Dalewood

If I fly next year as I did this year, I could make DM.

355F1

Oh hell yes. The EQDs for VS PE are all 30% of miles flown (cheapest fare up from 25%).


LAX-LHR-JNB MRs now net $6,600 EQDs instead of $5,500!

wooHooooo!!!!

These only cost about $1421 all throughout the year!

Plus the old-school accumulation of RDMs!

355F1

Holy crap!

i don’t think they’ve ever posted this when they change the earning structures:


from the VS page:



In cases where these changes result in a loss of redeemable miles for tickets booked prior to 10/26/17 and flown after 1/1/18, customers may request mileage credit through the Mileage Request Form after all travel on a given ticket is completed.

C W

While I’m happy to see those pointing out fare classes where this isn’t an overall devaluation, I think the trend is troubling.

Delta is clearly shifting earning from discount fare classes to premium classes. While this may benefit people who are lucky enough to fly premium cabins consistently on OPM or are wealthy enough to afford it themselves, the shift towards purely revenue based status is clear.

Incoherent1

I'm confused by this. I thought with the new joint venture that we'd see Korean move up to a Group 1-3 airline and at least get some MQMs when flying KE metal...

Is this because the joint venture is pending some kind of regulatory approval, or is this where we should expect KE to remain for the foreseeable future?

Sad and funny, considering all those DL pre-flight videos about "Our amazing partners" that they're still [currently] gutting any incentive to fly on KE as an Elite.

SEA-Flyer

Wish the KE earnings would get to Group 1. Maybe someday (have two flights with them in the next week, but I’m sure nothing will happen prior to then).

The MQD changes for partner flights on AF/KL is a big improvement. Those had been really crappy, now will come much closer to reflecting actual ticket price.

AdamNP

Wow. I've been waiting on buying a cheap MU J fare because I was paranoid that Delta would kill the MQD earnings on it... they actually were raised slightly (I was 35%, now %40). JFK-PVG-SIN now earns 7800EQD for $2317 spend, or more than half of what is needed for Diamond.

My other options are PE on AF, which got a very nice boost too, from 20% to 30%EQD. There are now options here for more than 4x EQD per dollar spent.

On the bad side, from a quick look, SV EQD earnings got cut nearly in half, so much for those cheap J mileage runs being a good EQD earner.

C W

I don't think that they have any reason to change KE until the joint venture actually starts. Despite both being in SkyTeam, they compete on some routes and as there is no revenue sharing yet, Delta wants its customers to keep flying Delta.

Incoherent1

I didn't know it hadn't started yet -- that explains it. Do we know when the joint venture starts or is that still TBD?

I'm SIN-based and frequently fly to California, so better SkyTeam options via ICN would be awesome. Right now, my only option is SIN-NRT-SEA-California or SIN-ICN-SEA-California. Either way, no KE-metal across the Pacific is allowed for MQM/MQD credit, so I'm stuck going through Seattle currently.

MSPeconomist

I assume that using the ICN-DTW flight (currently 747, but not for much longer.....) isn't a legal routing? If it's allowed, it would add quite a few MQMs.

flyerCO

Don't purchase on delta.com or via Delta reservations. Marketing carrier doesn't have anything to do with ticket stock. As long as one airline is willing to sell anothers fare it'll be issued on the selling airlines stock. Ie AF can sell a ticket with wholly DL coded flights/fare. DL if it wanted to could sell an 100% UA flight fare, issued on DL stock.

SEA-Flyer

I understand that and don’t expect much to change until the JV is signed. Frustrating though, that it impacts mileage earning on routes where Delta doesn’t compete (and never will) such as the ICN-Europe I am flying next week.

taxicabnumber

Additionally, don't buy via third-party travel agency if your billing address is in North America. I've got a few reservations coming up that are entirely AF/KL marketed and operated, but on 006 stock because I bought them via AmexTravel (even though I'm now London-based I just moved from the US so all of my CCs etc are still US cards). I've just had a major (6 hour) schedule change on one such reservation (a $1400, inclusive of taxes, Z fare GVA-SFO round trip) so I'm trying to find a way to get things reissued on 057 stock, especially with the new changes -- the difference in miles is huge...

Hollandair

I only know that if you are not DL-ticketed it has consequences for your Domestic upgrade priority. I was number 32 on 737 MSP-LAs on a saturday afternoon. Unless there were 31 Diamonds on the list its strange. Also, you dont get upgraded to Delta comfort plus until check-in.

Dont know if this is the law, just saying it happened to me twice on two seperate 074 tickets.

bgriff

One huge change that is likely positive for many people: It appears that the KLM table does away with the "earn RDMs like it's a 006 ticket if flying TATL" rule after January 1.

Possible they're just being sloppy and the new post-Jan 1 chart only shows the "doesn't touch the US chart" and they will keep something similar to the existing TATL chart after Jan 1, but that's definitely not what the site says right now.

Another interesting change is that all AM business class fares now earn 200% MQMs, which is so generous it makes me wonder if it's a typo. There are periodically some reasonably good MQM run fares on AM from North America to EZE in particular, and those would become even more lucrative next year. (There is a bit of uncertainty as to how those fares credit to SkyMiles because they're technically Y-Up fares based on an underlying coach fare, but while there are some conflicting messages out there, I think they earn based on their marketed business class fare code.)