Cojones

I expect to hit my 100,000 base miles thius year by the end of July. What incentive to I have to fly with PAID tickets on DL for the rest of the year? None, in my opinion. I will probably start cashing in miles for the rest of the year's travel. Now if they allowed one to forward base miles earned this year into 2002, I would keep paying for travel... Delta, are you listening?

rcs85551

This is what many people asked themselves - actually, there has been a similar thread about it: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum21/HTML/003031.html.

NoStressHere

This is a bit different than the other thread. COJONES is saying he should just fly for free instead of buying tickets and building miles.
Some thoughts here trying to keep to his idea. With 100,000 you are going to get either 4 coach tickets or 3 first class tickets. Based on some wild guesses and assuming you flight patterns do not change, you will be ready to start buying tickets again about a month or so later since you will use up all you free miles by then.

Delta really hopes you will use the free tickets for flights that you would not be taking otherwise. If you use some vs. paying, they will still manage to survive. You always have to make your own decision about buying tickets vs using freebies. Keep in mind that a very high percent of high end milers get their tickets paid for by someone else. Not everyone, but a high number. These plans have to be built for the masses.

The other threads talk about why people would keep flying, or wouldn't if you were able to get to higher levels in other airlines. I keep flying DL because they will take care of me - most of the time, and they have the right flight patterns.

2 Many Miles

First, NoStressHere, your numbers are a bit off. As someone who hit PM by flying 100,000 miles, he'd have earned at a minimum 162,500 miles for the year, which is 6 coach or 4 FC tickets.

As to the originla question, I think it's just silly. You don't get status just to have it. You get it so that it makes your life EASIER. Having the PM card doesn't make you a better person. It doesn't change your intrinsic value as a human being.

What it does do is give you benefits for when you fly on Delta. So, to me, if you've earned it, it doesn't make sense to stop flying just when you get to the point where you receive the benefits.

Unless you want to branch out, or have the same benefits on other airlines...

NoStressHere

I did take a wild guess and forgot the bonus miles. I just did some checking. I am at 70+ segments and averageing 540 base miles per flight. Add the bonus and I will be just barely over 100k miles when I qualify based on segments.