bubbashow

TL2000

TL2000 - the best post I have read on Flyertalk. You are SPOT-ON.

These sub 5000 posers complain about service in first class, etc. and how it has declined. It has declined because it is upgrade class for cheapskate elites. Sure it is all done "by their rules", but it is also people greedily .......izing the rules to accomplish what they want. Revenue base this program, Delta! Solve your problems and return to what you were.

mfullmer

He specifically says "Frequent Flyer PROGRAMS". The program for Delta is Medallion level. You can spend $1M a year on your Amex or any other kind of miles accumulation method and it's not going to go towards MQMs.

Pharaoh

Yeah ... until they run out of petty cash...

MikeMpls

It's also unlikely that DL & US Bank would kiss & make up after DL's aborted lawsuit over FlexPerks, esp. given that US Bank continues to market FlexPerks quite agressively.

pmaddock

Not sure how this impacts the basis of Skymiles but I'll say that NEITHER US Bank nor Suntrust is a good choice. Why does the #1 airline have to choose a bank that doesn't even reach the 5 most populous states in the US. Its like asking a toy poodle to pull a chariot. If they are going to have a debit card bankign partner it should be a truly national bank like BofA or Wells Fargo.

pbarnette

Even BofA doesn't serve every hub market. Wells Fargo does better, but even they don't cover DTW or CVG, and they also don't cover BOS, which is a decent-sized market.

Let's face it... NO bank has enough retail presence to be called national, much less global. Wells Fargo would probably be the top choice, but every contender has holes in their network.

pmaddock

Actually there are now 3 banks with presence in all 50 states - Chase, Citi, and BofA. Just google "bank in all 50 states'. I was wrong to offer Wells in my earlier post. Also, I suspect that this status is only recently achieved due to the various buyouts of the last finiancial crisis.

However, you made me look further - you can't get a single bank with branches close to all 6 hubs (dang MEM - Chase had the rest). There are definitely better options than SunTrust though.

I guess this is why NWA didn't have an exclusive on Debit cards - they had deals with both US Bank and Comerica.

amanuensis

FWIW, Wells Fargo is one of the biggest banking chains in SLC, but BofA has no bricks-and-mortar presence here. (BofA tried a couple of times, but never hard enough, and thus both times ending up withdrawing from the market.) Chase is a major chain here and US Bank is also but neither to the extent of Wells Fargo. Obviously, SunTrust has no presence here at all.

amanuensis

Citi might have loan offices here in SLC, but no consumer banking branches. Same as with BofA. No consumer banking branches. When I googled "bank in all 50 states" all I got were spam links on the first page of results.

itsaboutthejourney

I agree that the top tier should be at least partially based on spend

You got that right. A lot of the things we complain about can be traced to Hauenstein. While he may be brilliant at counting beans, he knows nothing about marketing, loyalty or consumer behavior.

I agree a hybrid approach is the way to go. DL can't just fire the sLUT crowd and expect to keep it's loads.

One upside is that a disaster of such a decision might be the end of Hauenstein and his anti-consumer actions at Dulta.

(I understand that he played a role in things like fake cheese and taking shortcuts on the IT systems.)

pmaddock

Odd - when I googled that the first result was:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc..._n5hGsBGw8wa3A

I did go ahead and google map each of the 6 hubs. Only Chase had something within 10 miles of each save MEM. Chase is in TN but not near MEM. Not that DL would deal with Chase although Chase doesn't seem to mind having multiple competing partners (e.g. IHG and Marriott). Chances are DL had to get sign-off from Amex on a 'non threatening' bank at the credit card level.

Back to topic - so what's the feeling - is there really any word that DL might re-establish some form of EP/White enveolope based on spend? Clearly some here would prefer a program revamp but I just don't see that in the cards because:

1. Amex is issuing MQM in signficant quantity and Amex has DL by the financial shorthairs. Any attempt to re-negotiate would probably open DL to an unpleasant discussion about how much Amex should be paying for a Skymile.
2. The current program is basically 'new' and has all the overhead created by Rollover. Changing out the foundation would be very messy.
3. Even if DL did want to change things they clearly have a deficit of people that can execute major implementations. Apparently the merger has burnt them out. The Award engine is a mess, they are slipping on various start dates, and so on. I don't think they can do anything right now save some sort of low volume program driven by special manual care processes. An EP could be run that way though.

psyflyer

This would be awesome. Look forward to it. ^

GUWonder

There might be some twisted entertainment value in seeing DL management doing this "SkyMiles based on dollars spent, rather than miles flown by passengers" approach.

Get your popcorn ready, DL management wrecks even that which is well enough left alone.

Sez_Who

But we already have SM based on $$. I interpreted his comment to be directed at MQMs, not SMs. Under his idea, it seems all elite levels would be based on $$, not miles flown.

If DL wants to add yet another level based on $$, so be it. Maybe they would be DM+ or something like that. I think his floating an idea that $$ would apply to all elite levels is what's creating the firestorm. Of course, we don't know what those levels would look like so everything here is just speculation. But hey, that's part of the fun.

amanuensis

When I did the search, I used quotation marks around the phrase; retrying the phrase now without the quotes gave me your results.

Anyhow, the answer to the question is simply wrong; neither Citi nor BofA has what I consider to be "banks" in Salt Lake City. The significance of this of course derives from the fact that SLC is a Delta hub.

I strongly suspect that there are a lot of other states where BofA and/or Citi do not have "banks". And the asker of the e-how question was asking about "banks" not about ATM networks, etc. From the Citi and BofA websites, I see that there are ATMs in Salt Lake City that their customers can use without fees, but those ATMs are owned by third parties.