There is a big difference. None of my dealings with DL have ever involved a trick.


I didnt say you werent entitled to good service. You will no longer be entitled to elite perks. If AA works better for you, that is the beauty of choice.

There have been questions about whether the Delta AMEX cards will retain the all the spend tresholds as well as the MQD waiver. It seems to me that Delta is paid by AMEX for RDMs at a set rate and MQMs (likely at a higher rate). As such, Delta would likely profit more by keeping the bonuses intact, and AMEX would profit if more people reached the threshold due to increased usage (swipe fees, etc) and in annual fees. So, I would guess the 10k MQMs and RDMs for reaching $25k on the AMEX Platinum card will remain, and the AMEX is probably hoping the new MQD requirement will increase card sign up and usage. Remember, MQMs and the MQD requirements don't really cost anything to give out. They only cost in Medallion benefits, and even then only a little more than the card's base benefits.

Or ft for that matter :D

I have been restrained up until now, but to intimate that I am a racist is one step too far. You know nothing about me. Then again, it won't be the first time this thread you have opined on something you know nothing about.

No. Have you heard of mattress runs? Yes, they exist as well--where an FTer will stay at a $50-60/night hotel to complete a promo for a certificate that he can use at a $200+ hotel. There are Platinums who stay at $50/night hotels, they are still regarded and treated as PLATs by Marriott. In response Marriott created a quiet elite tier, the Plat Premier for their HVCs--leaving all other tiers alone and voila!! everyone is happy.

I love JW Marriotts, I will pay extra and consistently do for the service they provide me when I am overseas. Likewise, DL can convince me to cough some additional revenure per mile if they upgrade the services that I deem important or else I am gone come 2015.

what are they?

Why not allow better award inventories to PM and above?

Open K fares for ugrades using SWUs, for PM and above

Relax retrictions on SWUs, make them transferable to friends and family.

Upgrade the Million Miler program

Allow M fares to earn to bonus MQMs again

If DL decides to dump their Asian partners (so it seems), then make sure the product you offer to their respective cities is up to par.

No one here owes posting their reasoning. Delta (and other airlines) have been saying it themselves for decades—fly 25K miles per year with them and you're in their favored circle. When too many elites appeared, DL simply created a new layer at the top, because they still considered those who flew 25K per year valuable to their bottom line.

Why should any individual have to justify that? None I can see.

We're in uncharted territory now. When AA first created AAdvantage Gold, that was for their top 2% of flyers. 2%!! Gold! Now people intentionally plan multiple weekends away to earn an elite level which truly used to be unattainable by 98% of the regular flying public 25 years ago.

So okay, the landscape has changed. I get it. The system was unsustainable. No argument from me on that. I've been doing this since the early 80s.

But, if anyone here owes an explanation (and I'm not saying they do), it's from Delta to explain to everyone they've been convincing for years to invest their travel dollars with them, as to why they're no longer as important as they were led to believe. And more importantly, why they should continue to fly Delta under the new system. Delta will still have a lot of empty seats to fill with cheap fares.

They have answered your question in the FAQ section.

They will fill those seats with cheap fares and fee-paying Kettles

I'm posting for two reasons. One is to inch this thread closer to 100 pages. I'm glad I've kept up with it every other day or so. To read it all at once would be daunting.

Secondly, I generally agree with most of Delta's changes. When Sky Priority was called for a recent ATL-MSP flight, the entire jetway was full. The Sky Priority security line at MSP to come home was far longer than the regular security line. As others have said, if nearly everyone is elite, then no one is.

I don't believe that it makes business sense for Delta to hand out gold, plat, and diamond status to mileage runners who are driving little profit to the airline. The perks are valuable. Moreover, too many people getting the perks crowds out the highly profitable flyers Delta wants to encourage to keep spending. The highly profitable want to be high on the upgrade list, experience a short security line, board through a short line, etc. This isn't happening today because there are too many mileage runners at Gold, Plat, and Diamond. (That's not to say that there is anything wrong with mileage running -- if you follow the rules in place at the time, you deserve every perk you earned. That doesn't mean, however, that Delta shouldn't reexamine whether the perks should be handed out the same way in the future.) There may be too many elites even after these changes and perhaps Delta will make it even hard to make status for 2016 or later.

Delta apparently gets enough money from AMEX to make the AMEX exception worthwhile to the airline. It appears that high spending on the AMEX makes you an "indirect" highly profitable flyer on Delta. I neither agree or disagree with their financial analysis given that I haven't seen it, but I'm happy about the result because it benefits me personally. I drive a fortune through my Reserve card and the 30K MQMs pushed me from Gold to Plat this year. Regardless of whether Delta is correct in its determination that the AMEX money justifies an exception to the MQD requirement, Delta is correct about one thing -- if the MQMs from AMEX spend became obsolete because they would no longer allow me to jump to a higher medallion level unsupported by annual MQDs, those MQMs would become less valuable to me and I almost certainly would move my well over $60K in business expenses away from my Reserve card to a different card with other perks.

