Nonsense. Free checked bags, pre-boarding, priority check-in, chance for an upgrade (yes it happens), preferred seats, 25% medallion mileage bonus. Sounds like silver medallion (I refuse to use that ridiculous "FO" abbreviation) is definitely worth something.

The idea that silver is worthless is ridiculous.

Take a trip with someone without status and you'll get learnt real quick. Did this last week - hell, the rest of us were as frustrated as he was since we had to wait for him to get from the back of the bus.

I agree - my partner just flew as an FO (PM gifted) on his first DL business trip (to YYZ through DTW) in Y, got upgraded to F on both outbound legs and (so far) one return leg. Yes, yes, depends on from where to where, but even when I was an FO, I had a 50% upgrade rate - much better than a general member!

I really enjoyed being a FO before I became a GM. I had the chance of picking up good seats, zone 2 boarding, free checked bag, and got a few UGs on certain routes. Even a few companion UGs for my son when I took him on several trips. I didn't realize that there is a better level of service until I became FO, and started to read travel blogs (including this forum).

FO doesnt do much anymore. God, in the old days on NW, Silver was a decent perk.

My only complaint/wish for 2011 is to 1) increase the value of Silver (at least give me priority in lines/security) and finally and I know this has been going on since time immemorial, but I flew 40 segements on DL in 2010. Almost all non stop. However, I cover the east coast from Detroit, so I only reached about 28,000 miles. My West coast guy, flew 35 segments on CO, mostly connectors from Cleveland, and got to gold back in July! Now, at the end of the year we reviewed our travel expenses, I spent more in Flights than he did.

So we flew the same amount, I paid more, yet I barely got to silver, and he got to gold and almost platinum, no problem.

I remember when they switched to segments that was a huge help, but there is still a disparity from east coast -west coast travel.

I don't see any changed the SkyMiles program lately. Probably you will find out soon enough.

Rumor that GMs will be Sky Team Elite Plus in 2011. Can anyone confirm this? Would love ST lounge access on intra-europe flights next year.

Confirmed - announced at the DO

will the new GM cards say ELITE PLUS

I agree, but this jsut tells you how bad service is all the way around. Even people that say airline x is better, are fooling themselves service will continue to decline unless ticket prices go way up.

I will say this for FO/Silver Medallion, whatever your preference. It is definitely an UPGRADE from being a part of the non-elite masses. 2010 was my first year as FO/Elite and i took advantage of it as best I could - premium seat selection (Exit Row), earlier boarding, occasional upgrades for myself and non-elite flying companions(yes, yes, they do happen). Since it was my first exposure to elite status, maybe I am just in that honeymoon phase and it will wear off like it sounds like it has for the rest of you that have been a part of this for awhile. They have to tier things, they have to provide benefits that motivate people to try and achieve the next level...this is not a socialist republic where in theory we all get treated the same...sorry. I qualified for Gold in 2011 (barely, but with the help of this forum to get a last minute cheap flight to qualify) and I am excited to see what my experience will be like...but I accept the fact that a Platinum member+ will have better benefits than me...they earned it and I am not going to complain about that.

I only have two beefs with DL. First is the inability to redeem low-tier award tickets. My wife and I traveled to Hawaii for 8 straight years on low-tier award tickets/cash and miles programs and since the merger, have been shut out...and my wife looks every day, multiple times trying to find flights. We used to have WAY better luck in the past. Low-level award tickets to Hawaii on DL are now like unicorns...they look great on paper and little kids like myself love them, but we will never see one. The last beef is that you can no longer get uipgrades to Hawaii on award tickets. Someone burst my bubble on that a month back or so after I was excited about obtaining Gold Status.

Cheers

Even the ability to choose preferred seating is a great benefit, especially for those that do not get upgraded all the time. As for the upgrade on Hawaii award tickets, complimentary upgrades to Hawaii aren't even offered on revenue tickets.

Wonder if you could use an Alaska Airlines flight to get there. (Tho I wouldn't be overly excited to fly a 737 to Hawaii...)

I checked a few times at the end of last month as I was contemplating a Hawaii trip this spring (April / May), and found a few days with low award - but I was logged in as Diamond. I think this may be one of those areas where being a DM helps ( If I remember correctly I had leave on a Tue and return on a Wed to get the low award level, and it was a few connections each way, but it was there).

Still no announcement, and only 1 day 'til 2011 hits. Maybe no changes will be made?

