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Originally Posted by ijgordon
(Post 30505795)
That's exactly what happened with cash BE fares. "Oh, it'll just be on flights where we compete with Spirit/Frontier/etc. so we can match their headline fares". Now it's everywhere. :td:
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Originally Posted by WWads
(Post 30505311)
This is the final straw, I'm through as a DL elite if this is the case. DL can get bent. I'll just suck it up and start taking nonstops ex-DCA on AA. At least that airline is honest and open about how they screw over their customers, and with the new concourse, the biggest issue with AA at DCA (35X) will be gone.
Seriously these threats are useless. You will storm off to AA (and no we don't care) and someone on AA will storm off to Delta. Different passengers, same revenue. Delta won't care. (And yes, they will all do EXACTLY the same thing LOL!) |
Originally Posted by davetravels
(Post 30505862)
Hmmmmm. I just checked, and you're absolutely RIGHT! I never bought a BE ticket before, so, guess I had it in my head that it was similar to RyanAir and EasyJet where EVERYTHING costs extra! :)
So, I guess the main difference for DMs & PMs would be whether or not the BE Award Tix are redepositable or not. I can't imaging ANY PM or DM couldn't live for a one hour flight without an UG. I don't think so! |
Originally Posted by divrdrew
(Post 30504840)
The Skymiles program is now officially worthless!
Originally Posted by WWads
(Post 30505311)
This is the final straw, I'm through as a DL elite if this is the case.
Originally Posted by jdrtravel
(Post 30505265)
This is terrible.
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Originally Posted by davetravels
(Post 30505862)
So, I guess the main difference for DMs & PMs would be whether or not the BE Award Tix are redepositable or not. I can't imaging ANY PM or DM couldn't live for a one hour flight without an UG.
It's not the UG issue that makes the tickets so bad. The bigger issues are: -you can't select a seat until check in, so you are probably in a middle seat -You can't make any changes to the ticket at all, so no SDC. - I would not expect the redeposit benefit to extend to BE award tickets, because they can't be redeposited. standard tickets can, with a fee. In this case, my guess is that DL will say that there is no fee to be waived because the option just does not exist. |
Originally Posted by Orange County Commuter
(Post 30505990)
Really???? They go into withdrawals if they don't get their pre-flight beverage and you expect them to live without knowing that they get their preferred seat and won't be able to come on here and scream about how they were cheated out of an upgrade????
I don't think so! I never think in terms of PDBs. Certainly seats are important to just about anyone, but, I sure wouldn't pay any extra, in cash or miles for a seat assignment or a CHANCE at an upgrade on an hour flight! |
Originally Posted by jdrtravel
(Post 30506027)
It's not the UG issue that makes the tickets so bad. The bigger issues are:
-you can't select a seat until check in, so you are probably in a middle seat -You can't make any changes to the ticket at all, so no SDC. - I would not expect the redeposit benefit to extend to BE award tickets, because they can't be redeposited. standard tickets can, with a fee. In this case, my guess is that DL will say that there is no fee to be waived because the option just does not exist. |
Originally Posted by jdrtravel
(Post 30506027)
It's not the UG issue that makes the tickets so bad. The bigger issues are:
-you can't select a seat until check in, so you are probably in a middle seat -You can't make any changes to the ticket at all, so no SDC. - I would not expect the redeposit benefit to extend to BE award tickets, because they can't be redeposited. standard tickets can, with a fee. In this case, my guess is that DL will say that there is no fee to be waived because the option just does not exist. If I ever bought BE* I'd certainly mentally prepare for a middle seat but hope to be pleasantly surprised. *Probably only on a short haul regional jet where the odds are better and/or the penalty less, depending how you want to look at it :p |
lol. You people . . .
