Don

Hate to say it, but the legacy carriers ought to jack up the cost of award tickets - double or perhaps triple the current miles.

Would seem only fair that they give one or perhaps two seasons' advance notice, but after that ... well, with Exxon and the Saudis running everybody toward Chapter 11, public relations has to give way to reality.

(And no, I'm not expecting agreement on the point).

Palal

DL has already done this.

USCGamecock

Your are right - most people won't agree with you!

Don

2001 DL = 25,000 SkySaver domestic
2008 DL = 25,000 SkySaver domestic

2001 BDL-LAX advance purchase, bargain-basement, no redeye: $198
2008 BDL-LAX advance purchase, bargain-basement, no redeye: $440


As someone who has worked hard to accumulate SkyMiles, I detest the prospect of higher award travel rates. But that's irrelevant. For the airlines, retaining 7-year-old rates makes no sense amidst this hellacious market.

USCGamecock

Wonder how many miles are not used or expire? Since the a/l's have an extra cost percentage already figured in for the miles, you know they are making money off of the deal.

Spiff

A huge to this idea.

Increase revenue, but don't crap on my previous loyalty.

billboos

I must have missed something as I just tried to book LAX-CDG-LAX and and flights came up on AF as SkySAVER which I thought was 90k in Business --- it popped up as 170k. Is partner airline on DL almost double miles? I know on AA it is the same number of miles

lofly

DON, for your information: Delta has another method to handle "award tickets" without increasing mileage!

They simply LIMIT THE NUMBER of SKYSAVERS, and INCREASE THE NUMBER OF SKYCHOICE.

By the reaction of the members of the Delta Board over the past year of so, Delta has DONE this.

avflyer

The logic here implies that people should fly say 2x, 3x or 4x as much in order to redeem an award because the price of fuel has double, tripled or quadrupled. In fact the OPs math is flawed. The price of the tickets (used to build award an award inventory of points) should reflect the cost of travel. The ability to earn points to be used toward award travel is an incentive to fly a particular carrier to begin with.

There are a great many things I like about flying on DL and using my AMEX card. The most important benefit for me is the ability to earn points and use them to fly when not flying for business. This usually means flying my family overseas during the kids school vacation. In exchange for this, Delta and Amex see "profitable" business from me. If Delta dramatically changes my expectations regarding this by making such travel impossible or by upping the amount they charge in either points or extra booking surcharges, then my loyalty to Delta will be dramatically affected which would be a shame since they already "own" me.

LKD23

good luck finding a 25K domestic award ticket with the date and times you want. usually, you need to spend 47.5K miles, so it's just about double what it used to be.

2stepsbehind

well said

Don

And entertaining notion, but wrong.

DL - and others - have been accused of reducing award capacity for years before this latest crisis. And they may very well have done that. But that's simply irrelevant; they're merely giving away less, but still at way-below-value prices. That's an OK strategy - maybe - in a strong economy, but an express ticket to the corporate junkyard in '08.

The time has come for the legacies to devalue the currency of miles.

(Y'all ain't gonna wanna hear it, but: Pax 'loyalty' is no longer the prize that it was. The airlines aren't hurting for customers, they're hurting for profits. And this time around, those two things just aren't interchangeable).

Interesting point about availability: International may well be virtually unavailable, but if I'm an airline exec I've got zero incentive to give away the last profitable bit of my operation to award travel. Just can't afford that any more.

Domestic, though, is another matter. My first & random shots at checking SkySaver this afternoon:

BDL-TPA 12/3-12/8: 25K
BDL-SEA 1/8-1/11: 25K

... now those are the precise dates I entered, not a 3+/- deal.

BDL to SJU - no luck on the 1/11 return, but if I swap to 1/8-1/13 we're talking 32.5K

BDL-EZE .... forget it, no bargains at all.

Anchorage in September? There are a few dates workable for SkySaver ... the 16 and 22 are what I priced out: 25K. Identical flights off Travelocity on those days are $540, pre tax & fees.

With so many legacies teetering on the grave, it's simply insane to be giving away the store for 25K.

The defense for mileage runs has always been: Well, the airlines' own systems allow it, so why not? And that's a fair point. But when the industry is in meltdown mode & slashing capacity at full throttle, it's time to get tough.
(Customers will 'vote with their feet'? Those days are over, and that threat's an empty).
'Loyalty' customers these days are mostly red ink: The full-fare crowd is the only one you can afford to retain. Hell, when you're losing money on the average pax, you want fewer of 'em, not more.

sammy0623

i hate how the airlines act like the miles are the worse thing in the world. they talk about how much liability there is with trillions of miles out there. but they won't easily let you spend them. with the cost of fuel going up, they should raise ticket prices. if they price a free ticket at 25K, that means they want you traveling 25k worth of miles (outside miles aside). no other industry acts like this with their rewards. if i buy X meals at my neighborhood diner, I get a free one. no restrictions, no difficulty. its a nice reward from the diner, and it probably encourages me to go there. the diner doesn't act so burdened by it. the price of gas is going up, so they raised their prices, instead of making it 2X meals to get a free one.

surferdl

Don,

Im glad your not running a FF program.

yngdiego

If Delta did this, they would LOSE my business. So that would be insane of them to try. Plus, we are already paying MORE for tickets to earn those miles, so they are in essence jacking up the cost. Yes we get miles other ways too, but DL gets paid for that too.