davetravels

I'd hafto say that, this could at least be bearable for me, if, they'd offer 2 GUCs as a PM Choice Benefit.

n7371f

Folks, Delta just wants to have as few comp upgrades as possible. That's what this is all about. Call it the Hauenstein factor.

bzn

LOL. That’ll be the day...

Not like the GUCs are useable given the lack of availability or unless you’re willing to fly standby and risk coach on long haul. Not worth it.

n7371f

Haha you think! Your upgrade percentages won't improve. Just watch. Delta will continue to further push paid F and part of their thinking is a percentage of displaced DM's will end up paying with cash or miles for many more upgrades going forward vs hoping for upgrade today.

n7371f

Anyone feel free to chime in...what's the best non-DL AMEX card for travel rewards? I am going to cancel my DL affiliated cards but have huge value in my AMEX relationship.

355F1

I wonder if its me they are trying to get rid of....

davetravels

To date, I have ALWAYS been able to confirm GUC UGs in advance. Being that all of my travel is for pleasure, I'm usually EXTREMELY flexible.

You and me, both!

Where can we meet to discuss?

jamesteroh

If you have a lot of travel charges the Chase Saphire reserve is great. They used to have a 100K point sign up bonus if you charged $4K in I believe the first three months but I think it's down to only 50K points and a point is worth 1.5 cents in travel if you book on the chase portal.

The annual fee if $450 but you get a $300 credit for travel charges so it comes out to $150 net. It's only 1 point per regular purchase but restaurants and travel get 3 points/$ so that's 4.5 cents for every dollar for travel and the travel category is very generous, things like parking and uber rides count as travel.

You also get the GE or Precheck fee reimbursed and priority pass and pretty generous rental car protection. After I meet my $220K spend on my delta cards those go in a drawer till January 1 and my csr card gets used for Delta purchases.

I wonder if chase will bring back the 100K signup bonus and Chase and Citi will be offering generous signup bonuses targeted to Delta customers with this new announcement.

The other nice thing is Visa is accepted at a LOT more places than Am Ex

indufan

BUT, the people in my department (about 18 DMs) are up in arms on this despite the fact that every single one of them make enough MQDs. I am still trying to convince them that this is a good thing. Some of them are a little slow to comprehend this.

jamesteroh

Exactly, I posted earlier about the husband of someone in my office who will drop to PM in 19 due to this change and he is planning on buying FC seats on long hauls now which will take one seat out of the upgrade inventory on those flights.

If I decide to drop to PM in 19 I'll be doing the same thing. I have a ton of RDM's and will just start using those to do PWM for the FC price difference or if there are upgradeable seats on long hauls for 12,500 miles to upgrade I'll just burn my RDM's that way. I'm sure a lot of people dropping to PM have RDM's to burn and will just start buying first class.

Since I have plenty of rollover MQMs and won't have to worry about MQM's anymore if I drop to PM (and who knows if/when Delta will eliminate or limit rollover) I may as well start burning my RDM's on award travel as well and a lot of times on long hauls first isn't much more than coach milewise.

Also with the premium economy product coming out on some international planes the hub captives will see less upgrades on domestic because the people buying those tickets will be sitting up front on the domestic connection.

I really don't care about the short haul trips if I am in coach

GrayAnderson

I'm actually going to flip around and take an opposite tack here: Why doesn't DL just bin MQMs entirely and set de facto MQD thresholds, and then perhaps waive part of the requirement with CC spend?

...oh, sorry, that would be the old VX program, which made sense to me.

(TBH the MQM/MQD tangle is part of why I've taken to outsourcing my earnings to other carriers...I've got a preferred analogue carrier for each of the US carriers, and for the most part they have more suitable international networks for my purposes.)

bzn

Perhaps people are upset because they are paying (minimally) $195 a year for the “privilege” of carrying a credit card, and one of those benefits is the medallion qualification waiver, now unattainable. This change undercuts that and calls for a review of what credit cards one does carry.

And for the sake of precision: Delta isn’t after the highest loyalty flyers. They are after the highest revenue flyers. They don’t care much about loyalty. And they certainly aren’t going to magically sweeten PM benefits in years to come. Nor are they going to make DM “even more lucrative”? That would imply that it is so now 😂

RealHJ

^ That is the right approach. Less stress, better travel experience, money saved, and a more interesting and enjoyable travel experience (different airlines, service levels, airports). Hopefully many find this change to be equally liberating for them. I've never regretted for a second doing what you did also back several years ago.

bzn

Thats awesome about the GUCs, but nearly opposite of my experience. Five years ago, I could routinely clear at time of booking. Starting about two years ago, I wouldn’t clear until weeks or sometimes hours before a flight. Now I’m lucky to find an itinerary that only has time-of-booking UGs on domestic segs, which you obviously don’t want to book without blowing your whole cert. My routes are 100% TPACs.

RealHJ

Personally I'd just go with a straight 3% or at least 2.5% cash back card (on all purchases; dealing with category bonuses IMO is not worth the hassle...may be for someone like the bloggers it is, but not for most). It's rare for any travel-specific program (airline, hotel) miles, points or what not to exceed 3cpm value. That way you are not tied to any airline or hotel, there are no blackout dates, no constantly decreasing value of the awards, etc., but if you prefer you can still use the cash-back as travel purchases offset - while being completely liberated to use it for whatever you want.

Edit: sorry, I missed it that you want it to be an AmEx (but why? AmEx has some of the worst service, and is not accepted at many US businesses and most int'l ones). For an AmEx card, well just get the straight up Platinum AmEx. Priority Pass lounge access, Uber credits, airline fee credits, etc. - if you use it all, you can almost justify the annual fee. Just the rewards in terms of MR are subpar, but, well, that is the best that you can get with AmEx, unless you go with the SPG AmEx that has the most valuable (transferable to almost any major airline) rewards, but the fate of the SPG program in 2018 and beyond if uncertain still.