Hi Randy, with the radical changes and drastic reduction of benefits in DL's Skymiles program I pose to you the following question. Ny wife and I are both GM's and reside in NYC. The majority of our trips are to LAX, FLL, PBI, Europe and an occasional trip to DTW & SMF. We have been mid tier elites for several years now, and should be able to maintain that status in the future. I have over 450,000 miles in my account and she has about 150,000 miles in hers. I also have 300,000 points in my Amex MR account. In addition, we both have DL Amex Platinum credit cards.

Is there a clear choice that in your opinion makes sense. Also along with an airline, what credit card should we switch to? Another issue is getting comped. We certainly don't want to start from an entry level.

Basically, I am asking our guru what you would do if you were in our shoes?

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[This message has been edited by Rssrsvp (edited 12-19-2002).]

Well, I'm not Randy, but...

You have basically three options to pick from:

AA
UA/US
CO/NW

NY--> LAX/South Florida/Europe routes ...

With CO/NW you'll have to connect in CLE/DTW on your way to Florida, and you don't have non-stop options to LAX either. Doesn't sound like the CO/NW routes overlap well with your plans.

UA and AA offer non-stops to LAX. They also offer good routes to Europe (although the BA partnership with AA doesn't offer mileage accrual across the pond).

On the other hand, NY --> South Florida isn't really the best for AA.

US has a really good East Coast route network, and their partnership with UA may make them ideal for you.

Naturally, UA and US would both be happy to comp you status. A quick pop over to either board can give you instructions on how to achieve this. UA and US would be happy to comp you to Premier Executive or Gold, respectively.

If you were to go that route, you'd probably be interested in the Mileage Plus Visa (15k signup bonus). I would have said the Starwood Amex, but unfortunately as of 1/1/03 the conversion rate is cut in half from 1:1 to 2:1.

Huh? CO has three flights each EWR-FLL/PBI, AA has four LGA-FLL and three LGA-PBI. Those are the non-stops. On either airline you can go through hubs (more miles) too, giving even more flight options.

AA offers nonstops to LAX from NY AND FLL (two daily) also. AA will also let you upgrade your int'l trips with miles or VIPOW's (if you're top level Executive Platinum) on ANY fare...no HoKeY stuff, as well as domestic with e-upgrades/VIPOWs/miles, again, on any fare. They'll comp upgrades starting 1/16 to elite members on Y/B fares for domestic travel.

US does indeed have a better structure up and down the east coast, but they may not be a viable entity in the near future and their partner UA is in bakruptcy court also. I wouldn't want my eggs in those two baskets.

I suspect that this thread is a "Fat Pitch" to get Randy's position on the Delta changes.

Seems like a good idea as long as he hits a home run.

I think you pegged it pretty good.

CountinPlaces and LLZ, I am shocked that you would question the motivation behind my question.

Actually this is really no different than some of the questions that Randy has answered in the past in Inside Flyer magazine.