Yes, assuming DL adopts this across the board, it probably does mean that the price of regular Y awards goes up. But do you REALLY think that the price of regular Y awards wouldn't have gone up ANYWAY? At least this provides another option. I've bought BE fares. I was still able to select preferred seats at the 24 hour mark, and got good exit rows. As a lowly Gold flying out of ATL, I never get upgraded anyhow (and I prefer the exit rows to Plus seats). You still get to use the SkyPriority lanes and boarding. Honestly, I couldn't tell any difference between BE and regular Y. This is really only an issue for flyers who like to change their minds or otherwise need flexibility. That's not how I (and lots of other people) plan travel. The overwrought wailing and gnashing of teeth is really kind of amusing to me.:cool: |
Originally Posted by WWads
(Post 30505311)
This is the final straw, I'm through as a DL elite if this is the case. DL can get bent. I'll just suck it up and start taking nonstops ex-DCA on AA. At least that airline is honest and open about how they screw over their customers, and with the new concourse, the biggest issue with AA at DCA (35X) will be gone.
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Originally Posted by hotturnip
(Post 30506191)
lol. You people . . .
Yes, assuming DL adopts this across the board, it probably does mean that the price of regular Y awards goes up. But do you REALLY think that the price of regular Y awards wouldn't have gone up ANYWAY? At least this provides another option. I've bought BE fares. I was still able to select preferred seats at the 24 hour mark, and got good exit rows. As a lowly Gold flying out of ATL, I never get upgraded anyhow (and I prefer the exit rows to Plus seats). You still get to use the SkyPriority lanes and boarding. Honestly, I couldn't tell any difference between BE and regular Y. This is really only an issue for flyers who like to change their minds or otherwise need flexibility. That's not how I (and lots of other people) plan travel. The overwrought wailing and gnashing of teeth is really kind of amusing to me.:cool: |
Originally Posted by Zorak
(Post 30506022)
Imminent death of ~the Internet~ SkyMiles predicted, film at 11
It's a total :rolleyes:-sandwich, sure, but not so drastic that I'm going to storm off or think it will kill the program. |
Originally Posted by hotturnip
(Post 30506191)
The overwrought wailing and gnashing of teeth is really kind of amusing to me.:cool:
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I’m tired; and exhausted.
A part art of me is in complete wonder that they’re being this aggressive during record profit times, yet the big banks are pegging the chances of a recession within the next two years over 75% - I sure as hell won’t forget |
Originally Posted by RFDMinnesota
(Post 30508154)
I’m tired; and exhausted.
A part art of me is in complete wonder that they’re being this aggressive during record profit times, yet the big banks are pegging the chances of a recession within the next two years over 75% - I sure as hell won’t forget The airlines will of course be negatively impacted by a recession, but the real reason for record profitability is record high levels of industry concentration (i.e., lack of competition). For the most part, the major airlines all work together in tacit collusion (the legal kind, unfortunately) to control capacity and ensure high prices. Tacit collusion is hard with 10 major players, but pretty easy with only 3-4. There would be an adjustment period but the airlines would all shrink ASM if market demand fell to keep prices (and, therefore profitability) high. Airlines with higher fixed costs (e.g., airframe depreciation) would suffer more but I think at least the legacies have the discipline to weather the storm (which is unfortunate since it hurts consumers). |
Originally Posted by Austin787
(Post 30506213)
Good luck arriving on time, given AA's horrible operations lately. Hope you enjoy AA's 737 MAX. And what will you do if/when AA starts basic economy awards? Probably only a matter of time since AA loves to copy Delta.
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And the SkyMiles grinch delivers more Christmas joy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Delta will be the innovator when it comes to minimizing (or in MBA speak, normalizing) value customers receive from its loyalty program. UA and AA will follow. There will be exceptions over time, but this trend has been apparent for the better part of this decade. If you’re flying DL for any reason other than its price and product, prepare to take the first blows. The end state will be fare-based award redemption. We’re already practically there in all but the name. Award fares are filed with fare basis codes that map to revenue booking class codes. We’ve seen advance purchase requirements, and one-ways costing more than round trips. Delta has effectively achieved fare-based redemption on its own metal without calling it that. Boiling the frog slowly. Just like with cash BE fares, the result of this latest change will not be lower mileage award tickets for all, but rather extracting that many more miles from a subset of passengers who they can squeeze for it. |
Originally Posted by WWads
(Post 30509235)
Yeah but AA has a lot of nonstops. <snip>
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Originally Posted by hotturnip
(Post 30506191)
lol. You people . . .
