Originally Posted by Deemus7

Another +1000 on your post. I am in a very similar boat, and your last paragraph (bolding mine) sums up my concerns very succinctly. My wife tolerates my 100+ nights away from home a year, which I know may pale in comparison to some on here but is still a large part of the year. Premium award tickets to far-flung destinations play a large role in this tolerance. If the ability to book these tickets is taken away (or significantly devalued), that's a game-changer for me.

Example...last year, I used 480,000 miles for two r/t J award tickets from MCO-SYD. Revenue tickets that same day were $7104.10 each. If Delta goes to a fixed-value redemption model of $0.01 per mile/point, those same two tickets would cost 1,420,820 miles, almost three times as many miles as we paid. I completely understand this is all hypothetical, and I am in the camp waiting to make a decision until changes are formally announced, but possible changes in the redemption formula as it applies to previously-earned miles is definitely concerning.

As for future travel patterns, if attainable premium international award tickets become a thing of the past, I will likely shift much of my travel to WN. I am equidistant from both MCO and FLL, so WN has many non-stops to choose from, and I can't see Delta implementing a revenue-based redemption model AND adding something as lucrative as WN's companion pass.

Originally Posted by javabytes

hence the need to place your bets on the best information or speculation you have available.

Originally Posted by jsmith50

I don't recall in the nearly a year since I've been a member of this board there having been another large scale rumor/leak/etc. quite like this one so saying that I jump into rumor threads and 'throw wood on the fire' is simply not correct. In certain cases, I have shared information with others individually by PM (which I have gained permission from my contact at DL to do before hand). His take on it is this...if I post direct statements in the public forum, it's potentially traceable back to him. If I share via PM and someone else reposts, there's a paper trail that points to me, not him, and it's the telephone game where he has plausible deniability. And, in those situations, I have answered direct question posed to me by interested FTers, I have not volunteered any information beyond that point.

Again, from the very beginning my contribution to this discussion has been that the program direction was looking like an addition to the current means of medallion qualification to be based on revenue rather than wholesale changes to the SM program. I've never said I thought the sky was falling as some have suggested. I've been consistent with this all along. Yes, I have been privy to some other information regarding redemption of miles in the newly proposed system that has suggested that the new model could be detrimental to many on this board (myself included) but especially to those that don't carry a balance of hundreds of thousands or millions of SMs. This is why I am pursuing a status match. I have enough rollover miles that assuming that's not eliminated (and I'm told it's not been part of the discussion), I would re-qualify DM for the next 2-3 years. I don't need additional miles for 2013 on DL, so better to have a backup plan in place in the event the changes work out the way I have heard so far and redemption value goes nuts.

I'm not a band-wagon kinda guy. I don't jump on rumors until I have some opportunity to validate them myself or hear for myself any announced program changes. Yes, I've been upset and/or frustrated in some other threads regarding SM changes, but if you look back, my comments there have been AFTER announcements were made and never rumor-mongering that changes were coming and I have NEVER posted on this board until now that I would pursue a status match and gone through with it. This is not me jumping on a groundless rumor, it's a well thought out response to information I'm hearing from the inside. I've talked with several others who have posted information on this thread from sources at DL by PM and for the most part, all of our information has lined up, which is very likely why you're hearing many of us pursuing status matches at this point.

Though, I will say that I have been pleased with two developments since the beginning of this thread. First, that my contact has been very straight forward about the fact that DL has had meetings specifically related to customer feedback in these types of forums and directly with their CSRs and this has, at least, delayed the announcement if not changed the specifics of the rollout. Second, that when I cancelled several full fare tix, I got a call from someone with the elite services team asking why the sudden change in my cancellation behavior and I was able to vent directly to them about my concern here and had a real person beyond my contact who said "DL hears you, what can we do to earn your business back?"

In the end, I hope that DL hears this message loud and clear and any announcement represents minimal change. Unfortunately, for those of us that have staked some degree of reputation on sharing information from inside sources, the response will be "the changes you said were coming didn't happen." It won't be "maybe the fact that you all shared information and DL saw the reaction from the customer base and changed their minds based upon the angry mob." Which, I assure you, will limit many of us from wanting to share information in the future!

Originally Posted by jsmith50

I don't recall in the nearly a year since I've been a member of this board there having been another large scale rumor/leak/etc. quite like this one so saying that I jump into rumor threads and 'throw wood on the fire' is simply not correct. In certain cases, I have shared information with others individually by PM (which I have gained permission from my contact at DL to do before hand). His take on it is this...if I post direct statements in the public forum, it's potentially traceable back to him. If I share via PM and someone else reposts, there's a paper trail that points to me, not him, and it's the telephone game where he has plausible deniability. And, in those situations, I have answered direct question posed to me by interested FTers, I have not volunteered any information beyond that point.

