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Will Delta follow United changes on Medallion Program

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Old Oct 12, 2019, 6:02 pm
  #121  
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Originally Posted by FlyingBeanCounter
So random question - if they do make it 18k and 125k miles then aren't most people who make it paying for first anyway?

How can a person make this kind of spend when they are constrained by their employer to the lowest fare? At what point does the buy up to FC become a better solution than status?
There are many who are allowed to fly business international, but only coach domestic. It's not difficult to hit those numbers if you fly with that mix of travel.
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Old Oct 12, 2019, 9:37 pm
  #122  
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Originally Posted by WillBarrett_68
Shafted? Anyone spending $15k+ with less than 50k MQM is flying premium cabins. I'm sure they're fine.
Or flying a lot of short segments just about every week. $15K per year is $300/week. If one flies weekly on short segments (sub 500 mile flights), one could easily spent $15K a year and only reach 50K MQMs.
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Old Oct 12, 2019, 9:59 pm
  #123  
 
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Originally Posted by FlyingBeanCounter
So random question - if they do make it 18k and 125k miles then aren't most people who make it paying for first anyway?

How can a person make this kind of spend when they are constrained by their employer to the lowest fare? At what point does the buy up to FC become a better solution than status?
I hit $15k MQD last year. I got ~$3k MQD from a VS PE round trip (did not pay that much in cash); the rest from 4 personal domestic round trips (1 in paid F), 4 international work trips, and 5 domestic work trips (all in economy). I think I got a little extra from the partner MQD conversion on those work trips as well, but my company managers get a lot more international flights so it wouldn’t surprise me if lots of people could hit $18o MQD on mostly economy class.
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Old Oct 13, 2019, 12:36 pm
  #124  
 
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It's a frequent flyer program not a frequent buyer program.

This is like hotels getting rid of stays/nights requirements -- what's the point then of even having a program?

What kind of customer engagement are you going to have if every tier/perk can simply be purchased with a price on it?
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Old Oct 13, 2019, 12:55 pm
  #125  
 
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Originally Posted by keitherson
It's a frequent flyer program not a frequent buyer program.

This is like hotels getting rid of stays/nights requirements -- what's the point then of even having a program?
What? The point of the program is the same regardless of what metric they use. Do you think the point of the program is to encourage people to fly longer distances?

What kind of customer engagement are you going to have if every tier/perk can simply be purchased with a price on it?
What are you suggesting here? I am not even sure how to read this question.
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Old Oct 13, 2019, 12:57 pm
  #126  
 
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Originally Posted by WillBarrett_68
How was she platinum with less than 70k MQM?

What's crazy about it? The rules are pretty clear.
I mistyped (edit to original post) - she has 70K MQD and is still Platinum. The rules are fine but with her spend, she is clearly a higher value customer than your average PM.
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Old Oct 13, 2019, 1:19 pm
  #127  
 
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Originally Posted by ATOBTTR
Or flying a lot of short segments just about every week. $15K per year is $300/week. If one flies weekly on short segments (sub 500 mile flights), one could easily spent $15K a year and only reach 50K MQMs.
This. LAX-SFO and LGA-DCA seem to be the most likely candidates for this sort of thing in terms of market nature.
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Old Oct 13, 2019, 5:18 pm
  #128  
 
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Originally Posted by WillBarrett_68
What? The point of the program is the same regardless of what metric they use. Do you think the point of the program is to encourage people to fly longer distances?



What are you suggesting here? I am not even sure how to read this question.
The program is supposed to encourage people to fly Delta over other airlines, regardless of whether they are a Basic Economy or Delta One flyer.

There is no doubt people spending tens of thousands of dollars flying intl J are more profitable for the airline. Buf if you structure your entire frequent flyer program to reward only the 1% of fliers, then everybody below is going to become free agents.

There's no benefit for a frequent flyer buying Delta Basic Economy/Main Cabin/Comfort+/Premium Select to choose Delta over the other competitors.
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Old Oct 13, 2019, 7:37 pm
  #129  
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Originally Posted by keitherson
The program is supposed to encourage people to fly Delta over other airlines, regardless of whether they are a Basic Economy or Delta One flyer.
Arguably it does and continues to do so, at both DL and UA. While some people in the UA thread are saying stuff like "there's no way I can make 1K next year, sayonara United!!!" I doubt all of those people are literally going to go from 100k+ PQM in 2019 to 0 in 2020. There are still tiers below the top tier with benefits like free checked bags, free SDC, Y+ at whatever window (at booking for UA) that are still have tangible value.
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Old Oct 13, 2019, 7:51 pm
  #130  
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Originally Posted by Zorak
Arguably it does and continues to do so, at both DL and UA. While some people in the UA thread are saying stuff like "there's no way I can make 1K next year, sayonara United!!!" I doubt all of those people are literally going to go from 100k+ PQM in 2019 to 0 in 2020. There are still tiers below the top tier with benefits like free checked bags, free SDC, Y+ at whatever window (at booking for UA) that are still have tangible value.
Don't forget that a lot of 1Ks would also be MMers. 1MM on UA is lifetime UA Gold and thus *A *Gold, so they might not feel much incentive to earn (lower than 1K) status on UA for a few *A flights. It's not clear that UA Plat would do much for these folks, although the new upgrade system would mean one TATL/TPAC direction upgrade per year, which would work if only one direction clears, but some people wouldn't be happy about necessarily sitting in coach for the other direction, while it can be very expensive to buy a ticket that uses a coach fare in one direction and paid business class (or a fare that can be upgraded with miles plus copay) in the other. (What could you do with exactly one GUC per year?)
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Old Oct 14, 2019, 12:03 am
  #131  
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if delta were to make this change then i wonder if it would apply to non u.s. based members as well....right now we have mqd waived automatically....

personally it makes no difference to me as every year i do 6-8 international trips in first which easily gets me over the mqd requirement....
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Old Oct 14, 2019, 3:36 am
  #132  
 
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Interesting how this thread is much more favorable to moving towards a spend only (or at least a larger emphasis on spend) FF program is than the UA thread, where the sentiment is generally very negative.
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Old Oct 14, 2019, 3:44 am
  #133  
 
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Originally Posted by richarddd
Interesting how this thread is much more favorable to moving towards a spend only (or at least a larger emphasis on spend) FF program is than the UA thread, where the sentiment is generally very negative.
Because it is not real here yet. I am very much against moving towards a spend only program. However, participating in the self fulfilling echo chamber of OPM fliers in this thread would be as productive as participating in a political argument with complete strangers online.
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Old Oct 14, 2019, 4:59 am
  #134  
 
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Please don't. United dug itself a hole, doesn't mean all others should jump in right away.
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Old Oct 14, 2019, 5:12 am
  #135  
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Originally Posted by Keyser
if delta were to make this change then i wonder if it would apply to non u.s. based members as well....right now we have mqd waived automatically....

personally it makes no difference to me as every year i do 6-8 international trips in first which easily gets me over the mqd requirement....
Why do they have to make any changes to remove the MQD Waiver for foreign addresses? DL has been calculating MQD earn on partner flights for several years now. This was the specific change that UA is making to rationalize removing the foreign address waiver.
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