pbiflyer

Tons of 25k domestic? Not from South Florida. More like 50-60k coach.
Summer to Europe? Not on DL metal for less than 100k coach.
Basically, they have doubled prices.

yohanson

In this day and age Delta is handing out far fewer Skypesos. You would think the redemption levels would drop, not increase. Delta hates its frequent fliers.

pbarnette

I'm earning more miles per dollar spent today than I used to.

kettle1

The NYT is a rag paper. I am doing better with "Sky Pesos" now than before. Redemption is also better for myself and family. What a load of CRAP! Unreal.

Robbyb03

I'm earning more miles now than I did last year and the year before when I'm buying airline tickets and with the way AMEX and Delta Skymiles Shopping hands out "Skypesos," I'm surprised the devaluation isn't worse. Hell, if you signed up for the Gold and Platinum AMEX cards recently, you would've received 110K Skymiles with only $3K in spending plus $150 off a Delta flight from buying gift cards. Then you combine that with an accelarated Skymiles earning rate through the Delta portal, (example: FTD was 38 miles to the dollar) and you could easily be over 200K Skymiles and have $150 in Delta credits from credit card signup bonuses.

GUWonder

Most SkyMiles customers are now earning fewer miles per mile flown on Delta planes than was the case in 2014. This was and remains DL management's objective.

I expected that DL management and DL management apologists would be taking issue with the NYT article critical of DL SkyMiles, and I'm sure I won't be disappointed with the response blaming anyone or everyone but Delta Air Lines for this duly critical coverage of SkyMiles.

DesertNomad

Earning has seriously decreased for me but this year I was able to get RT RNO-PRG for 67,000 miles and one way RNO-ICN for 35,000 miles. I am flying DL to Europe next month (paid in cash), but expect to fly Star Alliance carriers more and more in the future.

Kevin Liu

What I really don't understand is how can DL keep competing with ME3 if they keep devaluating their reward program. My general impression is ME3 offers comparable reward program as we used to have and generally have better product for all the cabinet. While DL is making some improvement, I don't think what DL offering is actually comparable to ME3 yet. With the further devaluating the reward program ........ I'm not really following the logic in terms the competition point of view (perhaps too many DL customer already ?)

I check the reward ticket in Jun 2016 and it looks like for the business (O) fare each mile used to worth ~4 cent this year but it will drop down to ~3 cent next year. Although DM people may earn more miles this year, majority of people earn a lot less miles this year. I don't even know why I sign up the DL Gold credit card this year .....

Jaimito Cartero

Pretty freaking good? 160k RT is supposed to be low, so you don't mind paying 50% extra? You are DL's ideal customer.

seanp7

That's exactly what I look for too. Appalling. I'm glad I'm crediting to UA. Yes, domestic is ghastly, but at least I can get to Europe in a premium cabin easily and (relatively) cheaply.

I really enjoyed the NYT article.

Traveller

When someone posts a large picture that requires you to scroll right and left to read the remaining posts on that page, is there anyway to read it w/o scrolling? Or does the OP have to resize the picture for easiest viewing? Thanks!

BusTrav8yrs

DL is conditioning flyers to lower their expectations. Just like with FCM, people are paying $100+ more per flight to get free SDC and think it's a great deal when in reality they are now paying for a benefit they use to get.

I am thankful I took advantage of 2 J tickets JFK-SYD next Feb at 160K each earlier this year.

Revenue based redemption is coming, soon.

kss5555

This article as others have pointed out is way over the top. Anyways for comparison. I redeemed 10k miles for FLL-DTW and got upgrade at window. Also have no issues redeeming 25k awards for first to Alaska and 40k awards for first class to Hawaii. Program works for me.

TheBOSman

17% rebate on $75,000 worth of airfare. And remember, there's a cap on mileage awarded on tickets, so you can't count money spent over ~$6818 per ticket as a DM as it won't earn any miles. The rebate goes down if you're spending over $6818 per ticket.

If you're spending $75,000 of your own money on airfare, you probably don't try too hard to figure out what your miles are worth. $75,000 buys you at least 4 QF F round trips BOS-SYD at ~$16k each, and QF F is better than DL J by a wide margin. And it leaves you at least $10,000 left over to spend 10-15 days in the Park Hyatt Sydney on top of it.

And, just to note, RT BOS-SYD on DL is around $10,000 on most dates, and involves either a double connection, or a 36 minute connection at LAX on the way down and a 70 minute connection on the return at LAX including immigration and customs. Those have IRROPS written ALL over them.

If you're spending $75,000 of OPM, on at least 11 different trips (assuming each cost the maximum possible ~$6818), your company most likely has a contract with DL or another carrier, and you're flying where you're told, when you're told, and how you're told (although quite nicely at those prices at least). If your company switches from DL to UA, because UA offers a better discount than DL, you're going to UA.

Simply, there is almost no scenario where one spends $75,000 on airfare with the hope to get a theoretical 17% rebate on the miles spent. Many other factors are far, far more important at that point. The 830,000 mile post is an egregious example of finding the evidence that proves one's hypothesis, but this 17% rebate example is no better and is just as laughable.

Put more simply, there's a reason FF program was ranked 19th on most important factors when choosing an airline in a recent poll. For better or worse, most people don't care about the FF program, they're all crap now anyway for the average person.

LETTERBOY

DL doesn't need a good FF program to make money, clearly. And the number of customers who will choose one of the ME3 over DL based on the FF programs isn't enough to matter to DL in making decisions on changes to SkyMiles.