Again, from the very beginning my contribution to this discussion has been that the program direction was looking like an addition to the current means of medallion qualification to be based on revenue rather than wholesale changes to the SM program. I've never said I thought the sky was falling as some have suggested. I've been consistent with this all along. Yes, I have been privy to some other information regarding redemption of miles in the newly proposed system that has suggested that the new model could be detrimental to many on this board (myself included) but especially to those that don't carry a balance of hundreds of thousands or millions of SMs. This is why I am pursuing a status match. I have enough rollover miles that assuming that's not eliminated (and I'm told it's not been part of the discussion), I would re-qualify DM for the next 2-3 years. I don't need additional miles for 2013 on DL, so better to have a backup plan in place in the event the changes work out the way I have heard so far and redemption value goes nuts.

I'm not a band-wagon kinda guy. I don't jump on rumors until I have some opportunity to validate them myself or hear for myself any announced program changes. Yes, I've been upset and/or frustrated in some other threads regarding SM changes, but if you look back, my comments there have been AFTER announcements were made and never rumor-mongering that changes were coming and I have NEVER posted on this board until now that I would pursue a status match and gone through with it. This is not me jumping on a groundless rumor, it's a well thought out response to information I'm hearing from the inside. I've talked with several others who have posted information on this thread from sources at DL by PM and for the most part, all of our information has lined up, which is very likely why you're hearing many of us pursuing status matches at this point.

Though, I will say that I have been pleased with two developments since the beginning of this thread. First, that my contact has been very straight forward about the fact that DL has had meetings specifically related to customer feedback in these types of forums and directly with their CSRs and this has, at least, delayed the announcement if not changed the specifics of the rollout. Second, that when I cancelled several full fare tix, I got a call from someone with the elite services team asking why the sudden change in my cancellation behavior and I was able to vent directly to them about my concern here and had a real person beyond my contact who said "DL hears you, what can we do to earn your business back?"

In the end, I hope that DL hears this message loud and clear and any announcement represents minimal change. Unfortunately, for those of us that have staked some degree of reputation on sharing information from inside sources, the response will be "the changes you said were coming didn't happen." It won't be "maybe the fact that you all shared information and DL saw the reaction from the customer base and changed their minds based upon the angry mob." Which, I assure you, will limit many of us from wanting to share information in the future!

Originally Posted by glbetrotter

I have followed this thread pretty carefully and just wanted to thank you, jsmith50, for helpful, thoughtful, and balanced posts (and not only in this thread). Much appreciated and important for most of us. I hope that comments from some of your so-called critics (which defy any logic) would not discourage you from posting in the future. Thanks again!

Originally Posted by GRALISTAIR

That so makes total sense. At the moment DM is 125,000 MQM or 140 MQS - so dont change these but add or --- xyz Medallion Qualification Spend - enhance and add to the program - dont take away.

Originally Posted by Seat1A

i'm guessing more along the lines of "and", not "or"..... would be interesting to see how that would interact with rollover, tho.



+1

Originally Posted by glbetrotter

I have followed this thread pretty carefully and just wanted to thank you, jsmith50, for helpful, thoughtful, and balanced posts (and not only in this thread). Much appreciated and important for most of us. I hope that comments from some of your so-called critics (which defy any logic) would not discourage you from posting in the future. Thanks again!

Originally Posted by jsmith50

I don't recall in the nearly a year since I've been a member of this board there having been another large scale rumor/leak/etc. quite like this one so saying that I jump into rumor threads and 'throw wood on the fire' is simply not correct. In certain cases, I have shared information with others individually by PM (which I have gained permission from my contact at DL to do before hand). His take on it is this...if I post direct statements in the public forum, it's potentially traceable back to him. If I share via PM and someone else reposts, there's a paper trail that points to me, not him, and it's the telephone game where he has plausible deniability. And, in those situations, I have answered direct question posed to me by interested FTers, I have not volunteered any information beyond that point.

