DL2SXM

Let me tag on to what you said above, I just redeemed 12,500 miles on a one way, business class ticket on Korean Air from ICN to NGO and 7,500 on the return in coach. Not to shabby, and not even close to having either city pair originate or end in the U.S.

Silver Meteor

Yep, as I have told personal friends over the years, as long as you are flexable, the DL FF deals have mostly been there.

Like someone just mentioned, people love to dwell on the negative. No company does everything 100% perfect. Delta does a lot of things positive. If they did not, they would not be having the success they have today.

DL2SXM

^

pbarnette

Considering that Syms went bankrupt and liquidated, it would seem their best customers weren't good enough.

pbarnette

I think the issue many have is that people act as if they are customers of the loyalty program and not the airline.

Would I buy gas without knowing the price? Probably not. But am I going to buy gas from an inferior provider in the hopes of getting 2% back rather than 1%? That is a very, very different question.

In general, I'm relatively sanguine about this. Do I want to pay 830k miles to fly in J to SYD? Of course not. But I'm also realistic about just how long arbitrage opportunities last.

And frankly, I think the outrage is misplaced and, yes, unfair. Consider the 830k mile fare to SYD. Well, pricing out DL for a couple weeks from now, BOS-SYD is coming in at around $12.7k dollars in J. Even at 830k miles, that is $0.015 cents per mile. More importantly, at 11 miles per dollar for a DM, that represents a whopping 17% rebate. What other products do you get outraged when your rebate is "only" 17%? Seriously people! Your expectations are absurd.

The ride was fun while it lasted but anyone with even a modicum of business sense had to know it wasn't sustainable. Should that change your behavior as a consumer? Probably. Does that mean DL has done something wrong? Absolutely not.

FWAAA

And yet you have 38% of the posts in this thread, far more than anyone else.

Some people would be fine with a store that posted no prices and gave no hint as to the costs of its wares until the customer waited in line at the register, where the cashier (with the help of an algorithm) sized up the customer and quoted them a price. A non-negotiable price.

Some people would still sing that company's praises, but that choir wouldn't contain very many savvy customers.

sethb

Now Delta tells us in advance: "For a change, we're not going to tell you what fares are until you try to book them, because we don't want you to know if the numbers you're looking at are higher than average."

davetravels

Here's a post from one of our favorite members, from February, from the thread when the award charts were first discovered MIA . . . .

If Bubba will respond to me - he usually doesn't . . . .

I wonder how he feels, now, 5 months later, about the pulling of the award charts?

jackplum

A minor correction:

The US Award pricing still exists on a Delta site (just not easily found). I know this will upset some naysayers but a diligent search can find lots of good information.

Original formatting was lost but this is the plain text from the page though not all that was on the page.

FACT SHEETS
2015 Award Travel Pricing From Continental U.S., Alaska and Canada
The Award chart includes round-trip pricing for all routes originating in the continental U.S., Alaska and Canada for flights booked on or after January 1, 2015.
View »

SkyTeam Customer Benefits
Whether you’re flying somewhere for the first or the hundredth time, you can do without long lines and complex connections. Wherever you go, SkyTeam is with you. As you make your way from city to city, country to country, our 19 member airlines are dedicated to helping make your travels smoother and more simplified.
View »

Joint Venture Destination List
With nearly 250 daily nonstop transatlantic flights, the Delta, KLM, Air France and Alitalia joint venture provides customers with a vast route network offering more frequencies, competitive fares and harmonized services.
View »

javabytes

Sounds like a link to the PDF where they unveiled the 5 tiers. Almost certainly an oversight that this wasn't scrubbed.

Robbyb03

I'm looking at next May and June for flights from ATL to SYD and I've seen first class/business for 235K RT at the lowest. I'm sure the dates aren't perfect for everyone, but that's pretty freaking good in my opinion.

avidflyer

I REALLY hope that was supposed to be sarcastic because if you think 235K for a RT to SYD in J is "pretty freaking good" then the Borg have won, you have been assimilated. It is STUNNING. If I sell you a steak for $700 it does not make a $400 steak actually "pretty freaking good"... It just means some idiot actually paid $700 for a steak. My god...

bennos

Aside from all gas providers essentially being equivalent, this isn't the right question either. It's more like "would you buy gas knowing you're going to get a rebate of 0-2% for each purchase?" At that point, I wouldn't pick gas providers based on a hypothetical rebate which will probably more often skew towards 0 rather than 2.

Indeed, The Container Store has a similar program called POP!. Try to figure out what you get from it... "By participating, members ("you") may be rewarded with valuable discounts and surprises", "Discounts, if any, earned as POP! Perks..." etc.

Loyalty programs with no defined benefits are useless to me.

BTW my favorite bit of the NY Times article was this: "Those goodies include free bag checking or the ability to board the plane in the fourth group instead of the seventh and actually find room in the overhead bins for your bag." The NY Times... "We turn marketing BS back into English."

Renes Points

Yes! And THIS is why the mothership is going to get away with these changes.

Oh and not totally freaking out that, even if you do not fly it, that a 830,000 point award can even be found - TO ANYWHERE!

Robbyb03

I was being sarcastic, but in this day and age with the people being able to book 1M+ Skymile trips, 235K isn't bad for twenty hours (each way) on Delta metal in First Class/Business. Do I wish it was 160K or even 200K to go to Australia like the old reward chart? Absolutely, but that's never going to happen again until the worldwide economy takes a dive and airlines start begging for more flyers and government bailouts again. There are some absolute deals at the moment with Delta (Example: ATL to EYW for 10K RT). It could always be a lot worse if Delta eliminated the Skymiles program and these hundreds of thousands of Skymiles or Skypesos or Skyrubles I have disappeared...