We appreciate your loyalty and are always looking for ways to provide greater satisfaction to our SkyBonus companies. Beginning July 30, 2014, we are proud to introduce a new Rewards menu that features an easier process for reward selection. Here's what to expect: � Introduction of a new Systemwide reward which will replace 16 region specific rewards providing greater flexibility
� Reduction in points required to redeem some reward certificates, making your points go further for your business
� In light of significant investments in our coast-to-coast BusinessElite� experience, which include premium amenities like fully flat-bed seats, Westin Heavenly� In-Flight Bedding, on-demand entertainment, and premium dining, we will introduce new reward pricing for flights between New York-JFK and Los Angeles, San Francisco or Seattle
� Updated Silver Medallion� status reward providing 12 months of Medallion benefits
In addition, for travel beginning July 30, 2014 you will earn additional points when flying through Memphis. Premium fares to/ from Memphis will earn thirty (30) points for every $1 USD of eligible flight revenue and six (6) points for every $1 USD of eligible flight revenue for all other fare types.


I wonder what they are "taking away"

Sounds like MEM has been officially de-hubbed. Haha nice.

Well I just logged in -- apparently they're paying for these "enhancements" by increasing some redemption amounts. US-Middle East business jumped from 750K to 800K.

Very poor form that we got no warning..

My first reaction also was that this makes the dehubbing of MEM official a done deal.

Charging more for the enhanced BE transcons seems only fair and reasonable.

From what I can tell, they got rid of Europe to Central America/Caribbean(used to be 170,000, as I recall). That one hurts, I was planning to grab 3x next month. Now its "Systemwide" at 220,000 for Y.

Also, TATL went from 525,000 to 540,000 for basic J.

The central American pricing was a little nuts. It was cheaper to go from Central America - Europe/Middle East even though you're coming through the US.


Looks like they cut the coach rates and jacked up J.

Guess they didn't like me grabbing some BOS-JFK-LAX 76W BE seats on the domestic F award for 225k when the appropriate G/Z inventory was available, which I thought was a decent deal.

I don't have the previous award levels, but a quick look makes me think most things went up a little, such as the tpac BE award. I thought that was in the 600ks before, now its 700k. Pretty sure Hawaii went up, and the US to central america/carribbean are still crazy. Basically a joke for those awards considering those routes are eligible for medallion upgrades and you can get cheap fares.

I think the tpac/tatl upgrade awards decreased a little possible, but they do require an Y/B/M fare.

TATL BE low award tickets recently went up from 100,000 miles to 120,000 or 125,000. Similarly, basic TPAC low rose from 120,000 to 140,000 miles for BE. In percentage terms, some of these increases don't look so bad.

Absolutely. It will be missed.

Agreed. I just brought it up, as my only rewards have been on TATL so that is what I remembered from the old charts.

Frankly, even with the new higher rates, SkyBonus is 10x better than BusinessExtra on AA.

The US upgrade certs on select fares went down from 62,500 points to 50,000 points

Here is a link to a PDF of the old chart (in 2013):

http://deltapoints.boardingarea.com/...-redemtion.pdf

Thanks!

Sounds like we didn't make out too terribly from this change. I'm just glad they didn't gut the program, hopefully this change will be the last for awhile.

The program has been great for getting FO for my mom. She probably does around 10k, maybe 15k a year buf-xxx-rsw, so she's picked off a bunch of upgrades (she has a better upgrade rate than I do by flying through LGA or JFK most of the time) but most importantly for her she can check-in at first class counter and bypass the machines.

I'm surprised it took them this long to make the changes - like others have said upthread lets hope this is the last changes for a while.

Wow guess there were too many pax going to Hawaii... first class award went up from 320k to 425k.

I didn't realize the Caribbean awards went down, since they're still very high for that area compared to just buying a ticket outright. Kind of funny most upgrade awards went down, but this region went up also... a xUP fare is cheaper than buying the applicable M fare to use SB points.

Those systemwide awards are pretty insanely priced.