jimrpa

I'm not a marketing guru, but it seems that there's some benefit to offering "below cost" sales sometimes. Lots of consumer marketers seem to do it. I dunno???

jimrpa

I fully expect 401Ks to be taxed by the time I retire, no matter what promises are made by politicians. In fact, I believe that some policy papers have been circulated in Washington along these lines.

Employers HAVE reduced benefits for retirees in the past. Again, I expect to see this trend continue.
Is is a "decay of integrity"? Or is it perhaps more an issue of plain old affordability? Businesses made promises they thought they could keep and now discover they can't. What should they do?

John C

For things like this, I believe that it is exactly that. In many cases, competitive pressures accelerate the decay. We as consumers have ourselves to blame in that often we shop for the lowest price and ignore all else. That is a modern phenomena and I am not convinced it serves us very well. But surely you can not take the position that Delta cannot afford to keep the old frequent flier program? It may be inconvenient. It may respresent some minor additional cost. But that is not the lynchpin that will determine if and when they can emerge from bankruptcy.

With bigger issues such as pensions, our government is largely to blame for not enforcing "pay as you go" and for allowing the pension assets to remain on the balance sheet as a corporate asset. It should be an independent trust asset of the beneficiaries that is untouchable by the corporate entity once paid.

I know it isn't in vogue these days to keep promises that are difficult. We've become a society that accepts sincerity in place of integrity. That's a shame. Believe it or not, it hasn't always been this way. There was a time when the measure of a man was the ends he would go to in order to protect his honor.

gilpin

That's total nonsense! At the time Delta promised old awards would always be available under the old redemption schedule if we maintained Medallion status, the SkyMiles program had already been in effect for about 6 months. There is a big difference between the "Delta Frequent Flier" program and "a frequent flyer program" (of which SkyMiles is an example).

Furthermore there was no "10 years of notice", in fact they notified us that the miles would never expire!

gilpin

AFAIK 401K withdrawals are already taxed.For some people shoplifting is also an issue of "plain old affordability".

kersie

I have a large SkyMiles balance. I fly on about one to two Delta flights a year, but because of a change in travel patterns, fly a LOT on Continental so I choose to earn miles with them. With the SkyMiles joint earning opportunities, I can't imagine I'm the only one.

TTT

Why not earn enough on DL (either flying DL or CO) for an award that you want, and then redeem for that award and close the Delta account? Makes more sense to credit all SkyTeam flights to one account rather than have two accounts in SkyTeam.

jimrpa

ok, so credit one CO flight every two years to DL. Pretty simple!

jimrpa

ah, but not income earned by the account before it's withdrawn. Remember, we have a $400B+ war to pay for!Interesting, but probably not a valid or fair comparison.

kersie

It is, if you're not trying to make elite and coming this close every year This is my issue, not theirs, and totally fixable. The two years doesn't bother me, I understand it from a business perspective and whatnot, but it just requires that I'm more aware. I was more responding to a concept that I, as somebody not currently earning DL miles, is not somebody DL should be trying to woo back.

starflyer

Where can I find a list of restaurants that do this? The SkyMiles Dining program seems to give miles to the SkyMiles account associated with the credit card used to purchase the meal, not a SkyMiles number provided to the restaurant. Thanks!

piyush

The answer remains the same .....

starflyer

Thanks to all! Guess I need glasses.

rnovak

um... I think this is why they call it a FREQUENT flyer program.

Sorry folks.. if you've had no activity for 2 years, you're not a FREQUENT flyer.. you're a In-Frequent flyer.

John C

Interesting. Just for fun I went to the wayback machine. For those who aren't aware of it, they maintain archives of Internet pages in order to document the evolution of the Internet. It can be a lot of fun to peruse 5 year old web pages. LINK

The earliest Delta pages (back when the URL was delta-air.com) were from late 1997 / early 1998. From the archive of Delta's web site :

Note that usage of miles against the old chart wasn't tied to the existance of the FF program as has been discussed here, it was tied to the Medallion program. I found that subtle distinction to be interesting.