5khours

I spend 4 or 5 nights a month on an airplane. Better bed makes a big difference to me. I'll pay more for it (not the fare differential of full F versus full J..... but certainly a significant amount), and I would always choose an airline that offered me upgrades from J to F over one that doesn't.

That said, I agree that the ancillary F services on AA and UA are very poor.... the only worthwhile ones are a few nice international F clubs. IMHO, this is pi$$ poor judgement on the part of UA/AA. Having better food, drink, service, check in/arrival services, really nice lounges are important extra incentives for choosing an airline. It's stupid to have F and not make the incremental investment on service. I always pick UA over DL because of F, but by the same token when available I choose CX, LH, NH, EK, etc. over UA because of the much better service in F.

FlyDeltaJets87

Surely you can figure out that many of us do both leisure and work-related travel.

When I travel on the USG's dime, it's in Economy - any UG to FC I get is either because of instruments (such as on AA) or complimentary on DL. However, if I don't get upgraded when traveling for work, I don't moan and groan - I have an economy ticket and am sitting in the cabin for which my ticket was bought. I also often don't get my choice of carrier when traveling for the USG. Sometimes you do, especially if there's no city-pair fare (and sometimes you can even work around the city-pair fare), and in those cases I'm concious of how I spend the taxpayer's money in those situations (selecting the lowest fare that still meets the requirements I have, even if that means longer than optimal layovers or not flying a preferred airline because my preferred airlines has a higher fare), but often you don't get a choice. It's usually the GSA City-pair carrier.

When I travel for leisure, I often buy FC if the fare is reasonably priced, especially if it's a longer trip, rather than playing UG roulette.

Funny - anytime someone mentions that "this is a business" that must mean they're automatically defending any decision as "unquestionable" by DL and get accused of having "Stockholm Syndrome". If you're not happy with the decisions DL leadership is making, vote with your wallet and move on. I've made that decision on more than one occassion - to fly another carrier over DL because the premium DL wanted wasn't justifiable or DL's product wasn't the best option. Flying to Hawaii for the second time in two years and it's the second time I won't be on DL (once was on AA through DFW, upcoming will be HA). DL's fare was 50% more both times, and their product isn't worth a 50% premium, IMO. In fact, most of their products to Hawaii (except for maybe ATL-HNL on the A330) are subpar to what HA can offer, and HA was significantly less for the dates I'm going from SEA. I simply made the decision to vote with my wallet and fly HA, because HA's A330 is a heck of a lot nicer than DL's 757-300 on the route. But since too many people on here threaten to leave - but never do - DL leadership can continue to devalue the Skymiles and Medallion program, because there's no need to give away more than you have to to retain the business.

baccarat_king

But, considering F routes are (rather) limited on AA and UA internationally (IFC); is it even worth the trouble. Or perhaps, you fly AA/UA when you can upgrade from J to F, but choose Delta when it's a J only route, since (overall) the J experience on Delta is better than J on UA and AA.

5khours

Other than EWR/DEN/IAH, UA has F on most international routes.

I actually haven't flown any J on long haul in the last 2 years except a couple of UA NRT>EWR flights and one TG HND>BKK (showed up at the airport and discovered I had booked for the wrong week...only J was open at that point.)

I actually prefer (PM)UA J to DL J ....less privacy but the seat is larger and more comfortable. (PM)CO J and DL J are a toss up IMHO.

baccarat_king

But, my other curiosity, is the UA service standard. I've been very pleased with Delta (transatlantic, mostly Boston based crews). I keep hearing the UA service as well as food is horrible. Is this just hyperbole, 5khours? I know there are always very good and very bad crews. I was just wondering about your general impressions. Also, I assume, you have had little to no IrrOps issues with UA; another complaint I see quite often. IMO, IFC (on a US domestic legacy carrier) does me little good, if they can't get me from point A to point B efficiently.

mother-

Thanks, I'm aware. (My being PM only tells you that I didn't hit 125k last year)

MSPeconomist

Huh? 50,000 AA status miles or points = Plat. AA calls their 25,000 status level Gold.

