Heck I live in Chicago area and flew NW for 6 years exclusively. 100% or my miles were on NW.

I have two major hub airlines. Every hub has many alternate options to get where you want to go. It can be a pain to change in a city but for me DTW and MSP were a pleasure and it opened up MKE as a viable option.

yes, most AA planes are beyond filthy. FC /BC , AA serves the same meals for a long period ; crazy about the selection & quality. but in terms of upgrades , no complaint.
some of us do periodically read other airline FF forums such as DL. i'm not impressed with the 4th tier. AA gives me 8 systemwide upgrades. upgrades for US , hawaii, carribean, are unlimited. i was thinking of getting DL amex and obtain elite status from strictly from the usage of credit card and continue to do all the flying on AA. oh by the way, AA does not give free membership to their lounge(admirals club).

NW's stay at RFD was all too brief. That was another great departure airport. Free parking, free wifi, and no lines. But they couldn't make a go of it.

I suspect you're not the only one. But speaking only for myself, a few dollars, a few hours and a few less connections are worth more than loyalty to one particular airline's FF program.

Hawaii is not a common destination for me, I might go there once more in my lifetime. So the unlimited upgrades for domestic and carribean where I do fly are all I need on DL. Still, if DL adds upgrades to HI, I won't complain

DL PM can be achieved without ever flying BIS, or a combination of promo and 1 or 2 BIS trip EQMs. DM will require slightly more BIS. I think that is why they can't offer the same SWUs that EXP get on AA.

I see DL's program being linear in terms of perks as you advance thru the 4 levels. AA's appears more logarithmic, with fewer less meaningful bennies for GLD and PLT then much better for EXP. I wouldn't mind seeing DL's program becoming more logarithmic in nature but also becoming harder to acheive without BIS (like AA). Maybe something halfway between what it is today (too easy) and what AA is today (out of reach for most).

Can't imagine how you think you read that. There has been much discussion of hot food being eliminated on shorter flights. But there is still hot food on longer flights. I forget the mileage threshold, but hot food is served ATL-LAX.

David

I do believe that this medallion program has the potential to show up in business school texts and learned publications as an example of how a faulty rewards/loyalty program can backfire and actually drive your best cusomers to a competitor. However, I am not quite ready to throw Jeff under the bus for this mistake.

The reason I'm cutting him a little slack is because of a few, yet, IMHO, telling clues that have been given to us. First, at the DO, when the issue of NW Phantom Upgrades came up, Jeff explained, with a bit of a gleam in his eye, that Bob Soukup had to go to battle with NW Revenue Management to get that program going and then turned the question over to Bob to answer. To me, it seemed that Jeff really respected that Bob was able to enact a program that NW's Rev Mgmt was soundly against. I, and again, this is for the most part total conjecture, just got the feeling that Jeff wished he could win a battle that large against his (DLs) Rev Mgmt, but that he knew he could not. Why else would he brag on Bob and allow him to answer the question?

Second, is the existence and ridiculous actions of Delta's Revenue Protection Unit. One example can be seen here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...opes-ebay.html
While I don't know the exact relationship between RPU and Rev Mgmt, to me it seems that Rev Mgmt throws around a lot of weight, politically speaking, at DL Corporate. The culture at DL apparently is to be customer friendly unless and until Rev Mgmt complains, then at that point, do whatever Rev Mgmt wants to be done. Yes, I certainly agree that revenue management is needed in most any business, however, they should be a relevant part of the discussion and not necessarily the final decision makers.

Are these arguments weak and anecdotal? Perhaps. But I just can't see a smart man like Jeff issuing a new loyalty program with a super elite level that pales in comparison to the competition and has obvious holes unless he was under duress and/or was shut down on the relevant points that he desired to be in the new FFer program. In any event, the buck has to stop somewhere, and whether or not he was an active decision maker, Richard Anderson is the one who is ultimately responsible for letting this stinker find the light of day and is the one who by himself has the ability to fix it.

