reef58

I think you are underestimating the ability of beancounters to do their jobs. They drill down the numbers pretty well. I am not one by the way.

gooselee

I'm well aware of all of this, my point was that whatever DL does or can use to measure customer profitability or customer score is not something they would make visible to customers themselves. Thus, if they wanted to change visible pieces the FF program, they'd likely move to something that people can already see for themselves. Since we're talking about theoretical future changes to an added-value program that can change at any time without notice or reason, though, I suppose neither of our points really matters much.

BTW, NWA also gave me SE status a long time ago when I flew ATL-MSP-NRT-SIN and back twice a year, and some of those were on 75AD fares. I'm not sure how this relates to the matter at hand. If you're showing that NWA had a way of tracking your spend/quasi-profit and used that information to award SE early, then great. That seems to be an indication that they perhaps had an unpublished revenue/profit/score-based qualification criteria. Maybe that answers the question that DL can do something along those lines, but I don't think that was ever in question. The question is whether they should or will do something like that.

And not to be cheeky, but what exactly are you advocating for or defending here? Aside from making a point to counter every statement I make across these two threads, even those where I'm actually agreeing with you, I'm not sure I've yet seen exactly what outcome YOU would like to see.

I'm all for healthy debate, but what is the end point you're trying to get to?

yohanson

I think I made my point(s) awhile back.
1. Delta will do whatever they do and if it's unpalatable to a lot of FFs, they'll change it back or at least modify it.
2. If Delta does change their FF program, it may not necessarily benefit them they way they think it will.
3. I find the program just fine right now although I think they should allow rollover of segments.
4. High fare segment flyers get screwed and if you're one of them and you want a higher status, take advantage of the cheap international fares that pop up and go see the world.
5. The few people on here that want to change the FF program think they are getting screwed for whatever reason. I'd say half of them are high mileage DMs who are a bit DYKWIA and probably should be flying private jets and the other half are below DM who ought to fly more if they aren't happy with their current status.

mbwmbw

+1. DYKWIA?

StayingHomeIsBetter

A 16-year-old posting form your parents' basement?

gooselee

I'd say that most of us take 1 & 2 as a given. The rest of your points can be summarized as add segment rollover, do MRs, and fly private.

I would love segment rollover - that's clear. Of course flying private is the ultimate solution to everything. You're a DM - can/should you be flying private? I think you'll find at least a few DMs here who aren't fully satisfied with the current system, are deserving of a little more than what it currently offers, but are not really at the point of being able to fly private.

That leaves us with MRs, which is where I think we really differ. I really do appreciate the value of an MR under the current system. Cheap fares are all over the place, and yes, it provides the ability to rack up MQMs for cheap and hit the next status level. Here are my counterarguments from a segment flyer perspective:
1. Segment runs tend to be more expensive, more tiresome, and more time consuming.
2. We can do MRs, but so many of those MQMs must be applied just to get us up to the MQM threshold of the elite level we've already reached. If I hit GM on 60 segments and 35k MQM of business travel, that means I have 40 MQM of MRing to do on personal time and dime before getting PM, whereas the GM who is there on 50k MQM of business travel only has 25k MQM to go.
3. There are so many other factors at play when telling people to just "fly more". It would be wonderful if I could pack up my family and take them on vacation to South Africa for a couple weeks, and rack up some MQMs and MQSs in the process. Unfortunately, I cannot, for reasons that nobody on FT needs to know, and I assume some others have the same restriction for their own reasons.
4. What I take issue with is that fact that I must make that MR to achieve a status that others, who arguably have the same or less financial value to DL (ultimately miniscule, I know), will have already gotten by virtue of a more favorable travel pattern. Of course we can choose to travel more if we want higher status. But should we perhaps just already have the higher status if we've displayed a similar level of loyalty to the airline, just by a different measure?

The whole point is that under the current system, people with the comparable spend/revenue/profit can be found under vastly different elite levels, specifically because the elite qualification measures don't align to those measures. Whether you're okay with that depends on whether the current system is favorable to you or not.

I would like to see a change. You would not (aside from segment rollover). That makes sense based on what I know about myself, and what you've posted about your travel. The challenge for DL is to find a way that makes both of us feel like we're getting a fair shake while simultaneously driving future purchases and increasing profits. And I suspect that their priorities are far, far less concerned with how you or I feel about any of it.

mbwmbw

Yes. How'd you know?

avidflyer

Because we all know who you are..

MSPeconomist

A MSP-NRT-SIN RT alone is about 18,000 miles so of course NW "gave" you SE for doing two of them per year. You earned about 40,000 status miles from these two RTs.

Why2Me

Do people that can afford to and fly first class all the time really care about their medallion status?

yohanson

Or even what airline they are flying. If that were me, I'd only care about schedule as well as hard and soft product.

avidflyer

^^

james318

Exactly.

gooselee

Exactly - perhaps I should have said I "earned" SE rather than NW "gave" it to me. But other than tooting our own horns, what value do our NWA data points add to the current discussion of how, if, and whether DL can/should/will change their FF program?

yohanson

If you're implying that I was tooting my own horn when NWA gave me SE at about 8K, you are greatly mistaken. My point was that they recognized my amount of spend and they did something for me. Whatever data and technology they used to determine that is now owned by Delta.