I doubt Delta's plan with respect to making Silver harder to reach, but again, I haven't seen the data so I don't really know. It doesn't seem like Silver costs Delta much. Silvers don't get Sky Priority check-in, security or boarding as far as I can recall -- they board before everyone else but after First Class and Sky Priority. They don't get upgrades unless they are on a full fare or unless the bottom of the list is reached, and they're blocking no one but employee standbys by that point. The real cost is free bags for those Silvers who don't have a Delta AMEX card, plus preferred seat assignments. I question whether Delta will pick up enough revenue from charging the former Silvers for bags, better seat assignments, etc., to offset the loss of loyalty that will come as a result of the MQD requirement. That loyalty caused many Silvers to overpay by $20 to $50 per ticket (yes, I'm making these numbers up based on anectdotal information) for Delta flights to keep status. Will Delta get that back through the extra charges to the now non-elite if they are losing volume? If seat assignments for Silvers have been crowding out higher level medallions (who book later) from getting decent seats, perhaps Delta could have limited that perk in some way, such as by making only a select number of preferred seats available to Silvers or delaying when Silvers could change into preferred seats without charge.

In any event, even if you're upset that you might not receive status under the new system, I think Delta did this the right way. They've given lots of advance warning so you can plan your future strategies for flying and credit card spending. If you feel that they have cut you out, you can fly another carrier starting now, or starting in January 2014, whichever works out best for you. And, as I have generally observed in Atlanta, there are often slightly better prices to be had from other carriers.

what am i missing??
 

i am an AA explat - fly DL occasionally.

I see where the the dollar requirement is $.10 per mile. i can't remember the last time that i spent less than this on any flight;

i can understand DL's point where they don't want to offer elite benefits to US customers who fly mainly Sky Team partners but is it worth the blowback that this is going to cause -

Their SkyTeam partners have to be up in arms about this as it really denigrates the value of alliance.

The other issue is that this new level adds confusion to the program and whenever you confuse any program, you lose customers..

i guess that this is what happens when an airline starts making money....

There's nothing stopping those seats from going to fee-paying kettles today. So where are they? Or will they magically appear once DL has "trimmed the herd"?

We get it. You crave to be included in the self-coronated aristocracy that believes everyone else should get on bended knee and kiss your Bose headphones while you sashay through an airport. Coupled with that is an apparently Freudian urge to denigrate those who manage to get what you have at a much lower price as "trash" and "Greyhound quality."
(BTW, in early 2001 DL started flying JFK-NRT with the old MD-11s. The intro fare was about $450 a/i and came with double MQMs. I made FO on one flight, so let that stir the vitriol.)
I don't much care for MQDs since I can hit 25k miles for much less than $2,500, even without IST and the ilk. When I look at the difference between the MQD threshold and what I spend, it's not worth it. That's just a simple calculation for me. But since many of the individual elite perks are for sale in some form, the goal of "low-rev elites need to go away" may happen in name only. In other words, "Mission Accomplished."
I have to admit, I will smile if the lords of the manor discover that elite is no more elite in two years than it is now.

Not to be rude, and I am being serious, if a customer does not spend at least $2500 they are not "Elite". That is not a massive amount of money to spend. Let's say with taxes $250 per month or so.

That is not to say if you spend less you are not a desirable customer, but just not an elite.

To the Moderator
 

Please ask some of the posters here to town it down.

Summary
 

Starting in the 2014 qualification year, for 2015 status: Delta will add a revenue litmus test (on top of your normal status EQMs). This does not change the basic points earning ability. There is a bypass to the litmu$ te$t if you spend $25K on a SkyPeso AMEX.

IMHO, these spending minimums are not all that difficult to reach, except for the hardcore milage runners.

The problem may be the requirements that the litmus test must be on 006 ticket stock, with some mixed info on JV/codeshare/DL marketed flights qualifying. I suspect the JV partners will cry foul and that spend will be included. What's NOT included is ancillary spend: SkyClub membership & drinks, bag fees, change fees, onboard purchases, upgrades, etc. I also suspect that the eCommerce side of DL will cry foul and those fees will be included in the spend in v 2.0 of this plan.

This was only one shoe to drop, still expected are changes to redeeming SkyPesos.


NOTE: This summary was originally in another thread and was a response to a question in that thread asking to distill all the noise from this thread. It's a shame that was just swept away and lost into this thread.

Yes certainly getting a little heated. Accusations of racism were well below the belt. I guess not everyone likes change.