Yes, assuming DL adopts this across the board, it probably does mean that the price of regular Y awards goes up. But do you REALLY think that the price of regular Y awards wouldn't have gone up ANYWAY? At least this provides another option. I've bought BE fares. I was still able to select preferred seats at the 24 hour mark, and got good exit rows. As a lowly Gold flying out of ATL, I never get upgraded anyhow (and I prefer the exit rows to Plus seats). You still get to use the SkyPriority lanes and boarding. Honestly, I couldn't tell any difference between BE and regular Y. This is really only an issue for flyers who like to change their minds or otherwise need flexibility. That's not how I (and lots of other people) plan travel. The overwrought wailing and gnashing of teeth is really kind of amusing to me.:cool: |
I've been elite on a couple of airlines. the only reason the grass is greener is different manure!
And I decided a few years ago to base my travel on price and time not miles. Since I live in ATL that generally does mean Delta since taking longer to get somewhere just to rack up airline points seems unreasonable to me, but YMMV |
Originally Posted by Orange County Commuter
(Post 30509356)
the only reason the grass is greener is different manure!
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If I'm being honest, if it wasn't for the SDC benefit, Delta could probably take Skymiles out back and shoot it and I'd barely notice.
I think the biggest complaints I have at this point are (1) they don't just make the peg between SkyPesos and ticket price explicit and insist on being "sneaky" about it while fooling nobody about the end goal and (2) I would either like the peg to be a bit over $0.01; a bonus for paid First bookings (a la Southwest giving more points for Business Select); OR I'd like to see the elite earning bonuses bumped up a bit. |
DL is giving us (us being the ENTIRE flying public) what we want. We want the cheapest possible seat but will argue and complain about bag fees, change fees, cancellation fees, etc. we (again not necessarily this forum but the traveling public) asked for the cheapest ticket and this is what we got. If people were not buying these E fares then DL would have gotten rid of the option a long time ago. |
Originally Posted by vincentharris
(Post 30516812)
DL is giving us (us being the ENTIRE flying public) what we want. We want the cheapest possible seat but will argue and complain about bag fees, change fees, cancellation fees, etc. we (again not necessarily this forum but the traveling public) asked for the cheapest ticket and this is what we got. If people were not buying these E fares then DL would have gotten rid of the option a long time ago. Hmmmm. Only partial truth here. I don't think the entire flying public wanted a oligopoly in which much of these customer unfriendly changes can happen due to lack of competition. |
I also think it's fair to say that while the "average passenger" might be blamed for choosing to fly the cheapest fare handy, you cannot really fault them for the merger process or the fact that new entrants into the field often have to go through hell to get started up (witness the saga of the VX startup) or to "break in" to various markets (for an extreme example, DAL's gate limits basically mean that nobody but WN can do anything useful there).
The real shame is that more than a few mergers weren't so much opportunistic expansion mixed with hedge fund shenanigans (as was the case with the AS/VX merger) but were functionally "rescues" of troubled airlines on one side of the equation (e.g. America West taking over US Airways and then American). I suspect that this, in turn, was a function of the history of airline bankruptcies which scared off any external "white knight" bidders. I think 6-8 "large-ish" airlines is probably about the right number (versus four now...WN is probably set to overtake AA in the next year in terms of pax count). |
Originally Posted by GrayAnderson
(Post 30517921)
The real shame is that more than a few mergers weren't so much opportunistic expansion mixed with hedge fund shenanigans (as was the case with the AS/VX merger) but were functionally "rescues" of troubled airlines on one side of the equation (e.g. America West taking over US Airways and then American). I suspect that this, in turn, was a function of the history of airline bankruptcies which scared off any external "white knight" bidders. I think 6-8 "large-ish" airlines is probably about the right number (versus four now...WN is probably set to overtake AA in the next year in terms of pax count).
