Public corporations owing primary allegiance to shareholders is not breaking news.

What do you mean by this?

Root cause for arrogance.

When you book DL awards, you enter your Virgin Australia account number. If you don't have one, get one.
Then, your DL award trips count like revenue tickets on VA. I think this expires 6/30/2013. If you do enough of this (don't know what the threshold is), you become VA Platinum. As a VA Platinum, you get HH Diamond status as a benefit, among others.

This is an innovative way to earn miles while you burn miles.

I am sure our residence accuracy minion will disagree with me.

Goodbye (to this thread)
 

After reading the 1250+ posts this thread is no longer providing any new information. It's devolved into the usual complaints, misinformation, alternative wishes/suggestions and attacks. There has really been nothing new since Delta monitored the first day comments and updated their web site. Speculation abounds about Amex. Hey if you have one just call them. You are a customer. It's time for me to stop reading here and get back to the day by day tips that can make the flying experience better. See ya in the other posts.

Regarding the intentions of DL:

1) If DL wanted to reward spend, then why not reward ALL spend? Including money spend on EC and other ancillary items? Why must these be excluded and only spend on airfare included?

2) If DL wanted to cull the number of elites, then why not simply RESTRICT the amount of rollover? For instance, you cannot rollover more than 5,000 MQMs each year.

3) If DL wanted to DISCOURAGE people flying on Joint Venture partners (AF/KL) and force people to fly DL metal, then why RAISE the MQMs earned on JV partner-coded partner-metal flights?

@@@@@

It took 1253 posts for this reality to set in???? The DL forum is losing it's touch :)

1) Because federal transportation officials are eyeing greater regulation of airline ancillary fees.

2) It would signal to the board that the ones who promoted rollovers in the first place were idiots.

3) You got me. Makes little sense.

Rumor I heard today at JFK was Rollover was going away.... :confused:

Then we agree that you mischaracterized DL's management as performing poorly?

Hardly. They covered up a blunder with a bright, shiny object called MQDs.

Delta may be the picture of health, but it doesn't mean incompetence should be rewarded or that a paternalistic culture didn't survive its 2007 bankruptcy.

These moves - and I think pruning the Medallion ranks is smart - were necessitated by a predictable failure.

If that proves true, then the whole design is flawed.

DL has to compete on price. With loyalty, it doesn't have to win. I'm probably going to spend about $70 more on a DL ticket than an AA ticket due to status (and the chance of an upgrade, earning useful MQMs, etc.) If the difference were much greater, DL would lose. If there were no loyalty, DL would lose due to its higher price.

A Loophole Closed?
 

I notice that changing one's SkyMiles account address to outside the Unites States will require documentation. Is this proof-of-residence a new requirement to go along with the initiation of "Medallion money"?

When I moved to Thailand in 1998, I changed my WorldPerks account address to reflect that. Nothing was required for me to do so apart from my say-so.