), without some reasonable advance notice of the changes (as it happened with Skymiles). Based on how people book airfare, such advance notice should have been at least 3 months, if not more.

In any case, with the last refuge (MileagePlan) for DL flyers destroyed, there is no reason for anyone to fly Skyteam anymore. It should be full steam ahead to AA and AAdvantage for anyone who can, IMO.

edgewood49

So what your saying is that the airlines should post notice that they will be changing their plans well ahead of time so that one can book their flights? Sound like the way the current administration is running this country.

That aside it's been a well known fact that AS/DL are spatting so one should not be overly surprised. Personally the new miles charts for AS are nice, however one should realize that if you get more points then at sometime it will cost you more as well!

flytoeat

Definitely not true. Some of us will benefit from these changes. I have 3 international biz itineraries on DL where I will get significantly more miles due to the changes.

jsguyrus

Any one who stops by this site occassionally knows there were likely to be big changes in the AS/DL "partnership" in 2015. If you booked DL flights into 2015 you had to know there was a chance of changes or even of the "partnership" ending. I have not flown DL since they did their last "enhancement".

edgewood49

you know this whole thing is a huge moving target always has been. and until the next serious slow down will continue on this course.

nk15

Does anyone have the answer to this?

CDKing

It's answered up thread. its a percent of the base miles earned. 5K flight at 50% earns 2.5K a 2.5K RDM bonus for MVPG.

PDXPremier

+1....yeah, this really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone here on FT....it would have been more of surprise had everything stayed status quo....the lost of the baggage benefit drove me away from DL and the fact that it was so much easier (and less $$) to just earn MVPG on AS metal since it was only 40K instead of 50K and I could use the companion vouchers to bring my cpm down to a reasonable level....and let's not forget DEQM this year Even though DL has quite a few flights out of PDX, so does AS and QX so I just stuck with AS/QX metal and did just fine....sticking with all AS metal this year was a good strategy

Waitlisted

PDXPremier how do you stick to all AS metal from PDX? Do you go through SEA a lot? One one hand I do like that as I get an extra 1,000 RDM and EQM miles (plus the extra miles from wherever to SEA vs to PDX). None the less AS is only able to handle about 60% of my travel, so I am thinking even with a limited schedule from PDX AA and hopefully soon US is the best plan for the rest of my travel.