Funny you brought up RFD. That was the best deal in the world back in my old AA days. They had a bus that took you to ORD, amazing. 500 miles and points and I think a buck or two a day for parking. Before that they had ATR 72; I enjoyed the bus ride. They also were trying to drum up business there because the fares were always less than starting at ORD on its own merit.

Sorry for going OT; just brought back a great memory.

Even though you are way more than correct here the main purpose of many people starting to look at AA as an option is only for EXP, the reason is DL started the 4th, better than life tier, with all this anticipation. Even at 25% higher requirements than EXP they did not become best in class.

If we look at both programs as a whole, people between 25K and 100K are better off with DL for upgrades; lets not discuss using miles, that is another joke.

For people that fly over 100K, and have a choice, EXP is superior in the upgrade game.

At AA it is to the highest tiers benefit if free upgrades are not given for the lower tiers, why you may ask since they clear so much earlier. I have been forced to make a change to an itinerary many times that put me in a time frame where FO and/or GM were past their times for upgrades. I've sat in back in those situations many times. I have also bought last minute tickets that were after GM and/of FO window for upgrades.

Most/all flights from the upper Midwest aren't long enough. The upgrade experience from MSP is very underwhelming.

Absolutely, that's what is so shocking about DM. You'd think they not only want to keep their own high mileage elites fat and happy (enough so we don't get wandering eyes), but also lure a few high rev customers from competitors; failure on both counts with the latter being a complete and utter meltdown. I can't imagine any AA, UA or CO top tier elite migrating to DL for DM benefits.

This is starting to look more and more like a battle won by DL revenue suits who probably put the kaibosh on a more competitive scheme.

I was reading the feedback from some of the links in the Delta.com/Blog, and I noticed this from the Forrester Blog...

The Diamond tier will recognize and reward Delta's "road warrior-est" of road warriors -- and, again in theory, keep some of members flying Delta and its SkyTeam partners for an extra 50,000 miles/year. Delta's tossing in a bunch of benefits, including complimentary access to Delta's network of SkyClub airport lounges. It also makes public a "whispered" program nicknamed "white envelope." Until now, Delat's fourth tier was not publicly communicated. Members only knew they qualified when they received their special "super elite" card in (allegedly) a white envelope. The Diamond-level program is potentially worth millions of incremental revenue dollars for Delta, so Wall Street should cheer this news as well.

Assuming that this is correct, since I think Delta would have briefed Forrester on the program before they published this, I don't recall it being discussed anywhere that Diamond = Executive Partner.

Interesting...

My take on the new program:

Diamond:

SWU's aren't any better than the PMU's were.
Lack of companion upgrades at the same priority

Platnium:

Reduced SWU's from 6 to 4.
Reduced domestic upgrades due to lower priority than Diamonds. I agree this is the way it should be, but in general there should have been a give back from Delta to make up for the reduce SWU's and domestic upgrades.

General:

No 2.0x MQM for First/Business class. It is crazy for these fares to earn only 50% more MQM than a $200 LUT fare. Or reduce the LUT fares to 0.5x MQM. If you want to go after premium travelers, this doesn't make sense.

Overall:

I still like Delta more than any of the other carriers out there and they will continue to be my airline of choice. However, I'm disappointed they didn't hit a home run with this. It doesn't give me a lot of incentive to fly more, and much of my travel is discretionary.

I am OK with not having unlimited upgrades to HI. You can use your SWU.


Also I am rethinking SWU on lowest fares. There is only so many BE seats and where is Delta and for that matter AA getting the inventory from. They are not going to take it from someone willing to pay for J or Y/B/M.
They are going to take it from the award seats which is already small enough.

There is seats go out empty and non revs but Delta seems to have given us priority over them with Y/B/M DoD.
Not holding my breath but maybe at the gate DM's on lower fares will get upgraded like PM's did in the 90's.

SWU on lower fares should be limited to only a few.

I flew RT JFK-SFO last week and was served hot nuts, hot meals and ice cream on both flights - not sure what you are reading, but its not about DL.