Happy with the changes….
 

Well, only happy because they seem to benefit me but I may be one of the few. Overall I get it that most people get screwed with the new plan.
I don’t own any Delta credit cards so that part doesn’t bother me. I am a million miler but last year moved away from a Delta hub and don’t fly Delta very much anymore from my new town. With million miler I am guaranteed silver status which sounds like it will have a little more power and exclusivity in 2025. That helps me, plus all those MQMs that have been rolled over for years - 125,000 will be converted into miles next year which will give me a free trip somewhere when previously those MQMs were worthless. So win-win for me, but I get the angst from most people. If I was still in MSP and flying a ton I would be mad.

Seems more indifferent than happy. You sound like you don't use the service, and it doesn't change much for you. 125k MQM would have given you Diamond and along with that RUCs and GUCs, now you end up with 60k SkyMiles, and no 15% off from a credit card. I see that as a significant downgrade. I don't think silver helps you in 2025, because of the MQM to MQD conversion.

Your MQM rollover will be 125,000 less 25/50/75/125,000 depending on your medallion level which will be deducted on 12/31/23. For those who don’t organically make at least Silver (MM doesn’t count) the rollover will be 0.

OP is in for a surprise end of the year when their MQM go to zero, since it sounds like they won't qualify for FO this year through flying. Guessing won't be too happy then.

OP is like, I don't fly Delta much but I'm happy with the changes.

That's kinda like saying that car crashed, but I wasn't in it, so I'm happy.

I'm not entirely upset yet.

I routinely hit the $250k waiver (but also the MQD requirement). I churn AA and UA (and others) to find better redemptions, and move a lot of spend to other programs.

I'll have about 688k rollover MQMs, so Diamond 2025 will essentially be confirmed with the conversion.

I clearly spend enough on the cards to hit the SkyClub unlimited status, and the extra spend will now essentialyl be the same as the 250k waiver. For my travel patterns, I use my millions of SkyPesos on good cost per point redemptions, while relying on other programs to find pure J class long haul redemptions.

I'm excited to see the improved Choice Benefits to see how we'll play the game in 2026 and beyond.

It's not like the OP was gloating about anything. You can feel bad for the people in the car while still being grateful that you weren't in it.

Million Miler does not guarantee Silver Status as it is granted “annually“. We haven’t heard anything about that still being a thing. Maybe with all the changes, that will go away?

Silver in 2025 will still get you a middle C+ seat most of the times, so you will be no better off than you are now (that's assuming that Million Miler doesn't get nuked down the road). While there will be less elites; there will also be less upgrades as Delta is selling FC/C+ outright and looking to increase that number even more.

As of January 1, 2024, MillionMiler status will be #3 tiebreak after medallion status and fare class— I don’t see MM status going away anytime in the future.

I suspect that there will current DM’s who will be downgraded to PM in 2025 that will just buy into the FCM marketing.

I wasn’t implying the Million Miler Status was going away. I was just stating that the Annual Silver Status for Million Milers may go away. (It is annual status, it’s not lifetime status)

On the bright side,

PM is the new DM.

That stinks, I hadn’t heard that. Everything I read was that it was a 2 for 1 deal for your existing rollover miles. Oh well, 125,000 rollover miles going to 0. I only fly Delta now about 3-4 times a year so not a huge loss, but was hoping for a free flight. Thanks for the knowledge.

It is. But if you haven’t earned status for next year (MM Silver doesn’t count) you don’t actually have any MQMs to rollover.

Only during covid did DL not deduct 25/50/75/125k miles on 12/31. Rollover is what’s left after this deduction.

When UA moved to MQD it didn’t bother me as I was mostly flying international biz class with OPM. These are the customers DL is rewarding - the rest can pretty much go to hades.

personally I would not find DL lifetime Silver to be very useful at all. At least with UA lifetime Gold I am guaranteed C+ aka E+ seats for my entire family at the time I purchase tix plus Group 1 boarding. YMMV

I’m happy too, as someone who tends to fly less frequently but usually on more expensive tickets. It seems to me like the new system has much more economic logic to it. When you think about it, why would an airline want to favor someone who flies 25 times in a year, spending $200 per ticket, over someone who flies once on a $5000 ticket? Most on Flyertalk don’t like the change, which is understandable because a large part of the community is all about optimizing the old, illogical system for their own benefit (“mileage runs” being a prime example; I suspect we won’t hear so much about “dollar runs” going forward). Also, the whole system of upgrades based on status is weird when you think about it. Imagine a restaurant saying the way to get steak is to be a very frequent customer, and when you arrive, if you are lucky, you might get “upgraded” from chicken to steak. Just sell steak to those who want steak, and those who want first class seats (as I usually do) can pay for them. And the logical way to deal with unoccupied first class seats is to have people bid for them at the gate, with cash, on the app. I made AA EXP last year based purely on credit card spend and I was almost completely unaffected, because I’m still not going to buy a coach seat and take a chance on getting upgraded when I can just buy a seat in first and guarantee that my whole party will be sitting together.

