Guess it means UA and AA will not devalue their SWU any time soon.

All in all a positive change. Delta heard folks on SWU issue.

Now what would be really nice is to be able to upgrade with miles any international flight on the day of departure regardless of fare for what would be a low (aka saver) award level. Naturally higher fares would get priority regardless of status.

Never fly transcon, so the biggest negative doesn't hurt me much.

I am also excited I haven't selected my PM or DM choice benefit yet...

Oh, and does no one else want to see the new Tiffinay's DM luggage tags? Maybe i'm too much of a nerd...

Requiring global upgrades for JFK-LAX/SFO/SEA is dumb. It is not much better of a product than United PS (allows regional upgrades) or the new American Flagship (complimentary for EXPs) or even JetBlue MINT!

I understand not allowing complimentary, but at least allow regional upgrades on them.

Not even a CHANCE of an UG LAX-JFK is a biggie for me. Instead of scorched earth on that route, why not say only for DMs or on Y, B, M, S? I had a decent UG percentage and often bought up a bit to increase my chances, now there is no incentive.

With B6 starting F/J on that route I think DL is giving them a nice opening by sending their pax to take a look.

Shortening the membership year (and your calculation of 'nearly' 7.5% is a pretty specious way of viewing it in my opinion since it assumes a single year of qualification in the first week of the qualification year) benefits Medallions who maintain status year after year since to them it makes no difference when it expires, eliminating those who haven't qualified for Medallion (or qualified for a lower level) a month sooner is a positive change in my opinion.

I looked at a ATL-JFK-SEA the other day, it was well over $6k in the Domestic Biz class, hope the NYC people enjoy the high price or maybe the FC Cabin will be a lot more empty or full on NonRev's.

A DM who chose SWUs for both PM Choice Benefit and DM Choice Benefit would have 10 SWUs to use in a year.

Going forward, the DM will earn a maximum of 4 per year.

While the fare class restrictions are appreciated, I have now been knocked down from 5 roundtrips to just 2 roundtrips p.a. Ouch. (N.B. I have used SWUs for 8-10 one-ways per year for the past several years.) Happy to be corrected if I am misinterpreting.

For me, when you combine this with SEA-JFK upgrade restrictions, this is a net negative.

Considering that the only ATL-SEA routing that allows a connection in NYC is the true Full F, you're probably taking an ATL-NYC F fare and combining it with a NYC-SEA fare, which often times is going to be a bit more expensive.

well not to generalize too much but aren't the chances of people buying F for LAX--JFK, JFK--LAX (not so sure about SFO and SEA) usually pretty high given that its a hot route for actors/actresses and other not-quite-as-rich-as-Oprah-but-still-fairly rich?

I'm not an expert on choice benefits, especially for DM, and the wording is not clear on this, but isn't the 10 per year under the old scheme comparable to 4 Global Upgrades per year under the new scheme plus another choice benefit, which could be 4 Regional Upgrades? I know that's still less, but a more fair comparison than just saying it goes from 10 to 4.

The SEA-JFK transcon is my primary route. I've lurked on this forum for over two years but this move fired me up to get registered today. It is an absolute outrage that they are considering the change. If this doesn't go away, I'll be ringing the phone at the AS MVP line for a match and a permanent goodbye to DL.

I agree. And since it doesn't take effect until 2016, it won't affect anyone who earned status this year (for the 2014 program year). Their status will still be good until March 1, 2015. Basically, DL is just shifting their program year to match UA's (UA already went through this).

I fail to see how this is good news for anyone other than DMs. Based on the number of DM comments here on FT, the DMs represent the majority of posts, but they are a small percentage of the overall Delta elite members. Once the majority of elite members learn and understand these changes, they will understand this is just another Delta devaluation.

I've selected SWUs for upgrades on leisure international travel - that is the main attraction of a frequent flyer program for me. So now the value of the DL FF program is gone for me. I'm already eligible for domestic upgrades as a medallion and could simply improve my chances by not buying the lowest fare.

No matter what I do, I won't be able to make DM status, so I'll need to reassess other programs and how they'll compare for a PM type member. Delta, I'm so disappointed in these changes….PM will soon be the new FO (and I don't mean silver).

What am I missing? What value will the "new and improved" program have for the many elites who are not DM?

PS. One other minor question re: Hawaii upgrades. I guess the ATL-HNL route is still excluded?

That's a fair point, but I am really only interested in the international value of the Choice Benefit. I go from 10 int'l upgrade per year to 4. And so as consolation, I now get to "jump the queue" domestically 4 times. However, I would actually argue that the introduction of "queue jumping" is negative for most DMs. In the past, I was always top dog on domestic upgrades. Now I will be jumped by lesser medallions who play their trump card. Sure, I can use a trump card 4x/year myself, but I am expecting that I will be on the losing end of this tradeoff much more than the winning end.