Clearly... It's a step in the direction of cheaper fares having less benefits even to medallion travelers. The new language on the web site about "full medallion benefits" for economy fares clearly indicates delta will move to restricted benefits on the cheapest economy fares. Remember back when a T fare was the cheapest.?? Now we have V & X. There was a lot more to that move than a supposed fare class alignment with Sky Team. I call BS.

Friday I'm flying on a U fare and feel like a big spender. Haha. No upgrade yet. 14 of 16 seats are open. As usual theses days.

After my inquiry, @DeltaAssist indicated there was an error with the processing and applied the upgrade request manually. The point is, there is something funky about these fares and medallion upgrades. Buyer beware.

The better question is, will a corporate travel agency allow it to be booked. I couldn't get one to price via our online TA (which is travelocity based). Also, cost or not, we have always required fares to be changeable. That alone would be enough reason to book up to a T or V fare.

If any of you are like me, much of my travel is booked within 14 days. Will these even price at that short of a time frame? Our buy up minimum miles to first is ridiculously low, but the few times that I haven't been able to get into F, I've been finding myself in Y, B, M or K.

Are the MSP routes new for E fares? I fly to LAS and FLL often and DL never has cheap fares on these routes. They have never attempted to compete with Spirit on these routes before. That I've seen anyways.

I would love to see some cheap fares to FLL this winter. And LAS for that matter.

The yet better question is, will a corporate travel agency allow it NOT to be booked? I just found out that I received an E fare on ATL-SAT. The agency site I used had no information of the lack of seat assignment. To the contrary, it showed the plane and I picked aisle seats. I only found out about the E when I went to Delta's site.

Cheapest fare is cheapest fare, even if it's only $8 less than a V fare for my exact same flight. I'll pay $4 each way for an aisle seat, if I can figure out how to do it. Or maybe I can just wear a scarlet E on my clothing.

That was good for a laugh. For 2016 medallions delta should print your prior year MQDs in Big bold letters on your medallion card. Maybe that's why they removed the bar codes a couple years back. Make room for MQD space.

Then. All passengers board the plan based on MQD spend rather than zones or class. Remember lining up in grade school by height. Well delta has a modern take on that ordering of pax.

I haven't verified it myself, but I'm guessing that many travel sites probably aren't coded to know that E is substantially different than all other fares and will offer it.

I don't buy E fares either, but some of us just don't want to fly Southwest: different airports/terminals (i.e., Humphrey at MSP, MDW rather than ORD, etc.), more connections (exMSP), no lounges, no advanced seat assignments, no interlining, bad IROPs handling, lots of families with kids, party flights, FAs telling jokes, playing games and otherwise annoying passengers on the intercom, no FC,......maybe more that I'm missing but for flights of this length, I really don't care that much about the FF miles (although I would have no use for the WN companion pass system to award their elites).

Perhaps my view is partly shaped by seeing a few episodes of the old Southwest airlines reality show on cable TV that seemed to always show overbooked flights, lost and damaged luggage, and unhappy passengers while WN staff enjoyed their parties and played games on board.

HAHA basing your opinion on a TV show? You do realize that TV shows are based on the ludicrous, exaggeration, fantasy and drama?

Perhaps you should actually give WN a try and then you could have an opinion based on reality

I was surprised that my corporate TA allowed one to be booked. We used to use Concur and that specifically had logic in the search that excluded E fares. Our new booking tool (internal) does not have that logic.

The problem I see with corporations booking this is the lack of residual value of the ticket. If travel plans change at the last minute for the employee no changes/no cancellations can become costly.

How so? You don't like the terms of your employment, whether it's salary, benefits or work conditions (including travel), you leave.

Or, put another way, arm twisting is a made up term.

No, it would be considered cornh**ing. Are we allowed to use that word on FT?

Most of the E fares I have seen are in the $200 - $300 range (often closer to $200). Even if they were changeable, there wouldn't be much residual value after the $200 domestic change fee.

I don't need to fly WN to know that I want flights with nonstops from MSP departing from the main terminal, FC, reserved seats, airport lounges,fewer kids on average, interlining and IROPs rebooking on other carriers, and FAs that let me work in peace and quiet rather any annoying me with onboard games and jokes.

You're certainly entitled to your opinon, and all those things you mentioned are self-evident, but you really are showing your lack of bona fides with this last comment.

It's clear you don't know in this respect, having never even flown them and are relying on a cartoonish version. The jokes are much diminished if at all (i don't even remember any jokes my last trip) , and no games either.