5khours

IMHO, there is not that much difference on service/food between the various US legacy carriers (but I've not had a lot of experience on AA). Foreign carriers tend to be much better. Food is OK and pretty comparable between DL and UA. IME, if you treat the FAs on domestic carriers in a friendly manner, 95% of the time you'll get friendly service in return.

Also IME, IRROPs on international flights are much less common than on domestic flights. Out of literally close to 1000 TPACs, I've had two cancellations each on UA and DL (one was the day of the Japan tsunami) and maybe a couple of delays in excess of an hour on each carrier.

For me anyway, UA and *A work pretty well.

itsaboutthejourney

That's a good point, but I find DL & SkyTeam people are generally uninformed (or unexperienced) when it comes to Int'l First compared to the wonderful experiences *A provides via LH, Thai, ANA, SQ, etc. and Oneworld people rave about Cathay Pacific F.

Having flown AF La Premiere, I think DL is missing out on by not providing even a chance to redeem F on AF or KE. It's highly aspirational and a big criticism my friends have of the SkyPeso program.

DL2SXM

Supposedly AA sent out e mails asking its HVC's to comment on some of the most recent delta sky miles changes such as earning miles per dollar spent.

AA_EXP09

I am aware of that.
Someone logging 75k miles would not be EXP as 50k-99999 miles is platinum.

sethb

But they generally can't; DL isn't giving away $800 domestic tickets for 25,000 miles.

In fact, the last flight I looked at was $505 or 50,000 miles+$5. Wonderful PWM optionality there.

FlyDeltaJets87

I just punched in random dates for DTW-MSP, knowing it would have high prices due to the route, for dates in May (May 5-8, Mon-Thur).

Fare: $680 for each flight of the day.
Redemption: 25,000 miles available for the 1:50 pm departure from DTW, plenty of 25,000 mile redemptions available for the return from MSP.

Going further, it's worth point out that under the current system, that $680 flight will only bring in 1,056 for a non-status passenger to 2,376 miles miles for a DM. Under the new system, the non-status passenger will earn around 3000 while the DM would earn around 7000.

Yes, the above may be an "extreme" - more realistic is under the current system someone earning enough miles from 2-3 $300 transcon flights ($600-$900 in revenue) to then redeem those for tickets that are $400 or more. Because the ones who know how to use the system aren't redeeming their miles on those same $200-$300 transcons - they're redeeming them on the $400-$500 fares.

Continuing the "realistic" example, if a DM pays $1000 to $1200 (a huge chunk of which is taxes) for a flight to Far East that brings in 40K miles under the current system, they'll get enough miles for a J ticket to go back after just 4-5 trips on that route - a ticket that is worth FAR MORE than the revenue they ever brought in for those 4 to 5 trips.

And thus you can see why the system is changing at DL, and I won't be surprised if/when AA and UA follow suit. A system that can give away an $8000 to $10000 J ticket after only bringing in $4,000 to $6,000 in revenue isn't sustainable. Even if you are only to cash in a "medium level" and it requires double the number of trips, bringing in $10,000 to $12,000 revenue and receiving a $10,000 reward in return isn't sustainable either.

5khours

This argument is completely specious. The pax in question was never going to buy a $10k J ticket, and DL is never going to make seat available if there is the slightest chance the can sell it as a revenue ticket.

Under the new system, however, there is a very good chance that the pax buying J tickets will use the miles for an award J ticket instead of buying a J ticket in which case DL really is out $10k.

FlyDeltaJets87

Just because they wouldn't buy one doesn't mean they won't redeem their miles for one (hey, I'm not saying I blame anyone for taking advantage of it - I hope to do that soon with my miles). Sure, finding one at the "Low" value may be difficult (but not impossible) and finding a Medium level redemption isn't too hard - and that medium redemption can be achieved after only 5 trips or so on the right routes. Southwest is probably never going to buy 777s - would it make sense for Boeing to give WN a 777 for every 5 737 sales though? Probably not....

EDITED TO ADD: Again, I'm not "mad" nor do I hold a grudge at those who use the current system to the max advantage possible - in fact, I'm one of those people. However, I can recognize the flaws in the system from the airlines' standpoint, and don't blame them one bit for changing it. I guess that's what makes me a "fanboy" on here, as I've been called more than a few times.