What we haven’t had yet in quite some time is a high interest rate environment, (relatively speaking to the past 20 years), and a slowing economy (even worse a recession at the same time)…
Flight load goes down during that confluence of events (which is being seeing with softening in Q4 bookings), and I would think credit card spending goes down dramatically too or worse defaults across the board goes up.
The timing of the Delta moves with those 2 things on the horizon (however long their view of the horizon is), is quite simply a miss… .. As they said last week, they may roll back to stop the negative publicity & increased cancellation rate of Amex delta cards by going to far/to fast, but they may have to also roll back again in the future because demand goes down. Not just demand for flights, which a few of you have said is a no profit business anyway, but demand for the Amex delta card activations/utilizations decreases & there is an increase of credit card defaults…
They cant go into the Amex renewal contract without a strong sky miles program.. How can they double the revenue they get from Amex, which they are on the record as saying they need to & want.

Interesting times…. This is a future HBR business case study no matter how this plays out.

The funny thing is even if defaults skyrocket people can still earn medallion status which requires �spend� but not necessarily �pay off your Amex bill�. In theory people can spend up to their limit and just make minimum payments. Obviously horrific financial planning at 30% interest but at least I can brag that I�m a DM.

every day that passes without any �walking back� of the program changes suggests that it is highly likely that the comments were meant for public affairs consumption, and not really meant for implementation.

I can't believe how long it's taking them to make the changes they implied and just move forward so we can all know exactly what boat we'll be in.

While in theory this is possible, the reality is that the earning rates for credit card are so low earning any meaningful Medallion status would be very difficult not paying off your bill, no matter how good your credit is AMEX will start cutting your ability to spend at some point, and many of those with poor math skills will realize spending $2k/month on airline tickets is better than spending $2k a month on interest.

I actually don't interpret it this way: I think they realized they screwed up massively and in order to fix it they can't just make a few tweaks, they'll have to really make some major changes. So they're frantically trying to revamp this fiasco and that takes time.

The reason I don't hold out a lot of hope is that if this same team that's trying to "fix" this mess came up with such a ridiculous set of rules based on a total lack of understanding or apparently any serious research into what makes people spend on Delta cards, I don't know that they are going to figure out how to fix it. Their job is: thin elite ranks, ease SkyClub crowding at the few locations that have problems, while at the same time giving people meaningful incentives to spend on their cards as they had before ($25k, $30K, etc.) and giving moderate business travelers a reasonable shot at SkyClub access for less than $1200 in opportunity cost.

In other words, they have to have a clue how their own program works. Not sure they will figure this out given how badly they missed it this time, but we shall see.

However I'm not coming back myself this year, even if they fix this stuff temporarily, because I realize AA's program is a hell of a lot better for my flying and spending habits and I get MUCH more out of it than even the old Delta program. This was not actually as true even a year ago as many AA operational improvements have only recently started to bear fruit (and I got a great status match from Hyatt Globalist, which they've never done before). Also, I can't wait around for Delta to figure out what they're doing, since I got to meet the terms of my new status challenge and be prepared for 2025, so I'm giving AA at least a year to prove themselves. I'm prepared for it not being quite as good as Delta, but the benefits are so good I'm gonna hope that it's not TOO much worse than Delta, which many here are saying is the case these days already.

People are starting to plan their Q1 travel now so every day it takes DL to figure themselves out is money lost to AA/UA.

I�m not just planning Q1 travel now, I�m also planning out overall 2024 elite qualification strategy (which includes not just flying but of course targeted card spend), so it�s definitely annoying not to know where DL is going with this.

That's why I'm not bothering to wait for them to get their act together. I already have to start qualifying for 2025. So it's AA for me, regardless of what Delta does.

Already figured out how to get to Korea for our summer relocation on AA next year (AA doesn't have great partners to Seoul but they DO to Tokyo and it's a quick hop over to Korea from Japan, so that'll be our play there, etc.)

The interesting tidbit that I just remembered from one of the articles or press releases (can't remember) was that prior to making these changes they did a focus group study. When DL told the focus group the initial qualification requirements people were very turned off to the program. Once DL told the focus group all of the new ways to earn MQD, people became happy with the program. To DL, hearing that feedback told them the changes were exactly what was needed. The initial reaction should have been the red flag.

Having been part of a focus group and also leading a focus group study at work, I can confidently say the study was designed to tell the DL team what they wanted to hear. Otherwise why would you start the goal posts far away and move them closer - of course people are going to warm up to whatever you say in that situation. The end result should have been the only thing presented to the focus group if they wanted honest feedback.

That's such a good point. So many organizations misuse focus groups.

A great story I heard once was when Sony was designing the Walkman, years ago. As I recall, they did a focus group where they asked the people in the group whether they preferred a black walkman design (more "serious" looking), or a bright yellow one (more "fun"). The participants overwhelmingly said they wanted the black one. But then they put a bin outside of the meeting where participants would be able to pick up a free prototype Walkman, and they had both black and yellow ones. Almost everyone actually chose the yellow one.

"Design by focus group" is fraught with danger, because focus group participants are often going to tell you things in the abstract that, when actually faced with a real choice in real life, they would absolutely not choose. People often don't know what they want until they see it in reality and actually have to make a real choice. If you're smart, you do your market research not by asking people whether they "like" things, or what things the think they want, but by observing their actual behavior when their choices make some sort of concrete difference to them. Clearly Delta just did this very simplistic level of research where there's no skin in the game and people were just abstractly answering focus group questions without actually thinking about and working out how various program designs would really function in practice for them. You're gonna go way off course designing things that way.

A friend of mine was just contacted by Delta to be in a focus group to discuss the changes that were published for 2025. It appears they are studying this very closely. That's all I know at this time.

If they�re going back to focus groups, that seems to imply that we aren�t going to be hearing anything about any modifications for some time. Since the qualification year doesn�t start until 1/1, DL may feel that they have time. (Although as has been pointed out, people are already making travel plans for 2024.)

It's another great example of why I doubt they'll fix this in a sensible way. If they just end up running focus groups with the same approach they used the first time around, they won't figure out how to fix it. it will be just another "bad design by mindless use of focus groups". Hopefully they get someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to research, this time around.

So I'm one of those people who doesn't fly a lot but was able to maintain Gold (and thanks to pandemic rollover Platinum) status thanks to the MQD waiver and MQM status boost on my Amex Plat DL card, combined with 2-3 flights a year on Delta (one TATL). I was consistent Silver for 8 years, then Gold thanks to some unexpected business travel pre-pandemic. I'm doing all my spending on that card (S60-70K a year) to get the MQD waiver, MQM boosts and regular miles for booking free flights.

I'm not begrudging that Delta wants more valuable customers than me and doesn't want to give customers like me status any more. I like Delta but I have no relationship with them, it's a business decision after all for me. Delta can make decisions as a company that benefit me, or are bad for me, all fine. But I will determine for myself what is most beneficial for me, and clearly that will be to let Delta status and my Amex DL plat card go, in favor of booking the cheapest airline (I'm in NYC so I have lots of choices), and probably getting the Chase Sapphire Preferred card for it's travel rewards and ditching Amex all together. I will be Gold next year still, so will probably still fly Delta once or twice to finish up my miles and use my last companion cert. And using my current status to get status matched on JetBlue and may be United?

In the end I think that Delta might not miss my business much, but AMEX surely will.