lsquare

I didn't say there aren't any. I'm just saying that they're probably in the 1% that can.

DiamondSM

I think is more the 0.1 % (even the 0.01%) who can put 1 millions in 7 months on a credit card...

StayingHomeIsBetter

Which is probably the rationale for going from Lifetime status to Annual Complimentary status.

Anyway, Delta has a rather flexible interpretation of what Lifetime means.

Just ask a Flying Colonel about their Lifetime benefits.

nall

Annuities, Perpetuities, and the like are all common concepts taught in business school -- you pay now for the promise of future benefits. In this case, though, those future benefits are subject to interpretation, and lately it seems like airline executives are more than happy to simply devalue elite status entirely.

lsquare

UA is notorious for breaking promises. Not sure if DL is as bad.

Gig103

May I presume you were just making a point? I can't imagine, even if one had the legitimate reasons to put $1m on a card this year, the goal would be lifetime AA Gold / Oneworld ruby instead of getting the $95 AF credit card for most of the same benefits each year. Maybe someone out there values the 1m AAdvantage RDM more than cash back or find them more useful than MR/UR, then it's like a 'free' status.

But this is a DL thread, so maybe it's too much a digression.

garykung

These people do exist. But I am not one of them.

dldmfll

I thought FC meant you are a member of the Sky Club for "life" but that doesn't seem to be honored. StayingHome, do you have any insight on this?

jimrpa

Flying Colonel granted you Lifetime membership in the Crown Room Club, as I recall. I'm sure Flying Colonels still have Lifetime membership in the expansive, global network of Crown Room Clubs

hfly

and when the FC program was in its heydey DL was essentially a US Domestic airline, with less than 10 million passengers a year, with a grand total of perhaps 3 Transoceanic flights per day, and less than 12 Crown Room Clubs.

ND76

Delta didn't have a SkyClub at DCA until circa 1990 when the old north terminal was torn down and a hangar was remodeled into the "Interim Terminal" and a SkyClub was opened in there. They used that building for close to 7 years until the current terminal was opened in 1997. I got a membership in the SkyClub for the first time around 1985, when I was flying a lot on Delta. I remember the clubs they had ATL-A17 and B-10, DFW, LAX (T6), SFO, TPA, MCO, JAX, DTW and BOS. Delta acquired Western in 1987, and added Horizon Clubs at a number of airports to the SkyClub network, including the then new LAX T-5 as well as SLC, HNL (I was in there in 1988), LAS (on the mezzanine above the ticket counters outside of security) and SMF. Delta didn't start flying DCA-CVG until 1987, when they opened what is called Concourse A and had the beautiful club modeled on Cincinnati Union Station. Delta acquired many assets of PanAm around 1991, and inherited their Clipper Club network at JFK; I was in their club in ZRH in 1991.

Prior to 1989, Delta had a "speakeasy" type room in the old North Terminal. The door to it was unsigned; you had to know what door to knock on, and hope that someone inside would open the door. The Virbinia Alcoholic Beverage Commission hadn't adopted their current rules, so there was self-service booze, beer and wine. The only food product in there were Goldfish crackers. At BWI, they had a wonderful room which was accessed by a number code obtained from one of the front counter agents. This is why I bought a Crown Room membership, because I could access this room, even when I wasn't flying. This room went bye-bye around 1996 when BWI was remodeled and Pier B (where Delta was) was demolished to make way for the current Southwest concourses. The club was closed to allow BWI to open up a bigger security area at Pier B, which was then all torn down a couple of years later. Another airport where Delta had an unpublicized club was CAE, which I was flying to regularly between 1988 and 1993.