Delta 360 - Consolidated Thread
Feb 4, 2019, 2:43 pm
#137
Join Date: Feb 2019
Posts: 5
I finally got 360 this year after putting up 421k MQMs in 2018 (~180k were roll over), 67 MQS, and ~$97k spend mostly out of DTW. I didn't get it last year when I had almost the same flight stats (miles and segments) but spend was "only" about $74k.
Feb 4, 2019, 4:48 pm
#138
Suspended
Join Date: Jun 2005
Programs: Delta Diamond, Marriott Ambassador & Lifetime Titanium, Hertz President's Circle, United Silver
Posts: 6,334
Why are you spending $97,000 on Delta? That's crazy. You could hold top-tier status in at least two airlines.
Feb 4, 2019, 7:49 pm
#139
Join Date: Sep 2016
Location: HSV
Programs: Bellevue Lifetime Premiere Mega Elite Supreme
Posts: 1,509
Feb 5, 2019, 9:07 am
#140
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New York
Programs: SPG LT Gold, DL PM 1MM
Posts: 692
Also some purser told me there are only about 700 DM360 members, so there is some exclusivity to it.
Feb 5, 2019, 9:29 am
#141
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 23,021
It is a special desk of about 20 people. Whatever delta number I call to it gets routed automatically to that desk, which has been amazing at picking up within 30 seconds, and actually helping me.
Also some purser told me there are only about 700 DM360 members, so there is some exclusivity to it.
Also some purser told me there are only about 700 DM360 members, so there is some exclusivity to it.
Feb 5, 2019, 9:50 am
#142
Join Date: Feb 2017
Programs: DL DM, UA Gold, Alaska MVP, Bonvoy (lol) Ambassador
Posts: 2,994
It is a special desk of about 20 people. Whatever delta number I call to it gets routed automatically to that desk, which has been amazing at picking up within 30 seconds, and actually helping me.
Also some purser told me there are only about 700 DM360 members, so there is some exclusivity to it.
Also some purser told me there are only about 700 DM360 members, so there is some exclusivity to it.
There's almost certainly more than 700 people that are in 360 simply because they control travel budgets and not because of their flying habits.
That said, from what I see it seems D360 is the hardest program to get into (the hard way at least - through flying). UA GS is the easiest*, then CK, and then 360. Ironic since UA GS actually has some really good benefits (whereas 360 is mostly just white-glove service).
*I know people who got GS with only about $50K spend flying out of a UA hub - which is pretty easy to do (I hit over $40K MQD with Delta last year flying pretty much only domestic economy - and I wasn't even exclusive to Delta).
Feb 5, 2019, 10:04 am
#143
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New York
Programs: SPG LT Gold, DL PM 1MM
Posts: 692
That said, ~12k 360s would mean approx 1 out of every ~200 pax is a 360, more than I would have imagined. Something I'll ask a couple of FAs to see how frequently they get a 360 on board on a long haul flight of 200 pax - starting tonight haha
(Assuming at 180mln pax / year you get to ~500k pax per day. Avg. # of segments/day 1-2; so 250-500k unique pax; avg. DM360 doing 75 segments/year gets you to 2465 DM 360 segments per day)
Feb 5, 2019, 10:10 am
#144
Join Date: Feb 2017
Programs: DL DM, UA Gold, Alaska MVP, Bonvoy (lol) Ambassador
Posts: 2,994
Yeah won't debate you on it, 700 sounds far too low when I'm thinking of it.
That said, ~12k 360s would mean approx 1 out of every ~200 pax is a 360, more than I would have imagined. Something I'll ask a couple of FAs to see how frequently they get a 360 on board on a long haul flight of 200 pax - starting tonight haha
(Assuming at 180mln pax / year you get to ~500k pax per day. Avg. # of segments/day 1-2; so 250-500k unique pax; avg. DM360 doing 75 segments/year gets you to 2465 DM 360 segments per day)
That said, ~12k 360s would mean approx 1 out of every ~200 pax is a 360, more than I would have imagined. Something I'll ask a couple of FAs to see how frequently they get a 360 on board on a long haul flight of 200 pax - starting tonight haha
(Assuming at 180mln pax / year you get to ~500k pax per day. Avg. # of segments/day 1-2; so 250-500k unique pax; avg. DM360 doing 75 segments/year gets you to 2465 DM 360 segments per day)
It really depends on the routes. Fly a TATL to a major city on a Sunday night and you'll see a bunch of them.
Feb 5, 2019, 10:27 am
#146
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New York
Programs: SPG LT Gold, DL PM 1MM
Posts: 692
Maybe my # of segments for 360s is off, probably 75 segments is high. Or maybe the number is in the 7-10k range. Anyways. Good to get that 700 out of my head.
