kop84

I don't think DL is in a spot where it wants to risk any customers who formerly spent X$ internationally. If they have to bump some hub people back to Diamond to make sure they keep booking D1 when Americans can actually fly to Europe again, they're likely to do it IMO. I would totally buy different thresholds however...It might be $8-9k in NYC/SEA but $12k in ATL/MSP.

If it was a normal economic downturn, I'd totally agree with you. But making sure people are back buying D1 seats is going to be the A #1 priority for DL and every carrier. And everyone is going to go out trying to poach the other guys top FF.

ethernal

They'll protect heavy D1 buyers by extending DL360 status. Diamond status is primarily for retention of domestic flyers (or those who only do occasional international business).

beachmouse

Given how AmEx has been pretty generous in IIRC, prepaying for miles from Delta, Delta isn’t likely to take action that would move customer spending away from AmEx in the form of making the MQD waiver for the Skymiles Platinum and Reserve cards less or not at all relevant

MCO Flyer

I don’t think another blanket extension will happen as I assume enough people are flying at this point where they can attain status by flying and it wouldn’t be fair to those who want to try and obtain status. I’d assume reduced qualifications (probably just MQDs since MQMs are being rolled over) will probably be the likely scenario here. I just can’t see most businesses going back to it’s pre-COVID spending patterns right away next year especially with many businesses being in a budget shortfall and in cost cutting mode right now.

ATOBTTR

Fair enough - that better clarifies what your original intent was versus how I interpreted it.

bennos

Sidebar for a point of trivia: JFK-SFO is 111 miles (or about 4%) longer than JFK-LAX (2586 vs 2475)!

ATOBTTR

And BOS-LAX and BOS-SFO clock in at 2,611 miles and 2,704 miles, respectively. I believe the longest regularly scheduled domestic transcon one can do is MIA-SEA, at 2,724 miles, which only AA operates, followed by SEA-FLL at 2,717 miles which AS and B6 operate, and DL has previously operated though it does not currently show on the list of destinations. After that, with BOS-SFO in between, I believe is PDX-FLL, at 2,700 miles, operated again by both AS and B6.
(All distances based on GCMap).

Duke787

As others have mentioned I expect DL to have incentives depending on when business travel starts swing back to normal and whether there is a full year of business travel or a partial year of business travel (or worst case another year of no business travel).

Plus you always have the DL AMEX waiver.

flyertalker28120

agreed.
For the rest of it, in my view it's a guessing game. Looks like air travel will be seriously depressed through 2021:H1 at the very least. But predictions have gone wrong recently. 2020:Q4 is going substantially worse than airlines expected literally six or eight weeks ago.

So IDK what they're gonna do. Reduced qualification thresholds seem plausible at this stage as they leave some incentive for incremental bookings. Stay tuned, though, until they have got a better idea about the booking numbers for the summer 2021 schedule...

MarkCron

Some people need to travel for business. Most don't. Many companies have figured out that the purpose of much business travel can be accomplished remotely.
Business travel might never reach 2019 levels again.

Duke787

Maybe over the next 3-4 years but long-term I don't agree.

IMO what goes away in the short-term are a lot of the internal meetings. Definitely don't need to be in person for a lot of them (nor do you need to be in an office either), but nothing replaces (a) in-person client meetings/events and (b) in-person internal strategy sessions (thinking group meetings like 10-12 where it's impossible to get the same amount done remotely vs. having a 1-2 day in-person all-day session).

bennos

Similarly, I expect conferences and trade shows will come back. (I've been doing some virtual conferences, and they aren't even, uh, remotely the same experience.) While I don't think we'll hit 2019 travel levels on day one, I do think that as soon as businesses feel comfortable with travel again, it will recover quickly. (Relatedly, I also think the end of the office is also overstated, though we could see more flexible models like 60/40.)

It's unclear to me what incentives DL or the airlines can provide to stimulate travel, other than what they've already been doing: eliminating nuisance fees and playing up their health and safety changes. Tweaking the FFP rules might shift some marginal business across the majors, but that seems pretty net-net to me, and if I were traveling now my primary goal would be whichever itinerary kept me on a plane the shortest amount of time with the fewest people.

SEA-Flyer

Agreed that spending $15k on air travel isn’t trivial for lots of people.

But, the customers Delta really wants are the folks for whom spending $15k is trivial.

DLASflyer

I think the more likely scenario is Delta gets rid of MQM/MQS and goes solely to MQD. The current system is unnecessarily complex.

MarkCron

I do not doubt at all that some companies will resume normal travel eventually.
But I work for a worldwide company with over 100,000 employees, and I can say without a doubt that our travel will never ever come close to what it used to be.
Reduction will be 30-50%.
I imagine there are many other large and small companies that will reach the same conclusion.