Ride carefully. It would be a mighty long fall from your high horse.

Why don't you just tell the board to get rid of silver at your next shareholder meeting? I bet Delta saved a good $500 not sending out silver medallion cards this year. You be sure to high five them on that.

Of course it might also reflect a formerly valuable customer who now directs business elsewhere. None of us here are the experts on whether Delta wants or needs to get that former business back, but turning silver into dirt doesn't exactly help with that if it is in fact important to their business.
BTW, "accomplishment" heh heh, nice one. Anyone who thinks flying lots of miles is an accomplishment is warped.

I spent 280k miles last year developing chronic DVTs in my legs

I consider that an accomplishment

/bolding mine/

No, they don't. See this:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/24504015-post22.html
So... Today almost all benefits you can get through $95/year amex. Except maybe exit rows. Other than that - extra miles are not that huge with 25k flying (I mean $3k spending), and EC at T-24 isn't a big deal because of, again, only 25k. Plus, mostly it'd be nothing or middle seat at T-24 on popular routes.

So, mostly I agree - being a FO isn't something that special.

Excellent point.
They would also not want to give CC holders GM status as that implies ST Elite+ benefits which includes lounge access for international travel

To those who claims 25,000 miles a year is nothing, you need to consider other markets outside of US or Europe where flying is not a norm. In the Asia markets, to fly 25,000 miles a year is not something to scoff at and typically can only be achieved if long haul international travel is involved. NA and Europe airlines who hopes to grow their market share in Asia (hence develop their overall network) are fortunately still sensitive to that.

My sense is that this is also why the MQD requirements are waived for non-US based customers. Since it is proven they could award Miles based on spent, the only other reason why MQD is not required is probably that they do not want to alienate the Asian market.

Why not? Gold is the new Silver anyway....

They can sell it as an 'enhancement' :)

Relative to what? To the general public, it certainly is. (Only about 1/3 of Americans fly at all in any given year!) To some of the nut jobs on here, sure.

One could fly 49,999 miles or 59 segments and remain FO.
Last year I had almost 40 segments which in today's flying "climate" was more than enough for me. Preferred seats and C+ are the only reasons I try to maintain FO. A very small token from DL for low value customers.

As a gold I basically never get upgrades -- typically below 10 on the upgrade list, often below 30. It is hard to imagine that silver would ever get upgraded, even on off-peak routes.

Get over it. DL is not rewarding anyone's flying or, for that matter, rewarding anyfor anything. SMs is a marketing tool with limited resources. You cannot UG everyone on the plane. If you give certain benefits to everyone they become less desirable. For example, if FO boarded with SP+, PMs and GMs would get crowded out of earlier boarding.

DL has made a decision how to allocate the limited resources. In many cases, DL has determined they can maximize the effectiveness of the marketing tool by limiting certain benefits to DM and/or PM and/or GM. It's obviously more cost effective and has a better impact on the bottom line if FOs are not included in certain benefits. Either accept what is being offered or move to a different airline.

AS Elites have reported getting upgraded on DL a number of times on the inter-west flights out of the LAX and SEA hubs. Also reports of FC seats going empty. If AS elites are getting upgraded on these routes, it's a safe bet that so are Silver Medallions as they are higher in the upgrade priority. Yes, upgrades are much more difficult out of the eastern hubs where there are large DL FF bases, but it's not quite universally true that upgrades are difficult everywhere.

I'm silver and I get more upgrades than I would have expected. I typically fly to smaller regions from ATL and on the way out, I'm way down the list and the flight's usually oversold. But on the way back, I have a decent shot. My last 2 trips this month I was upgraded on the way back and it was done before I ever even got to the airport. I just see it on the app.

But my brother is a DM and since he's a consultant, he's on the consultant heavy routes and he's usually 20th or 30th on the list. So I think it is route dependent; but if you're silver, you're probably not going to get upgraded on any route where people would actually go to voluntarily. Although I did get upgraded once from PBI to ATL.

Im sliver medallion. Delta acknowledges me well. More then 50%+ of the time I'm upgraded to first class.

Devalued to the point that DL should simply eliminate the distinction.