Enilria

Pretty interesting read. He predicts that business travel will remain depressed and programs will move more toward ticket price and credit card spend status hurdles because of the reduced number of road warriors.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/benbald...h=2a28a0ac600b

ATOBTTR

Some parts/points are on target while other points are way off base. Hard to take an article seriously when it says you can achieve status on DL through miles flown, segments flown, or spend, when it actually takes meeting either a miles flown or segments flow plus a spend requirement or a CC waiver. A small but not insignificant detail.

That�s not to say FF programs won�t change post pandemic but the author is off base on some points he is trying to make.

ethernal

Well, while I laugh at the idea of a former ULCC CFO talking about this level, he could be talking about D360. D360 doesn't care much about butts-in-seats-miles. Fly 6 or 7 $12K TATL J fares and you'll get D360 in most cities. Even at full fare J 2X MQM bonus, that may be as few as 70K MQM and may only be 12 segments.

All that said, I think that the author isn't completely wrong. My interest in staying loyal to Delta is.. questionable at best. Even when I was Diamond because of work travel, I still sometimes found it hard to justify buying Delta tickets for leisure travel. Their basic economy upcharges continue to creep up in most markets, especially relative to purchase price of a ticket.

I realize there are other benefits to flying Delta (e.g., more flights, better customer services, and for those who care about it, complimentary on-board service), but I've been finding myself attracted to Spirit more and more lately. I pulled the trigger on their "savings club" a few months ago and have several flights booked with them. Flying out of a hub, on some routes it's just stupid how Delta and Spirit compare.

With the "savings club" (which is less than the Delta Gold card annual fee), I can get a carry-on and a first class seat for $200 r/t while Delta's Basic Economy pricing on comparable flight times is.. $260. Want to do Main Cabin so I can get a C+ seat and a chance of a First Class upgrade? Oops, it's $340. If I optimize my carry-on to just one bag for two folks, I can get two first class seats on Spirit for the price of one Main Cabin ticket on Delta.

The "branded fares" initiative at Delta may have driven a premium back in the olden days, but I'm not sure how it will persist going forward. While I'll always end up flying Delta a lot living in a Delta hub, I do see myself increasingly as a free agent. If being Diamond through work travel was barely enough to keep me flying Delta for leisure, I can't imagine what it will be like if I am just Gold or similar (so no C+ at booking, and certainly no F upgrades). At that point, it's a no brainer to fly Spirit or another airline if the schedule is comparable.

GUWonder

The contributor to the Forbes piece seems correct in his statement about DL Medallion status. There is no spend requirement (i.e., MQD requirement) applicable to DL SkyMiles accounts where the primary residential address on file for the DL SkyMiles accounts is outside of the US.

There are at least two waivers to the DL "spend requirement" (i.e., the MQD requirement) to get DL status: a waiver related to credit card use; a waiver related to foreign primary residential address on file. Neither a small nor insignificant detail given there a lot of SkyMiles members in Mexico and in Asia (and elsewhere) The membership counts in Mexico, Japan and the Philippines is so high that DL has SkyMiles bank card products there. In Japan, signing up as a new SkyMiles bank-issued card can even give DL Gold status from the start for card sign-up.

ATOBTTR

This is what the article said:
In Delta’s program, for example, you can reach certain levels of status by pure usage (the number of miles flown), the number of trips taken, or the amount of money paid. But money is the fastest way to get to the more lucrative levels of the program.
For FO, GM, PM, and DM, you cannot reach these levels on spend alone. It takes a combination of miles flown or segments plus spend (or a CC spend waiver). You cannot reach any of these levels on spend alone, except by really nuancing the details and saying if you spend enough on branded CCs, you can earn enough MQMs to reach these levels, but it doesn’t read like that’s the point he was going for, especially since he didn’t even mention CC spend/waivers (or international address waivers for that matter). Conversely, UA’s new program does allow one to reach status solely through spend, or a combination of flights and spend. There’s only one “more lucrative” level of the program and that is DL 360, and the program qualifications and benefits are not advertised by DL.

I.e. I think he over-simplified some things when he didn’t need to, but I do agree with his assessment that FF programs will change going forward based on how travel, particularly business travel, will be reshaped post-pandemic.

GUWonder

I read the article very closely before posting what I did, especially the part about elite status with DL.

With regard to those words of his:

"In Delta’s program, for example, you can reach certain levels of status by pure usage (the number of miles flown), the number of trips taken, or the amount of money paid. But money is the fastest way to get to the more lucrative levels of the program."

I find those words to be very much comprehensively accurate, given my own experiences with DL elite status acquisitions around the country and internationally. And I give him credit for his pithy and accurate reference on how DL elite status is acquired. Some DL elites status levels can be had based on the number of miles flown alone. And some DL elite status levels can be had based on the number of DL trips (i.e., DL segments) taken. And some DL status levels can be had by the amount of money paid, whether it's via bank card fees, bank card use, or otherwise. Some DL elite status can be had by spend alone, and no way getting around that fact.

The pandemic may change what goes on with the airline FFPs for a period of time, but the dynamics that have had airlines turn FFPs into more miserly programs for consumers in the main than used to be the case 20+ years ago seems to be anything but gone just because of this pandemic. If anything we may find those devaluation dynamics sped up by or in the aftermath of the pandemic. Even with the rise of the banks' own proprietary loyalty programs and cash back programs pre-pandemic, the big airline programs and even hotel programs have done anything but rewind the devaluations of the miles/points assigned to customer accounts.

Will there be a sort of changed approach to grab the reduced numbers of business travelers for a while after the pandemic? Probably, but it will probably push things more toward the increasingly transactional approach of "you (and your reward) are your fare this time" that has been going on for a while.

The Spirit guy worked for the management side of AA, CO, NW and US -- which pretty much makes him connected with each of the US3 airlines that dominate the US airline loyalty program space nowadays.

nd2010

I liked it when frequent flyer programs were based entirely on miles or segments.