ConciergeBrandon

For the past weeks, I have spent hours that I will never get back looking for US to Europe award J tickets only to find that all days in April, most gateway cities non-stop to Europe (CDG, LHR, AMS, ZRH, DUS, ....etc.) on DELTA is high level for 350K. NO middle no low. Not one seat.

Then thanks to FT, I called Singapore. The rest is history.

nsx

d) Miles remain miles. You have a limited time window (e.g. two years) in which to earn new points and convert them backwards into enough miles to redeem an award. After that window ends your miles vanish.

This convoluted scheme is exactly what Southwest did. It maximizes breakage (expiration of miles unused) and minimizes the carry-over liability of the new program without being grossly unfair. It also provides the benefit of allowing some redemption under the old rules to continue for a limited time.

HongKonger

This is an assumption based on concepts of basic fairness... very dangerous.

Either way, so much for "miles never expire."

davetravels

I'm SURE, this would be a complete disaster for MANY of us!!

Just thinking about it . . . If miles would have - let's say - a 2 year expiration date, I'm sure many of us who are sitting on a ton of miles will choose to (attempt) to use our miles as much as possible, vs paying cash for tickets, thereby knocking down our future Medallion status.

Deemus7

But SW credits on the old system already had a year until they expired anyway, right? And weren't the old awards also only valid for a year after being issued too? I had something like 3 and a half old awards when 3/1/11 hit, and I remember finding it very easy to use the three full ones and convert enough new points into old credits to get a fourth.

I see DL's no mileage expiration "enhancement" at serious odds with these rumblings...

javabytes

I think he was referring to MQMs, not RDMs.

davetravels

I don't think so. If you didn't use all of your SW/WN credits within the normal time frame, they all expired.

I'm trying to remember - Was it possible to convert old credits to new points? I don't think so.

Deemus7

No, you had to convert new points to old credits to top off your account to hit 16 credits and earn one final old r/t. I'm pretty sure they converted at a rate of 1200 = 1 credit, which is basically an equivalent swap (based on old and new partner earning rates).

LedgeT

War "SkyVision" ... Diamond Executive

RBMA - 3/31/2013

davetravels

That's what I thought, so once you hit the one year mark for the old credits, if you didn't have enough for a complete award, they were just <POOF!!!>

nsx

You're right. That's a huge difference. Southwest never had an overhang of award liability because all credits expired in 2 years (rolling expiration) if you didn't reach 16 unexpired at any time, because awards were automatically issued, and because the issued awards only had one year of life (revivable for another year for $50).

Southwest's scheme would not be fair for DL because there's no way to redeem all those miles over a limited time period. So the time period would have to be essentially unlimited.

Unless DL wants to maintain the software to support capacity-controlled award redemption forever, the only remaining option is to convert the old miles to new points at some date in the future. DL might also add the option to reverse transfer points into miles to top off a miles award for redemption under the old rules during the transition period only.

vxmike

That would be a large assumption for someone who holds a sizable balance of Skymiles to make. Delta has shown no such recent history of fair play regarding program changes.

I have 750K and conservatively value them at $.015 on my spreadsheet of such things. I'm sure there are lots of people here with more miles and who hold them at a higher value, so we're talking real money.

I can't imagine anyone with a large SM balance not actively trying to reduce it as much as possible as soon as possible.

sfozrhfco

Given that every year of late the miles are worth less, it does make sense to just use them as they are accumulated to maximize their value. Very few people have a clear idea as to what the future will hold but everybody knows the current rules. Spend your miles now and don't worry about them being worthless in the future--as you won't have any left to worry about.

pbarnette

EXACTLY! A huge part of why I'm not particularly upset is that I never thought miles to be anything other than a depreciating currency.

Deemus7

To me, this is my biggest worry with these rumored changes. I am currently sitting on almost 400k, which I know pales in comparison to many, but still is a significant chunk when I can only manage one international vacation a year (if that) because of limited time off of work. Mrs. Deemus and I hit the 5 year mark next May and were planning on burning these miles on one last "hurrah" of a trip before kids. I was hoping to FINALLY apply what I've learned on FT for open-jaw, stopovers, partner travel, etc. to visit some fantastic places, maybe MRU, SEZ, and/or JNB.

Now, with these rumors, I am sweating bullets. DL does have an unfortunate track record, so what am I supposed to do? Part of me wants them to just come on and tell us already, whereas the other part is holding out hope that changes won't come until at least July so I can lock in some semblance of flights for our dream trip above.