DL has now jumped the shark. It�s been a slow �keep descending� for 3.5 years between 2/14/20 (the day DL paid over $1B in employee bonuses) and 9/13/23.

The question is how many will be in each category.

Two fairly strong carriers were, despite warnings of what would happen, allowed to merge which increased fares and reduced capacity and service. It was bound to happen.

I have no doubt that changes would likely mean DL will simply take a different route to the bottom and not change the destination.

This isn't the first time that corporate whiz kids pulled a boner. One I recall was when Target closed stores at 9:00 p.m. because some bean counters figured that fewer people shopped between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. What they didn't bank on is that the early closure discouraged shoppers rather than diverted them to come in before 9:00 p.m. That decision was reversed fairly quickly.

Pretty sure there was a Target in downtown Denver that I went to earlier this summer that closed at 9 PM.

We may have run into each other when I was there. That is not a "regular" Target store. There are some "modified" urban locations that carry a limited selection of merchandise and often at higher pricing. Target just announced that nine of those stores will be closing soon (but not Denver).

With mergers and acquisitions that's likely true due to reduced capacity.

SkyMiles and Medallion benefits kept many of us buying increasingly more expensive DL tickets. That I think is less likely to happen without that hook but some people may not have much of a choice.

My strategy is that I will acquire 2MM status by the end of 2024 with a lot of international travel. I will need about 80K MQM.

I will have 280K rollover MQM = $14K MQD. $40K spending on the Reserve Card will bring me to the $18K MQD for another year of Platinum.

As soon as I reach that $18K for 2025 Plat I have no more incentive to retain the Reserve Card due to limited Sky Club access and the fact that status boost is gone.

Because I'll be 2MM that will make me Gold which is what I would probably be able to earn anyway if I was exclusively "loyal" to Delta. It also makes me Sky Team Elite Plus for international lounge access.

So:

1. Once I hit $40K spending on Reserve Card in 2024 I will stop using that card, probably switching back to the DL Plat card.

2. 1/1/25 -- Reserve Card goes bye bye. May purchase standalone Sky Club membership.

3. Continue to fly DL/SkyTeam when it's advantageous to do so.

4. Transition more domestic flying to AS to earn MVP or MVP Gold Status. Otherwise "free agent."

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about 2MM and whether it's even worth it or not anymore. I get that you'll be STE+ for the life of the program, but with no lounge access when flying Y is a massive downer. DL is basically saying any SC access when flying in Y will require a DL card or an SC membership. Definitely not as generous as UA and AA. I tend to fly internationally so that's where my focus is.

Fair enough. I was a bit sceptical that the revenue lost from high DL spenders fleeing to private domestic flights could compete with the loss of the remaining Medallions, but surprisingly there are a lot more private flights in the US than I thought. According to an online source 2022 saw 4.6 million domestic private flights and according to the FAA there were ca. 9 M commercial flights. I wasn't able to find how many private jet passengers there were but even assuming 2 pax per private flight on average would still be almost 10 M private customers flown annually. Compared with the ca. 750 M domestic commercial pax, this is not the tiny population I imagined it to be.

Because of the increased domestic fares it's been cheaper to go to Europe -- and so I have, many times.

I'm waiting to see how STE+ on international tickets fare with SC access. I'm told there's something in the SkyTeam agreement that covers it. Whether that's true or DL found a way around that remains to be seen.

It's a busy store but I was surprised that it wasn't on the hit list:

https://www.westword.com/news/fentan...-foil-16548957

When I was there last month there were people from the mayor's office surveying visitors with several questions specifically relating to downtown crime and open drug use, including marijuana.

Private flights aren�t just for the ultra rich; there are still a good number of hobby private pilots that can do a lot of plane movements. One of my very middle class uncles used to do about 30-50 flights a year on a kit plane he built himself until he felt like he as getting too old to fly anymore and voluntarily turned in his pilot�s license.

There is no SC access as a DL elite when flying in Y, domestically, or internationally. This has been the case for a while now.

On a KLM ticket I've been admitted. It took them a couple of minutes to find it on their chart. I think if I was on a DL ticket I would need my Reserve card.

You've been admitted to an SC as a DL STE+ flying KL? Were you in Y?