Coming in 2011
Focus Our Action Plan
Mileage upgrade Award We will add the ability to redeem mileage upgrade Awards online.
Miles and money Award We will re-introduce the former PerkChoice^ program, which allowed members to combine miles and money when buying a ticket. This program feature will supplement our existing Pay with Miles program for current Delta SkyMiles Gold, Platinum and Reserve SkyMiles Cardmembers from American Express.

https://www.delta.com/skymiles/about...ates/index.jsp

With all due respect, that's a touchy-feely warm fuzzy, not a delineation of the 2011 program. Bullet points with specific changes (improvements? enhancements? de-enhancements?) should be made available, and hopefully soon.

As one example, many have said in multiple threads, the radio-silence on the rollover rules is perplexing and frustrating.

Me-thinks we should start an hourly (or minute) countdown for them.

You know, just sorta helping them out.

I'll Start - T Minus 37 hours and 5 minutes, or 2,225 minutes remaining until next year (Eastern Time Zone), which I will assume as Hotlanta is in the Eastern Time Zone is the "correct" zone to use.

Feel free to keep posting the time remaining. We can have some fun with this.

they don't always thank them on the announcements. :D

Here we are almost 1 month into the new year, and still no word from DL on the 2011 program. I've booked almost all my travel for Q1. I suspect lots of others have too. It certainly would be nice to know what changes are coming before we get much deeper into the travel year. (Of course, I am sure DL probably doesn't think that way).

Maybe nothing is changing?

If that were the case, I would think they would have sent out one of their promotional emails touting that fact. But, I would love to be wrong in my suspicion that there are 'enhancements' :rolleyes: headed our way.

The incompetence of Delta is amazing.

They can't get their loyalty program launched right.

Their IT systems continue to be substandard.

The website still touts "What's coming in Fall 2010" -- things on that list didn't get done in Fall 2010... and the "Coming in 2011" stuff has no timeline updates.

http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_...ates/index.jsp

Looks like they haven't done anything related to the program since September...

I mean, is anybody AWAKE over at Delta?

Well they did take 2010 off the benefit page recently.

http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_...ance/index.jsp

Yeah, I noticed that too. Wow, these guys are really on top of it!

Any sign of Skyteam Elite+ status for GMs?

Saw this on the Delta website this morning:

SkyTeam® Elite Plus Status for Gold Medallions Effective March 1, 2011, Gold Medallions will receive SkyTeam Elite Plus status when flying internationally on our SkyTeam partner airlines.

Benefits include:

Complimentary access to more than 200 SkyTeam partner lounges worldwide – including Delta Sky Club
A guaranteed Economy Class reservation on any SkyTeam long-haul flight when purchasing a full-fare Economy Class ticket.
Priority Baggage Handling

Get Rid of FO
 

Yes. Yes. Yes.

With DM, FO is meaningless. The poor FO newbies think they are getting someting and they are no. Just have GM, PM, and DM.

Looks like GMs are Elite Plus now and no more mileage expiration:

http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_...ates/index.jsp

Why not, since Delta has so devalued SkyPeso? It makes perfect sense, we'll then be back to 3 elite tiers. Why not change the name back why we are at it. Gold will be the new Silver, Platinum the new Gold, and Diamond the new Platinum - lol :D

While I agree FO can probably go away, I disagree with the rest. I don't think any FO thinks they're getting much of anything, but being able to pick exit rows is a good deal. And I don't really count on much as a GM other than the sweet SDC.

I think keep FO as a tier, but maybe don't make upgrades a published benefit, since they happen so rarely. As an FO, free (heavy) bags and the ability to select preferred seats are really useful. Of course, I'll be GM by sometime in April and PM by year's end, so I'll soon be looking down on the lowly FOs. (Thanks to 30K MQM from credit card programs and a hefty rollover from 2010.)

I disagree! While FO is so far below the other tiers, it is also so far ABOVE general member...exit row selection, medallion line which is HUGE, 25% bonus miles, and upgrades..yes they do happen especially in maekets that are not medallion heavy.

Ah, yes, my friends at the FO line. I think some FTers have been elites so long that they forget what hell it is to call the general member line, especially in IROPs. I haven't needed to do anything too complex (routing around ATL in January and switching from LGW to LHR in the process is the most complicated), but I really enjoy getting a human being pretty quickly (I've alsways gotten someone within two minutes) and getting my problem taken care of.

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

+1. I totally agree. My wiife is an FO, and gets upgraded out of TPA about half the time. Not bad for the limited amount of travel she does.

No more "My SkyPesos are expiring, what should I do?" threads now. I guess we'll just have to be satisfied with "Why does it cost 500K to go to SYD in J?" and "Why didn't my upgrade clear in advance on SFO-JFK?" threads to keep us occupied.

Stop making me laugh!

Well, here we are, almost at the end of the second quarter... and some of the things that were promised via the same link in first quarter aren't even done. Just thought I'd point that out. Improvements from DL.com are still missing. Glad to see Delta really on top of things here.

This sounds like SW - RR 2.0!