Again, from the very beginning my contribution to this discussion has been that the program direction was looking like an addition to the current means of medallion qualification to be based on revenue rather than wholesale changes to the SM program. I've never said I thought the sky was falling as some have suggested. I've been consistent with this all along. Yes, I have been privy to some other information regarding redemption of miles in the newly proposed system that has suggested that the new model could be detrimental to many on this board (myself included) but especially to those that don't carry a balance of hundreds of thousands or millions of SMs. This is why I am pursuing a status match. I have enough rollover miles that assuming that's not eliminated (and I'm told it's not been part of the discussion), I would re-qualify DM for the next 2-3 years. I don't need additional miles for 2013 on DL, so better to have a backup plan in place in the event the changes work out the way I have heard so far and redemption value goes nuts.

I'm not a band-wagon kinda guy. I don't jump on rumors until I have some opportunity to validate them myself or hear for myself any announced program changes. Yes, I've been upset and/or frustrated in some other threads regarding SM changes, but if you look back, my comments there have been AFTER announcements were made and never rumor-mongering that changes were coming and I have NEVER posted on this board until now that I would pursue a status match and gone through with it. This is not me jumping on a groundless rumor, it's a well thought out response to information I'm hearing from the inside. I've talked with several others who have posted information on this thread from sources at DL by PM and for the most part, all of our information has lined up, which is very likely why you're hearing many of us pursuing status matches at this point.

Though, I will say that I have been pleased with two developments since the beginning of this thread. First, that my contact has been very straight forward about the fact that DL has had meetings specifically related to customer feedback in these types of forums and directly with their CSRs and this has, at least, delayed the announcement if not changed the specifics of the rollout. Second, that when I cancelled several full fare tix, I got a call from someone with the elite services team asking why the sudden change in my cancellation behavior and I was able to vent directly to them about my concern here and had a real person beyond my contact who said "DL hears you, what can we do to earn your business back?"

In the end, I hope that DL hears this message loud and clear and any announcement represents minimal change. Unfortunately, for those of us that have staked some degree of reputation on sharing information from inside sources, the response will be "the changes you said were coming didn't happen." It won't be "maybe the fact that you all shared information and DL saw the reaction from the customer base and changed their minds based upon the angry mob." Which, I assure you, will limit many of us from wanting to share information in the future!

Originally Posted by javabytes

+1 to this. There's always the possibility that proposed changes don't actually happen.

Originally Posted by sbjnyc

Thanks for the post. First thing I should mention is that your guy has been wrong before so I can only hope he is wrong again.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/17613308-post10.html

Anyway, what I seem to gather from you is that you're expecting a devalueing of redemption miles rather (or moreso) than qualification miles. I'm not sure if that's good or bad for me since this will be my first year above FO (will make PM) but I only have about 200k SMs and most of my miles are elsewhere.

My curiousity is picqued though and I am trying to think of what could be motivating DL to devalue SMs and risk POing not just their customers but their partners (Amex). Since most benefits of status have no real cost, I can see why they wouldn't be too concerned about it but they may want to reign in the number of top elites to avoid too many giveaways (e.g. free EC, SC etc.). No promos might be sufficient to do the trick (then again the FO promo last year got me to fly on DL). The real problem facing DL is that current medallion program has relatively little to offer true HVCs. A separate track based on spend would make sense. I wouldn't be surprised if they widended the bands between the medallion levels as well. It really makes no sense for Delta to base status purely on spend.

On the other hand, what motivates senior management at a public company is, as always, the stock price. That's more or less how they are conmpensated. To earn those big bonuses and cash in on their stock options, DL needs to generate income and have it grow each year. Part of that could come from reducing the $4.5 billion SM liability - seems to be an easy target. While Delta made money overall last year, they lost money flying passengers around because of loads ~82%. So to that end they cut capacity. By cutting capacity, they also reduced the ability to redeem awards using the calendar. A few years ago, AA's program manager said that the marginal cost of flying award passengers was about $10 IIRC since they were using excess capacity. With capacity cuts, award redemptions have to get tougher or that marginal cost will increase.

Most people seem to be using the PWM feature. Delta likes that. If they sell a skymile for 1.5 cpm and it is redemmed at 1 cpm, a $300 fare looks like a $450 fare on the income statement ^. But if that same skymile is redeemed for for 4.5 cpm on the award calendar, then a $6,000 fare looks like a $2,000 fare . It's one thing if those seats are otherwise flying empty but Delta is highly motivated to not allow that redemption to displace a revenue passenger. Is the award calendar truly broken or in fact working as intended? Regardless, I think a devaluation beyond this is highly unlikely since they have billions of dollars worth of forward agreements to sell these miles and Delta/Amex still need people to sign up for and use their credit cards. Then again, people are stupid.

Originally Posted by sbjnyc

Thanks for the post. First thing I should mention is that your guy has been wrong before so I can only hope he is wrong again.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/17613308-post10.html