Amen to the free agent gospel!

I've had similar conversations with my coworkers and their responses are often similar to sydneyracquelle. "The phone agents" "the lounges" "the free tickets" etc etc.

The beauty of being an experienced traveler is knowing "how" to travel. I know how to plan and keep ahead of any delays that might crop up. I can't remember the last forced overnight I have had somewhere - it's been many years. It has helped that I've been able to reduce my work travel quite a bit, but I've taken more vacations this year than I have since COVID so I'm still out on the road. I fly whoever is most convenient and utilize the Chase UR program to accumulate points that can ultimately be used on any carrier in some form or another. That is truly the ultimate flexibility - I think the only way I could envision myself committing to a single airline again is if I moved to a megahub.

Don't get me wrong, Delta is a great airline. Some of my earliest travel memories are with my Grandfather traveling around out of MCO on Delta jets. I've had 2 different work offices now decorated in Delta themes! But the programs have truly become "marketing" programs - being a free agent is simply good business.

Whatever happens happens. (or what doesn't happen doesn't happen).

I will see what is (or is not) announced and will make my decisions about future travel accordingly. Nothing to really worry about now.

At the end of the day, I really don’t care about DL status. I will fly with whatever carrier offers the best deal on lie-flat business class seats to my destination of choice.

What's the value of getting through on the phones to Delta during IROPS, if the majority of agents are too new/inexperienced post-COVID to help do anything but the most basic of changes? My post-COVID experience is that I now get the same treatment as someone with no status. That never used to be the case.

I need an agent who can protect me on a backup flight when my original flight has a 10% chance of getting me home. I need an agent who can ticket me on a creative routing (with seats available) that I provide them to get me closer to home that night, rather than just auto-bumping me to a Delta-recommended 6am (4am) flight the next morning. I need an agent who doesn't transfer me to random "desks," or that hangs up on me when they don't know what to do.

It is the worst feeling in the world to be standing in an airport, calling the Platinum/Diamond line to try and skip the huge line at the counter and knowing exactly which flight you want to switch to, and reaching agent after agent who can't seem to make flight changes, and don't know how to/won't protect you on alternate flights. By the time I get a good agent, the limited rebooking seats are all gone, and I would have been better off waiting in line. There are still amazing Delta agents out there, but the odds of getting them on the first call is not good.

"But why don't you just use the Delta app for IROPS?" It has always worked about half of the time. Sometimes the rebooking on the app works great, and sometimes it errors out. Sometimes the rebooking on the website works better. And sometimes it also randomly errors out. When it errors out, you are left with either waiting in line (and watching your potential options dwindle), or praying that you get an agent who knows what they doing, before the limited rebooking options are gone.

If I have points or ways to book across multiple airlines, it puts me back in control.

And it's also nice being able to be protected on the nextt flight when there is bad weather in a city in case if your flight still makes it out. Earlier this summer during bad storms in Chicago all the flights were being delayed and cancelled. Mine posted like a two hour delay and the inbound hadn't even left yet so I called the diamond while there was a long line at the skyclub to see an agent, and they protected me on a flight the next day and I just waited it out in the skyclub. Flight ended up cancelling so I just went into the city and knew i was assigned a seat the next afternoon while others that weren;t diamnonds were being told they would have to give up the seat on their scheduled fligght if they wanted out the next day or had to go on the standby list.

And if you do have to fly standby dues to a cancel or delay it's great being on the top of the standby list.

I'd also miss the co-terminal benefit. I fly DTW to chicago, dc and NYC a lot and it's great being able to SDC to a co-terminal. And delta gets more money out of me with that benefit because a lot of times i'll buy first if I think I want to use that benefit.

For those of us who fly using mainly using our own coin or who have decision making power on who to fly, the miles game keeps getting worse and worse. This will be another step in the race to the bottom. Going forward the smart thing to do is be carrier agnostic, pay for the routing and class you want and then supplement your personal travel budget with miles gained through sign up bonuses or other manufactured spend type setups. There is very little value in being a member in the big 3 programs anymore, even at the top levels.

I wonder if the random two weeks last spring when you could earn MQDs for Hertz rental was some sort of system test.

Thinking about it a bit more, as long as we’re still near VPS, Delta’s probably going to remain my carrier of choice because I find them to have enough of a less awful coach product than American, Southwest or Allegiant. (I lack the motivation to drive an extra hour to PNS or ECP to pick up a United Express torture chamber to Houston.)

Probably yes. I worked in a different industry that also has loyalty programs and these were good ways to "stress test" the system and get some insight into how amenable our customers would be to different ways of earning. I even designed a few of these tests for our loyalty program, some of them are to measure consumer response, some are designed to work out all the kinks in the internal processes before major changes (we found our front line staff were not honoring the elevated statuses we awarded because they assumed those were mistakes, so I had to personally contact the front line managers to fix that, and also confirmed that memos tend to get overlooked).

I agree. All of my travel is now on my dime, and I've stayed loyal to Delta largely because of my Platinum status and the giant pile of miles that I accumulated while working. I'll wait until the changes are actually announced before I plan any exit strategy, but once those miles are used, I'll be open to other options. The majority of my flying right now is GRR-ATL-SRQ. As much as I've always said I'd never do it, I can go non-stop GRR-SRQ on Allegiant quickly and cheaply. I won't particularly like it, but I'll do it.

yeah this is great but notice how much of this is particular to you and your travel patterns, just going around blabbing "everyone should be like me" is basically just broadcasting how little you've thought about the fact that there are different needs out there

Hub captive here, so looking forward to being disappointed by the changes with limited alternate options.

I will say my flying patterns tend to get me organically to FO and I can usually push to GM with a couple mileage runs to pick up enough extra MQDs. (No crazy MQM rollover for me, I’m impressed with those who have so much - I didn’t travel much during covid and only netted about 10k MQM during the rollover period!)

Since it’s the MQD I’m usually short on, I suspect the new changes will make it more difficult for me to reach GM since I’m sure any new changes will try to incentivize spend (though Delta charges such a premium amount of Atlanta maybe it will even out!). Might be worth considering achieving basic status across 2 airlines, rather than consolidating everything on DL if that’s the case. Will wait and see what next week brings.

Or just spend $25k that you would normally otherwise spend on a DL Amex credit card.

I wouldn’t put my worst enemy on Allegiant. Too untrustworthy with delays and cancellations. My backup to DL is SW.

Probably- unfortunately when AA and UA moved to their new systems, the de facto spending requirement if one is qualifying by flying increased significantly.

But UA is not out of line with DL. 1K is effectively $18,000 (and 54 segments) or $24,000 without the 54 segment minimum. AA is (really) weird, IMO, because the scale on their loyalty points is graded by current status. If you start from zero, it costs you a ton more money to get to EP, vs already being EP (requalification is effectively $18,000, but more if you want to move up).

As for the DL rumored changes to full revenue based, for me they would be awesome. Unlike many here, I am chronically short on MQM, but not MQD.