daregale

I mostly earned status through international travel with family. There's no longer any incentive for me to stay with Delta rather than shop by price. It's been moving in that direction anyway so not a big surprise.

boiler55

I thought I'd make an input here as one of the lower-income members on this forum.
This will completely decimate my plan to have some sort of emergency fund to travel back home when needed. I usually buy the lowest-fare tickets to get to where I need to go.
But the thing is, I like DL. They've done very well by me, and I've flown every US carrier. They've got a solid product and a reliable service that I'm familiar with. Probably the best in North America for my travel needs. In fact, I usually go out of the way to travel on DL, even if it's out of CHI.
Having said all this, I've never expected to earn status with DL because of the MQD requirement but this just throws any opportunity of quickly earning miles for that emergency fund completely under the bus. It's very disappointing for sure, but to be honest, it's a storm I'm willing to take. Of course, I'll have to take an international super-mileage run by the year's end that hopefully won't break the bank in order to get to where I want to be.
My mother will probably be pretty pleased though when I tell her that I won't be taking multiple stops on the way home to see her come next year so it it's bittersweet. Oh well. Here's to the final push for 16,000 more miles!

EDIT: On the flip side though, I guess this is just motivation to ask a girl out to dinner to take advantage of the Skymiles Dining offer.....or buy $30 worth of pizza for the roommates to eat for the next few days haha

xolinlevh

I usually book way in advance and plan my trips meticulously. My usual routes are:

MSP-ATL ~$300
2014: 3,624
2015: 2,700 (3,300)

MSP-NYC ~ $400
2014: 4,072
2015: 3,150 (3,950)

MSP-LHR ~ $1100
2014: 16,060
2015: 9,900 (12,100)

MSP-AMS-CPT ~ $1500
2014: 40,0652
2015: 13,500 (16,500)

Calculated as a base PM using the site, then added in parenthesis what it is with 2 more miles per $1 as i have the Amex Reserve. Looks like ill be getting a lot less, a LOT less on cheap tickets to CPT...

AKABrownBear

Your MQMs don't change...only your Skymiles change.

xolinlevh

Believe your reading it wrong. earning MQMs wont change, this is a change to the miles.

cova

Impact - none:

Miles Flown in 2013: 0
Miles to be flown in 2014: 0
Miles to be flown in 2015: 0

Would be impacted if AA adopts. Little impact if UA adopts since flying shifted to AA a couple of years ago.

Still have Delta CC - which was free if you had a regular AmEx card. But just got notice that AmEx now wants $55/year for that Delta AmEx card - so I will cancel.

I still have my regular AmEx which I an use to transfer miles to DL to keep account active - but then miles don't expire on DL.

motytrah

My domestic F trips are coming about +10% under the 2015 program. My International J trips are about +130-200%. Assuming that this is based on all-in and not the base fare. I only fly F/J.

I see this as picking around the edges of redemption issues and not a reason to shift from my current strategy of booking based on lowest price/best connection ratio (Usually a mix of AA and DL). Until there are signs that available low-tier inventory actually improves I see little reason to change that strategy.

sdix

Wow, a SFO-PVG trip in coach today costs $795 and earns 24,000 miles. Under the new program it'll be 7,155 miles. To get the same number of miles I need to spend $2850.

Good news is a business class trip at $8000 now earns 72K instead of 24K

The rich get richer......

jer

This looks like a bit of a loss for me. I usually fly 4-5 TATL in either Y on DL or Prem. Econ on AF booked through DL. Normally paying from 1,200 - 2,200, so will clearly lose here. Balance of my travel is a mix of F and Y domestic so will probably break even.

Have been PM for three years now, and like it. For me, loyalty is about making life in Y bearable, rather than award redemption. However, recently flew JetBlue to KIN and was deeply impressed with their product, esp. for the small cost upgrade to "even more room," which is a very nice way to make Y bearable. I will have to seriously consider shifting my travel to others and paying extra for whatever "premium" perks can be bought at booking. If I do defect, it will be a loss of $10-15K for DL and cancellation of my Plat AmEx with 50-60K spend per year

Will need to take some time to think about it. Partly depends on the awards chart. I have already been having a hard time justifying the often higher fares that DL seems to demand on my city pairs.

NittanyLion

I would have earned +17% more miles in 2013 under this new system.


Of course, that +17% is primarily a function of the fact that I twice flew CVG-MSP-CVG, at $1200 round-trip (and those flights were each booked over 3 weeks in advance!). That's only 1196 miles under the current system, 6000 with the new one.


That obscene airfare (and the fact UA/AA have similarly high airfares for the route) is a story unto itself. But overall, don't think I like this new SkyMiles system.

Zaynab

Is that true? Or is a subsidy removed from those buying expensive (cost per mile wise) tickets to those buying cheap tickets? The airline cares about revenue, not about miles flown, so the new system seems to be more aligned with where the money comes from.

I currently do not fly DL or its partners, but as I fly TATL J regularly I might in the new setup. I now fly OneWorld with a stopover in LHR; main reasons: the 8 SWUs AA offers plus the lower CPM (ex EU TATL tickets with stopover are often substantially cheaper than direct flights). I am very happy with how AA treats me, but if I could fly direct, earn more miles, and get compensation for the higher ticket price later on through upgrades or free tickets, that would make sense to me.

bob17412

I fall into the category of the big loser. Being a retiree, I looked for the best bang for the buck on fares and enjoyed doing a couple mileage runs to boost my status to platinum. Under the new program even with some International travel won't make Gold. I feel sorry for all the "mileage run forums" that will become moot.

stdatwmu

2014 - 26,437 MQMs (on $2,822 MQD spend)
2015 - 19,754 MQMs

Net 25% loss for me.

And if I wasn't already Silver, it'd be 14,110 MQMs - a 47% drop.

Ouch.

------

Edit - clearly I didn't catch that it was overall miles.

So, with that in mind:

2014 - 35,958 SkyMiles (including FO and AMEX bonuses)
2015 - 22,666 SkyMiles (including FO and AMEX bonuses) ** Not 100% clear since some flights were SkyTeam to Europe **

That's a 37% loss.

Also, I tend to rack up the most miles traveling for business. Even though I have a DL AMEX, I have to use my corporate card for all business travel (and have to book the cheapest economy fare). So this hits me twice on that front.

Ouch, indeed.

berliner5000

You WILL make gold provided you fly a distance of 50k miles and spend 5k$ in mqds. The changes are only affecting redeemable miles not how status is earned. So now there will be RDMs and MQMs

Shareholder

Blessed will be those who work in senior positions at large corporations and other such entities with generous travel policies. Vanquished will be those who work for more $ conscious employers, the retired, and the frequent leisure flyer who pays out of his/her own pocket. Kinda reflects the current ethos of the American economy: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer!