HongKonger

Except that it wasn't. It was slavery, just like the rest of the Confederacy.

javabytes

Please try not to get the thread locked for straying far off topic.

gooselee

I beg to differ, as someone who grew up in the South and has spent time exploring primary source Antebellum artifacts and heard many stories passed down through families with ancestors on both sides. It's quite frustrating when people who have never even been in the South and experienced our culture (not saying HongKonger is one of them, I'm just generalizing) make blanket statements that oversimplify and ignore the complexity of both major historical events and current regional culture. Rant over.

Back on topic...I find myself tending to like the discussion around a revenue-based program, or at least something that does a better job of awarding the short-segment fliers that still spend a good amount.

I've seen in various places on FT people with GM/PM status saying they've earned status on a handful of TPAC routes, but would never be able to be a segment flier.

I don't fly a ton by any measure, but I'm on track this year to hit somewhere around 25 segments that will generate less than 15k MQM. This gets me a whole lot of nothing. Sure, I could sprinkle a segment run in there, and I know DL has to place a cutoff somewhere, but it sometimes pains me to know that I fly every month, always fly DL, but end up with virtually the same airport experience as a once-in-a-lifetime.

I certainly wouldn't expect any benefits close to what GMs and up get, but even something small like being able to get preferred seats at booking or claim them for free at check-in would be nice, especially since DL's now collecting more $ off of domestic EC.

monitor

And how about the likes of us? We slog up and down the East Coast for business and very few of our 100+ segments a year, the exception being NYC-Florida (which is almost always fairly inexpensive), exceed 500 mile credit.

I am sure that everybody here realizes that one round trip on the LGA-DCA shuttle costs twice as much as the typical FTers Transcon but gets one-fifth of the miles and that sort of thing is why mileage runners are able to leverage the miles-based programs.

So, since we do fly enough to make the current type of program work very favorably for us, we are standing back, agnostic on the desirability and merits of any change but certainly without the trepidations of those who never buy anything but LUT.

AA_EXP09

It's easy to hidden city on that route....

monitor

lol.

That is fine when you want to do it once or twice a year but we all know what the consequences would be if we tried to get away with buying hidden city tickets in both directions every month.

AA_EXP09

Then, pick different throwaway segments.
That's how some 3xs stay alive.
I've done this to DFW so many times, I don't remember.
I.e.pick SAT, IAH, AUS, and pick different ones each time!

dcline414

Plus you have to fly all of the outbound segments, so I'm sure that adds more trouble than it's worth in terms of transportation and effort.

monitor

But for DCA, this has now become really only a US trick. They go lots of cheap places from DCA but DL now mostly only goes to its hubs.

But regardless, if you are not a customer who buys lots of international J (and I am not) and is really a mid-range revenue generator, you will need to wait and see what the new changes will bring and how one can leverage it as one can.

AA_EXP09

Will they differentiate between someone buying international F on KE/ other skyteam a lot, and someone who gives all their business to DL?

amanuensis

E-rewards just sent me a survey from Delta in which I was asked to rank what elite perks of Skymiles was most important to me. It looks like they are considering offering some new perks, one of which is $200 in flight credits upon reaching an unspecified elite tier. Another of which is waived membership fees on the Skymiles AMEX. And a third being complimentary wifi.

The most important question asked was something like "different loyalty programs base elite status on a variety of factors. What factor should Skymiles use?" With the three choices being "amount of miles flown", "number of flights flown" and "amount of money spent." Only one of the three could be chosen.

gooselee

Intriguing...

Oof - I feel for you. IMO, someone of that profile deserves better treatment than someone who has done 4-5 TPACs and resulted in the same status.

FWIW, you don't have to go all the way to Florida, though. ATL-LGA is 761 MQM - I have tons of them in my SM activity page. But +1 on the transcons often having sale fares cheaper than some of the short hop commuter routes on the east cost.

javabytes

That's already a choice benefit for PM and above.

AA_EXP09

You might want to mention TPACs in sLUT fares.
Although I think that they deserve the status the same because they have spent hundreds of hours on a DL plane.
(Although, getting to MPM without going over is the challenge! Especially since that I get 'UNABLE-CONNECTION MARKET UNAVAILABLE DL 1234 ABC-DEF' when pricing some TPAC T fares)

Richard1148

I got the same survey and actually you had to choose your preferred airline or whichever one you have status in or something. I'm not sure what would have happened if I chose another airline, but the survey does suggest that DL is thinking about changing their FF program, perhaps confirming the SM change rumor.