Feb 5, 2019, 10:37 am
#148
Suspended
Join Date: Jun 2005
Programs: Delta Diamond, Marriott Ambassador & Lifetime Titanium, Hertz President's Circle, United Silver
Posts: 6,334
It is a special desk of about 20 people. Whatever delta number I call to it gets routed automatically to that desk, which has been amazing at picking up within 30 seconds, and actually helping me.
Also some purser told me there are only about 700 DM360 members, so there is some exclusivity to it.
Also some purser told me there are only about 700 DM360 members, so there is some exclusivity to it.
Most flight attendants, pursers included, don't even know what's required to get diamond status. Most of who us who fly and have diamond spend more time on Delta planes than many or most flight attendants, especially crew with the seniority to only work super long-haul flights. I've met some senior crew that take the entire summer off and then spend the rest of the year only flying between Detroit and Paris, London, Tokyo, and China.
Feb 5, 2019, 10:52 am
#149
Join Date: Feb 2017
Programs: DL DM, UA Gold, Alaska MVP, Bonvoy (lol) Ambassador
Posts: 2,994
Plenty of $10K round trips out of Delta hubs to close locations like LHR that are on I/C/D fares - which means you're only getting a 50% MQM bonus. If you book 8 of those flights a year, you'll be sitting at $80K MQD but only 100K MQM. Even out of ATL, that sort of person would get 360. While fares are a bit cheaper ex-NYC, same situation there - your $9000 ticket to LHR will net you <10K MQMs.
Obviously this ignores corporate discounts and the like, but I know plenty of people who book these $8K+ fares with regularity.
Point is, the number is definitely > 700. One can argue about whether it's 3,000 or 7,000, but 700 is an unrealistically low number. I bet the number of comped 360s (from corporate spend control) is over 1000 alone.
Feb 5, 2019, 11:22 am
#150
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Minneapolis: DL DM charter 2.3MM
Programs: A3*Gold, SPG Plat, HyattDiamond, MarriottPP, LHW exAccess, ICI, Raffles Amb, NW PE MM, TWA Gold MM
Posts: 100,369
It is a special desk of about 20 people. Whatever delta number I call to it gets routed automatically to that desk, which has been amazing at picking up within 30 seconds, and actually helping me.
Also some purser told me there are only about 700 DM360 members, so there is some exclusivity to it.
Also some purser told me there are only about 700 DM360 members, so there is some exclusivity to it.
Here's my reaction to this number: If we guess that the average spend is $100K, 700 360s would contribute $70,000,000 to revenue. If there are 20 FT employees at the call center "desk" to handle 360s and if we guess an average wage and benefits cost of $50,000 per employee, DL is spending about $1,000,000 on call center support, plus the costs of Porsche service, Executive SC memberships (although most would have SC access anyway), annual gifts, extra waivers and favors, etc., maybe $1000 per person per year total or another $700,000, so if we round up a bit, DL is spending an extra $2M to get $70M in revenue (not profit!) from their top customers, above and beyond what they spend on upgrades and award tickets, which would be the same for DMs. The 3% extra cost to DL seems high relative to DL's overall profit rate, but of course this group is highly profitable not only in per person terms but also as a percentage of their spend.
Another way to think about this is to compare it to some of the special top tier hotel programs. It's been mentioned in the Starriott forum that previously a (full time) SPG Ambassador was responsible for slightly under a hundred clients but now with the merger, the number has more than doubled. Hyatt Globs get the My Hyatt Concierge benefit, where lots of these are part time work at home employees, but the number of Globs per full time concierge seems to be somewhat over a hundred. Yet DL is doing one employee per 35 360s, which is a very high ratio. Also if we're doing a comparison to hotel programs, the previous Marriott PP level (when it was unpublished) required that one be in the top 2-3% for several years, although the criteria weren't known and there was always (in my mind anyway) ambiguity about whether this was calculated as top percentage of all program participants, all elites or all Plats (top published tier). [When DL started DM, it was supposedly 2% of all elites, roughly 40,000 the first year, when DL had 80M FFers and 2M elites.]
Another way to think about this is to compare it to some of the special top tier hotel programs. It's been mentioned in the Starriott forum that previously a (full time) SPG Ambassador was responsible for slightly under a hundred clients but now with the merger, the number has more than doubled. Hyatt Globs get the My Hyatt Concierge benefit, where lots of these are part time work at home employees, but the number of Globs per full time concierge seems to be somewhat over a hundred. Yet DL is doing one employee per 35 360s, which is a very high ratio. Also if we're doing a comparison to hotel programs, the previous Marriott PP level (when it was unpublished) required that one be in the top 2-3% for several years, although the criteria weren't known and there was always (in my mind anyway) ambiguity about whether this was calculated as top percentage of all program participants, all elites or all Plats (top published tier). [When DL started DM, it was supposedly 2% of all elites, roughly 40,000 the first year, when DL had 80M FFers and 2M elites.]