Very classy. I’m sure that’s exactly what an airline like Delta, trying to portray itself as a luxury airline, would like to do.

THat's not what he said, he's a SM MM, so he feels his benefit will be better. I'm exactly the same. 1MM, and I stopped flying them when the $250K Threshold was announced. I just buy DL when I go to Europe and fly WN now. It's not super great, but the CP is great, I live near a good WN airport and I can get anywhere in the US. I love the freedom to choose my Int'l flights while staying mostly loyal to WN in US.

Every airline is doing it. FCM has brought average joes and jane's the experience of seats upfront, and has brought sorrow and dismay to status holders hoping for an upgrade.

Cash talks.
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There is currently one first class seat remaining on the 3:25 pm flight from MIA to JFK this Sunday 9/17, which Delta is offering for sale at $1500. I don’t see this as any more or less “classy” than offering it to the highest bidder at the gate if it remains unsold, as opposed to giving it away for free to some lucky customer. It doesn’t literally have to be an eBay style auction, of course, they could also send upgrade offers to passengers’ phones at steadily decreasing prices until someone accepts.

Might as well just entirely eliminate the notion of elite status and upgrades then and sell or auction everything off.

Consider the route network as an ecosystem. If an airline doesn't fill the domestic flights with $300 r/t tickets and those flights go away, they lose the seats on that plane that were being used to feed the international flights. If they lose feed to the international flights, those flights become no longer economically viable, and the airline can't sell the $5000 ticket.

A butterfly flapping its wings in Kansas City leads to the slow demise of the TATL network out of Atlanta.

Why not both? I expect them to continue to dangle the carrot to get people to make irrational choices. They’re not going to eliminate their loyalty program when that’s the only thing that makes them money.

I’ve flown a lot between LGA/JFK and MIA this year and every time I have peeked at the upgrade list there have bern something like 20-30 people on it, usually with zero seats in F available (one time there were 2 seats available but that was an exception). Based upon this, the vast majority of people who have strived to get elite status in the hope of getting an upgrade will have been disappointed. I admit that this may not be representative of Delta as a whole, and possibly there are routes where upgrades tend to be more successful, but I suspect for these routes the extra cost of just paying for F in the first place would be quite modest.

You're not wrong about the economic logic, especially in today's environment. But there's more at play. Airlines in the past have considered it necessary to develop customer loyalty to the airline. In part due to cyclical periods of travel, in part due to captive customer theories, etc. DL appears to be changing course pretty drastically and in a single change to the program. I personally don't think there's anything morally good or bad about companies that try to engender loyalty and those that don't. The gas station isn't focused on customer loyalty. They're focused on the best location they can put their gas station, on the best corner, on the best side of the street. Their customers will come to them because they're there, and they offer the best option. And they offer the best option to the person who's driven down that freeway 10k times and has to often get gas, just as they are the best option to the person that's only going to drive down the freeway once in their life and happens to need gas at that time. This certainly doesn't make the gas station a mean, immoral, or ethically challenged. It's simply how they choose to get customers. While emotions can affect your loyalty, loyalty itself is not an emotion. And DL seems to be changing from an airline that in the past has attempted to engender customer loyalty, and now is not particularly focused on customer loyalty. It doesn't make them a bad company. It doesn't mean people should get fired. It's, what I consider to be, a bold move.

This is certainly not to say that DL doesn't want loyal customers. It's just saying "we already have enough loyal customers, we can lose some and be fine, and even though we don't specifically incentivize loyalty, there will be people who our program does incentivize, and those people will stay loyal/(hopefully) become loyal to DL."

I agree. Below is my post in the main thread.

I'll add that my domestic trips are mostly reward "free" MC fares that I hope get upgraded to first class so decreasing the competition for these seats makes me happy.

Thats a way of ensuring people understand that the Silver status comes with the benefits available at the time of renewal. The MM silver won’t go away, but the benefits are sure to change while one has it.

