Blistering NYT piece on SkyMiles: In DL’s FF Magic Trick, Not Just Rabbits Disappear
 

Blistering NYT piece on SkyMiles: In Delta’s Frequent-Flier Magic Trick, Not Just Rabbits Disappear

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/yo...disappear.html

Also links to FT post on latest changes.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...uncements.html

But who cares right? Delta people have told me flat out they will just park jets and keep flying full if folks stop flying them over $kyRubles changes. :td:

the article is way over the topic and exaggerates to the point I stopped reading it at the 830,000 mile redemption to Australia comment.

A quick check of LAX to SYD came up with multiple close in dates in business class at 255,000 miles. While still high, nowhere near 830,000 miles. Until that point, it had me nodding my head in agreement however, the author would have been better off leaving that part out or tell a more realistic story.

In fact for September, I have quite easily found tickets to SYD in BE for 160,000 miles. As hard as I try, I can't seem to find any for that 830,000.

As for the rest of the article, yawn....

Try after 1JUNE16 devaluations :rolleyes:

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea....han-i-thought/

http://i0.wp.com/viewfromthewing.boa...lax1660000.jpg

congratulations on finding 2 tickets for whatever amount it is you found them for. I guess if you look hard enough you will find what you are looking for, but the same is true for low level BE awards. using dates after June 1st, 2016, I am seeing tons and tons of availability in BE to SYD for 160,000 miles to 255,000 miles. It really didn't take much looking either. A simple multi date award search worked just fine for me.

But hey, if you have an axe to grind against DL, then good for you. The program works a lot better then it did and I could easily write a sparkling article in regards to that.

La la la la la la. Are your fingers in your ears while you say that?

DL does charge some ridiculous mileage amounts. This has been seen again and again. And since they no longer publish award charts, how should a normal person know what is reasonable or not?

DL certainly deserves the coverage.

my fingers are on the keyboard when I type that and it clearly shows me the mileage amounts of 160K and 255K for plenty of dates after June 1st. I call it as I see it, not as someone else, a total stranger, calls it in some biased, axe to grind article.

If I found dates for 830,000 miles like deltapoints apparently has, then great, I would acknowledge that but as hard as I try, I have yet to find the elusive 830,000 mile redemption award in J. But let me keep looking..la la la la la la

That's from australia, not to australia (which is what the article claimed). Yes, it makes a difference.

IMHO, one of the biggest gripes I and many others have is the lack of transparency because they have removed the award charts. That to me is totally unacceptable. :td:

Years ago there was a great advertising campaign in NYC from Sy Syms a clothing retailer which said:

"An educated consumer is our best customer"!

I'm glad that I am not the only one here who remembers Sy Syms. :)

The VA Ave equivalent would be... "Our second best customer is a rube who will believe anything that we tell him. Our best customer is one who will provide cover for us every time we make a customer-hostile change."

I wholeheartedly agree with you that the lack of transparency (or, rather, the removal of transparency) makes the continuing benefit gutting all the more galling.

Delta likes their consumers dumb and spending.

At least the charts are here on FT :)^

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...ard-chart.html

while that may be the case this whole debate (the removal of the awards chart) has up until this point proven to be a non issue. There are still plenty of 25K seats to be had from the east coast to the west and plenty of 125K BE seats to Europe. There are plenty of other examples but when someone floats the suggestion that Delta only has 830,000 mile seats to Sydney, it blows your mind to think what this person is doing to come up with that amount. I think a lot of people here right off the bat have that 'Glass is Half Full' mentality. Anything Delta says is automatically perceived as negative. Well, just look around the award chart and you will find plenty of great deals.

People complained when Delta would make changes and not tell anyone. Now, Delta informs us of up and coming changes and sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the bellyaching begins in earnest. All one has to do is look at the improvements in the award chart, it makes it real easy to find low awards at fairly reasonable levels.

Search for SYD-LAX round trips non-stop in BE after June 1 next year. Or CDG-ATL. Or FCO-ATL. Or FRA-DTW. Do a flexible date search and look at the carnage.

Also, you have the managing director of the SkyMiles program directly quoted as saying: “The 25,000-mile round-trip award fare that historically has been a standard for the airlines, I think you’re going to see that completely change.”

The lack of transparency speaks volumes. Also how much time should a customer spend looking for award redemptions? Do you disagree that a visible award chart will save everyone some time?

My travel does not originate from outside the US nor does it for most people that use skymiles. So, when folks make an example, like when they say SYD is 830,000 miles, they aren't making a very fair example of the skymiles program, in fact, its very biased. If I were going to do that, maybe I would make it clear that that amount is ex SYD but if you originate travels from the states to SYD that redemption levels are actually very good. Its simply an unfair example of how good the skymiles program can actually work for most people.

From a macro level, I would imagine far less Delta customers will be able to accumulate enough miles in a reasonable amount of time for meaningful award tickets after June 2016. (As the article says no one cares about spending the rare 25k miles to El Paso at 6:00am..)

Do you think these changes by Delta, and possibly similar changes by other airlines, will hurt overall tourism to some locations? Traditionally Joe American frequent flier who's company pays for his tickets could fly enough to send he and his wife, and maybe kids, in business or coach to Europe and Asia using miles for a nice vacation every couple years. I don't see this happening and that same person cannot afford to pay cash for those tickets.

Will international tourism suffer? Honeymoons to Paris etc? I would imagine lots of trips to Caribbean and Hawaii are from award tickets..