If you meant United then WN surpassed UA/Continental a while ago. Obviously all of the above is on passengers and not kilometer pax or revenue. All of the airlines are about twice as large as WN on those metrics. |
This is what I was glancing at when I pulled data:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...g-us-airlines/ My guess is that there's a hair being split (domestic market share isn't the same as overall ridership, and WN's international footprint is limited to a hatful of Caribbean/Mexican/Central American destinations). The idea that AA has 30m international passengers is a bit of a stretch to me...but it isn't utterly implausible, just a stretch. |
This basic economy thingy it’s not as fun as I thought it would be. 🤔 |
Originally Posted by GrayAnderson
(Post 30520589)
This is what I was glancing at when I pulled data:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...g-us-airlines/ My guess is that there's a hair being split (domestic market share isn't the same as overall ridership, and WN's international footprint is limited to a hatful of Caribbean/Mexican/Central American destinations). The idea that AA has 30m international passengers is a bit of a stretch to me...but it isn't utterly implausible, just a stretch. Not sure why that is surprising - between the widebody fleet that makes up about 17% of their total fleet size (at twice the passenger count as their average narrowbody) and large "nearshore" international (Canada, Central, and Northern South America) activity using narrowbodies - 30M seems like a perfectly reasonable number. |
I think half of the problem is that I conceptually treat Canada as "domestic" since the fare rules to/from the major airports there tend to be the same as regular domestic rules. Then I think of how thin the TPAC routes are and totally forget how busy TATL routes tend to be (even if they're usually split up between US and foreign carriers).
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Originally Posted by vincentharris
(Post 30516812)
DL is giving us (us being the ENTIRE flying public) what we want. We want the cheapest possible seat but will argue and complain about bag fees, change fees, cancellation fees, etc. we (again not necessarily this forum but the traveling public) asked for the cheapest ticket and this is what we got. If people were not buying these E fares then DL would have gotten rid of the option a long time ago. This is nothing but DL's way of pushing up normal Y and F awards. |
delta miles now book into basic economy on many routes
I simply don't see myself booking delta awards as often just not worth it
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screenshot(s) would add credibility ... |
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f9ef465d31.png
It seems to be limited right now to the lowest level millage fares right now. The uncharge on most routes I saw was between 1,500 and 2,000 miles. However once again as we saw with the cash fares, these new BE fares aren't lowering prices at all and are just replacing the old cheap main cabin fares and essentially creates a medallion tax. I have booked several 5,000 mile MC OW awards for family and friends on MCO-DCA several times in main cabin so I know this to be true from past experience. I'm sure as what happened with cash BE fares that over time the number of miles needed to UG from BE to MC will continue to increase and will be expanded to higher millage fare classes. #KeepDescending :td: |
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Originally Posted by MCO Flyer
(Post 30861298)
It seems to be limited right now to the lowest level millage fares right now. The uncharge on most routes I saw was between 1,500 and 2,000 miles. However once again as we saw with the cash fares, these new BE fares aren't lowering prices at all and are just replacing the old cheap main cabin fares and essentially creates a medallion tax. I have booked several 5,000 mile MC OW awards for family and friends on MCO-DCA several times in main cabin so I know this to be true from past experience. I'm sure as what happened with cash BE fares that over time the number of miles needed to UG from BE to MC will continue to increase and will be expanded to higher millage fare classes. #KeepDescending :td: |
dup post.
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I just discovered this when trying to book a rountrip BNA-ATL flight. Honestly I don't really care about Basic Economy because my AMEX gives me zone 1 boarding and checked bag so the only thing that's missing is seat assignment. You're not even going to be earning mileage on a SkyMiles ticket anyways so I don't see the downside.
I think it's funny that people are so unhappy with basic economy. Clearly its what the people want. Less amenities and cheaper travel. Delta is able to sell plenty of these cheap tickets and raise the price a little bit for those who want seat selection, etc. It's important to remember that for big families, flying is often not an option. Basic economy makes it a little easier. |
Originally Posted by jackvogt
(Post 30861766)
Basic economy makes it a little easier.
Typically on a domestic trip, WN and DL BE fares are the same. On WN, it is not hard to avoid middle seats, therefore they get an increased amount of my business. |
Originally Posted by jackvogt
(Post 30861766)
I just discovered this when trying to book a rountrip BNA-ATL flight. Honestly I don't really care about Basic Economy because my AMEX gives me zone 1 boarding and checked bag so the only thing that's missing is seat assignment. You're not even going to be earning mileage on a SkyMiles ticket anyways so I don't see the downside.
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