safigan

Spin is the only way to describe the two changes as being a "giveback": (a) offer an option that values miles at $.01 per mile; and (b) add a "super" Skychoice tier that gives you no more than Skychoice used to offer for more miles. Sounds like "giveback" is DL's way of saying "give me back your points."

elitetraveler

Very good idea! The hotel/flight coordination is always the key.

AndyTLe

DL would love to see this kind of talk... Our "negotiations" downward. We've become so used to DL taking things back that we're willing to bargain for less. Give them an inch...

elitetraveler

Or another giveback

allergictocoach

The pay with miles has been considered positive to this point? By who? Borrowing from a Loanshark to buy your ticket would likely be a better deal than that soak job program......

andymo99

Jeff, your last post was nearly 7 weeks ago. The tradition here has been that you post something like this which raises a ton of questions, some of them pretty insightful. But you don't come back for nearly 7 weeks, at which time, you sorta kinda tangentially touch upon a few of the issues raised.

How about a more stable official presence, a la CO or Starwood?



Neat stat on the 90%/10%. I doubt anyone would have guessed close to that. Knowing this tidbit makes the change seem more reasonable to me (admittedly, being PM makes it much easier to swallow, with free re-deposits).

One other thing: You continue to charge $20 phone ticketing fees for awards that can't be booked online. This is very unfair. It doesn't give you much incentive to improve the very buggy award calendar and booking engine.




Jeff, as I raised in a much earlier post, you had told us some time ago that the change was to affect only a very select group of high-profile flights. In truth, it turned out that it affected every single flight systemwide, since any flight w/o inventory of M or lower couldn't be booked as SkyChoice. I think you continue to misrepresent the situation when you say "it was done to protect the most peak flights throughout our system"



A few points. First of all, you should know your audience (in this case, FTers) better. You should know that the FT community as a whole wouldn't be very excited about PWM, and wouldn't consider it a meaningful "giveback" to what was taken away. Joe Flyer might be excited, and I am not surprised that your broader marketing materials are made accordingly, but at this forum, you should know us better than to hold out PWM as a great giveback, as it sets us up for certain letdown.

Secondly, you mention lots of PWM redemptions. Can you explain how you will calculate and publish stats on award redemptions now. I suspect that you will use PWM to inflate the reported total, whereas PWM is not what most of us are looking to use.

mikey1003

Hit and run....He won't be back for a month or three

Beckles

I totally disagree, I think the new three tier award system plus PwM is a positive change that will allow greater redemption options without have to go to SkyChoice than was available previously.

Beckles

This advice seems to be predicated on the assumption that miles will be less valuable after the three tier structure is introduced ... do you know something I don't about the three tier structure that is going to make it inferior to the current structure?

Beckles

How can it be considered a negative ... if you don't want to use it, don't use it ... how does it hurt you that others have another redemption option that you don't want to use?

AndyTLe

The limiting of SC availability and the addition of PwM makes it more costly to redeem. So PwM goes beyond SC.

Previous Example...

New York LGA to Vail EGE
December 24, 2008 - December 28, 2008

Old System:
F ticket - $4493.97
SkyChoice - 90,000 Miles

New System:
F ticket - $4493.97
SkyChoice - Unavailable because this is one of "those" routes.
Pay with 90,000 Miles (assuming 1 mile = $.01) = $4493.97 - $900 = $3593.97

mikew99

Remember, PwM was the "giveback" for decimating SkyChoice. If DL had kept SkyChoice the same and added PwM as an additional option, then that would have been a positive. Now, DL no longer allows SkyChoice in many cases, leaving PwM as the only (poor) option available.

karthik

So if online holds are still possible, and you're pushing to move people to online award ticketing since there's a $20 phone ticketing fee, why aren't phone holds possible? Shouldn't there be less phone reservations than online reservations going forward, making the "90% unredeemed" problem almost as bad? I like the idea of offering something like a 4 hour hold to confirm hotel/car/etc plans, if you aren't going to give us something more. Maybe the hold could be longer for folks with status. At least let us put holds on award tickets that can't be booked online until your website actually lets us ticket award flights properly. The website is horribly broken at the moment for award ticketing as I'm sure you're aware.

Thank you for clearing that up, but many of your CSRs are apparently not aware that this has not changed. It seems that the level of communication to CSRs is not what it should be.

I actually like the new PwM system. It seems like it'd be very useful for the infrequent flyer with a low mileage balance. The average FlyerTalker probably will not find it very useful, but I don't think it's designed for us.

Overall, I find the changes to be quite negative. Making it impossible to hold tickets on other than a few online-accessible partners (assuming the website works properly for even those) is absolutely ludicrous. The new tiers are not great, but are not absolutely horrible IF current SkySaver availability does not diminish, however I have a feeling that many seats will move from the low tier to the middle tier. If your review of waitlisting results in negative changes there, I will be very disappointed and be even more likely to simply cash in my SkyMiles as quickly as I can and not accrue more, specifically looking for international J tickets on partner airlines on costly routes.

And despite liking Pay with Miles in general, it is not a "giveback" to frequent fliers. Please do not spin it as such to educated members of this forum. We know our miles are easily redeemed for well over 1c/mile under the current award structure.

lls138

Have you tried to find TATL skysaver availablilty on a Friday-Sunday departure that doesn't include ludacrous amounts of layovers that makes the trip > 24 hours long? Even searching 11 months out is near impossible. Hence I am cashing out of this inflationary currency while it still has value. I suggest you all do the same.

Once again, I used to fly mostly DL for the skymiles. Now I will choose my flights based solely on flight cost and flight schedule as the benefit of earning skymiles is shrinking....see OP.

entropy

That's one of the most irritating things. He drops a bomb and then doesn't stay around to look at the fallout.

I haven't seen a positive change yet. 3 tiers isn't positive, its "revenue maximization" which is skymiles DEVALUATION.

Pay with miles is neutral at best, anyone that knows better will know its a ripoff, and those who don't are being suckered.

Eliminating phone holds? that's a bit draconian isn't it? Given that availability is spotty, it makes sense to let people make sure their other arrangements can work.

If RealDLInsider looked at how CO Insider interacts with FT, he'd see a much more mutually beneficial arrangement. But this guy just spews press releases with nothing but bad news.