Having moved most of my flying to other carriers, MM FO status has some benefits:

• Preferred seats at booking, including exit rows. Even when I was PM/DM, I'd regularly decline C+ "upgrades" in favor of exit rows.
• Zone 1 boarding still has enough overhead space available that you're not going to have your bag checked.
• Waived first bag fee.
• I actually got an F upgrade at booking when I purchased a same day ticket a few weeks ago. Granted, it was a random point to point route on an RJ, and if I had stayed in Y I would have had a row to myself, but still...

That said, I now have first tier status in all the alliances, so it's not much of a tie-breaker for me anymore.

Sounds like you are the kind of customer DL enjoys having

I do not see how this helps you as a SM. It may not be negative much but where are the postives?
The 125k MQM will get 62k RDMs

Yes, you will be among the minority that is unaffected; so will we after a tweaing of cards and spend patterns.
But you may need to hit the 350k mark and not 250k next year - less the balance from flying.
The treadmill on th hamster wheel got a bit faster.

A very calm analysis. But the Bold part has us strategizing how to adapt.

Summary of thread:

"I am happy with the changes"

​​​​"No, you are wrong."

I wasn't honestly sure which airlines had bid-for-upgrade programs, but if Google results can be trusted :p some airlines frequently touted on FT as being superior to the US3 are included...

Ah, not sure if it's a pure bid, but NK has something similar? The only true bid I participated in was the old SF based VX (Virgin America) where the app allowed one to make offers for available F space. Of course, this was an airline whose policy strictly prohibited any non-revs/upgrades from flying in F, which I thought was a great idea.

PS - I can appreciate where non-revs disagree, but my perspective is solely from that of a customer.

I've been reading the other threads and feel for those who have lost during this transition. I am mostly happy with the changes that are being enacted.

My travel is mostly last-minute, nonstop short-haul flights that cost $600-800 a ticket. I travel at least weekly. Under the old program, I struggled to make PLT since I only earned 1000 MQM per trip. Overall, I spend $40k/year on tickets yet yield ~60k "natural" MQM and ~70 segments. I expect to make diamond on my flight spend alone under the new program. I have to use my employer's corporate card for travel, which has been fine because I get Membership Rewards. I can't get C+ seats on roughly 1/3 of my tickets due to the vast number of PLT and Diamonds that have bought tickets before me. I'm frequently #7-20 on an upgrade list for 0-2 seats. I'm happy about the program because I expect that I'll be in C+ on more flights in the future and will have a chance at an F seat once the herd is thinned out a bit. I am perplexed by people who think that their Diamond made on super-inexpensive longhaul flights + Amex waiver are more important to DL than someone who travels like I do. I suspect the only folks who are more valuable are the ones who are paying refundable First and use the DL Amex Reserve for absolutely everything.

Where I lose in the new program is with the Skyclub. I have access through the regular Amex Platinum card. I now need to buy a membership or charge 75k/year to the (an) Amex card. I strongly prefer my CSR for spending for the bonus categories and to diversify my points earned. Plus, it's just easier to use (Costco!).

I've been in FF programs since the 1980s and have seen a lot of change. I think the airline industry disruption during the first Gulf War taught me that "loyalty" means something different for me than for a corporation. As a result, I've always felt more transactional about my relationship with US -> UA -> AA and now DL. I've learned to never hoard my miles and to understand that the airline isn't going to love me back when I'm old and broke. Nor will Tesla, Hermes, Nordstrom, or any other "brand." And neither will my employer when I no longer produce value in multiples of my salary.

I think most people will not like the changes overall, though a small percentage may benefit. After my initial disappointment and irritation, I realized how I can utilize these changes to my benefit. It won't get Delta or Amex any more money. I will merely compile all Amex charges onto one single Amex, instead of five, four of which I can cancel. I don't have to spend 20K on flight spend any more to get DM, I can spend far less. The only habit I will change is cancelling credit cards and spending less on Delta flights. I don't think this was a win for Delta/Amex as far as my family goes.

Is it a benefit to 1% and the 99% are shafted, again?

Very possibly. But I do think that some people can figure out a way to game this to their advantage. And it may not be to Delta/Amex's advantage. Part of that gaming is with no rollover MQM's, no MQM's for Amex spend, and the impossibility of getting higher status for many, is that they can feel they can purchase tickets on other carriers and utilize other credit card options. Since Delta has taken away so many benefits for many, people will not go through they gyrations of trying to obtain status when it's unreachable anyways.