+1. Remember the key to DL's behavior these days, as MikeMpls said: Beancounters Rule.

Repeat. Beancounters Rule.

This is truly a race to the bottom. Harmonize the programs to the lowest common denominator. The previous business strategy of "be better than the competition, attract net new customers and thus make $" has been replaced with "be the same as the competition but squeeze the existing customers harder than the other guy and thus make $"

Beancounters Rule.

One can only wonder when DL will tire of issuing Diamond benefits and institute a new 5th tier, above Diamond. Or, maybe they already have; perhaps the infamous 2% Club is still alive and well, but now 2% of Diamonds.

How do you know there was no abuse?
No, I do not believe anything DL or FTers tell me for that matter.
It's not at all unlikely, given other things being equal, that disallowing unlimited changes on award tickets to PLats can make award availability better. I reserve my judgment on this, unlike some others who have made up their mind.
And what was triple EQM? What is denying that triple EQMs were awarded when they were?
Why not give the Plat benefits with unlimited changes on award tix and SWUs to not just Golds's or Silvers but to all FFs? Why should the benefits be limited by tiers? Of course, the ideal solution would be to have more award inventory. But given that the overall capacity is lower than it was about a decade ago, a larger award inventory is unrealistic. Rationing is a rational solution. Those on one side of the cutoff will complain.

This is a pretty good summary of how DL management behaves. Unfortunately, the "beancounter" culture is deeply embedded at DL HQs even beyond just DL's accounting and finance staff. Add in a mix of Enronesque Jeff and the situation is ugly.

+1. And let's move away from the DL marketing spin "abuse". The benefit wasn't abused, it perhaps was misused to the level DL intended it. And even if that were the case, I have a hard time believing that was the issue.

Again, DL could have found a better solution to keep a similar perk while addressing the issue of so many unflown tickets, but clearly they utilized the opportunity to fleece and regive at a higher level.

Not only does he believe it, he defends it. He thinks NW had a 3X EQM Promo!

That may be true. However, that's not the reason for the policy change. Were that the reason for the policy change, DL would have simply charged the fee for any change to origin/destination and/or redeposit, all the time, with perhaps a grace period (change within X days of purchase and/or at least X days from travel). Charge the fee all the time - no two freebies - but no fee for changes with the same origin destination. It is the blatantly obvious solution that fixes the claimed problem while preserving a good deal of the value of the benefit for the travelers. It is so obvious it took me literally 10 seconds to come up with it. And DL would then have obviously and accurately communicated the change.

But as we know, that's not what DL did. First they just stuck a fee on there for ALL changes no matter what, and they announced it in the middle of a marketing email. When there was considerable backlash, they adopted a two-free-changes policy, but never actually communicated in detail how that would work. Changes to two reservations? Changes to two tickets? Two changes even if to the same reservation? It's months later and I think we STILL don't have a clear answer on that issue.

Amen!

Cumulatively the changes this year represent a very substantial devaluation of Elite benefits. From here on out one is going to have to spend more money and miles for less valuable awards than before. And the way they have handled the new Platinum elite award ticket fees has been horrible.

OK, as you know loud and clear, on the whole you wrecked your new program for international customers because your SWU's are tremendously uncompetitive and much harder to get than those of your competitors. Please stop trying to tell me what is important to me. I already told you what was important to me a year ago when you sent me a survey. I'm sure the survey results could have predicted the backlash you're facing now.

And your response to someone in a UA hub is?

+1 here as well. raehl311 stated it correctly that DL never gave us clarification on it. But we all know what it is, any "voluntary change" counts as one. Doesn't matter if it's one PNR or not.

A change to two people on the same PNR at the same time is considered one change. But call again tomorrow with another change, it's change #2.

The "program as a whole" includes how we've been dealt with in the past.

What if you call back same day? I'd wager they would say that's a new change.

It happens more often than not - to me at least. I'll sometimes readily agree to an agent's suggestion, but in hindsight later in the day, realise that I'd prefer something a little different - like getting a slightly earlier flight.

I remember reading - but can't find it anywhere - that premium seats on international travel got you into the lounges. This included destinations to and from Canada and to and from Mexico/Carribean. As far as I could discern, this was applicable to upgraded seats.

Does anybody else remember this or was this just wishful thinking on my part? For me as a Canadian, such lounge access would be great and partly compensate for the various lounger offers that are not valid in Canada.

Says one who thinks one times three is four.

One times three is three. I was not awarded either a 2x base miles bonus nor a 2x normally accrued miles bonus. I was awarded a 1.5x base miles bonus. A 1.5x bonus plus 1x base = 2.5x, not 3x.

Note that DL flyers were actually awarded a 2x base miles bonus. Apparently only DL's own frequent fliers are entitled to correct math, since they actually received 0.5x more MQMs than all of us lowly NW fliers.

Of course, even the DL fliers only received 2.5x normally accrued miles, so I still find the promotion misleading even for them, but there's at least a defensible mathematical argument there (they did not include the class of service bonus in the calculation).

You did get what was advertised,. That was tripe EQMs. It can't be helped it if some people fell victim to greed here. By what logic do they expect benefits such as upgrades to business class from any fare by flying two round trips to Singapore is beyond me.