Wednesday morning, Delta announced major changes to their SkyMiles program that will take effect January 1, 2015. Most blogs declared that the sky(miles) is falling:
- DeltaPoints declared “The ONLY initial good news is we have 10 months to BURN our Skymiles.”
- One Mile at a Time said “This is horrible. Lets put this into perspective for a second. With Delta’s revenue requirement that’s in place right now they’re basically requiring you to spend an average of ten cents per mile.”
- The Points Guy made his point of view clear in his post title: “Delta Continues to Chisel Away At SkyMiles Program- Announces Mileage Accrual Based on Spend”
- Travel Summary concludes “This sucks if you’re loyal to Delta or live/fly to a Delta hub.”
Really? I read the announcement and saw almost all good news. Where’s the disconnect here?
Earning Miles
Let’s first cover the one part of the announcement that is clearly negative for most flyers. In the new structure, when you fly Delta, you’ll earn redeemable miles based on the price you paid for the ticket, not based on miles flown. Medallion Qualifying mile earnings will still be based on miles flown. For people who earn their miles from flying discounted fares, this will unquestionably mean fewer earned miles. The rules for earning elite status will not change. Elite status will still be based on miles flown and medallion qualifying dollar thresholds.
For me and, I think, many of my readers, this change is mostly immaterial. I earn the vast majority of my SkyMiles from creative credit card spend, credit card signups, Elite Choice Benefits, and shopping portal bonuses. Miles earned from flying tends to be little more than a rounding error in my account balance.
I understand that mileage runners will be ticked off. Mileage running is the sport of flying the lowest available fares just to earn elite status and redeemable miles. For mileage runners, the main goal is usually elite status, but earning redeemable miles is a way to pay yourself back for the cost of flying. That said, I believe mileage running to be a dying sport anyway. This is especially true with Delta since it is possible to earn high level elite status through credit card spend without flying at all. For more about that, see “Mileage running, from home” and “Mileage Running from Home II (now with an exciting 2 player option!).”
Using Miles
Delta SkyMiles have been notoriously hard to use if your goal is to maximize value from your miles. First, they release far fewer saver level seats than most other airlines. Second, Delta.com has long been “broken” in that it does a terrible job in finding good award options, and once found those award options sometimes price incorrectly or error out when you try to book them. Third, Delta currently charges the same for one-way awards as they do for round trip awards.
Delta promises to fix the issues I listed above. They claim that the following enhancements will be available in 2015 (bolding is mine):
There will be more Award Seats available at the lowest redemption levels and more redemption levels overall, giving you additional options that require fewer miles.
and
You will be able to redeem miles for One-Way Award Tickets, half the price of round-trip tickets.
and
The improved Award calendar has expanded search capabilities and will show the lowest price for the dates you select.
Many are understandably skeptical that these promises will really result in a better program for SkyMiles members. Delta has also promised yet another new award chart for 2015, but we won’t see it until late 2014, so people are understandably worried about that. However, the changes listed above are, I believe, really good news.
Analysis
Beginning January 1, 2015, earning SkyMiles miles through flying, especially on discounted fares, will become harder. If Delta is to be believed, though, almost all other aspects of the SkyMiles program will improve. It remains to be seen whether they’ll really open up more saver level award space or whether they’ll really fix the award calendar, but I think its great that they are promising those things. One way awards are an option that is very welcome and long overdue (American and United have offered them for years).
Delta has built a lot of ill-will in the frequent flyer community in the past few years by not only devaluing their program, but by doing so each time abruptly and without warning. While this has caused many to run kicking and screaming away from the Delta program, I’m personally happy that I’ve stuck with them. Will I live to regret that statement in the future? Maybe, but I hope not.
I’m not going to claim that Delta has the best program around. Far from it. But, I mostly like the direction it is going. For example, they recently introduced regional and global upgrade certificates for Platinum and Diamond elites (see “Why Delta’s great new Choice Benefits irk me”) which I think are a really big improvement to their elite program. Even their new MQD elite requirement may be a good thing. You can get exempted from this requirement simply by spending $25K per year on a Delta branded credit card. And, its possible that this requirement will reduce the currently overinflated ranks of high level elites. To me, that would be good since it would mean less competition for upgrades.
The only recent change that really irks me is that, beginning May 1, I can no longer bring in guests to the SkyClub based on my having the Delta Reserve credit card (or Amex Platinum card). I don’t mind making sure that my wife and I each have a card to grant us access, but I really wish they would allow us each to bring in at least one child as a guest. Come on Delta, how about making a family/child exception?
Reader views
How do you feel about the Delta announcement? Is it mostly bad as many other bloggers seem to think, or mostly good as I’ve asserted? Please comment below.
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So to recap, the only person happy with the change is the person who doesn’t actually earn miles through flying. Brilliant.
I am a new reader, and find your posts fascinating.
When you say Delta is not the best FF program, I agree. I’m curious which FF program you feel is best?
As far as redeeming miles for saver awards, I prefer American. I don’t fly enough or spend enough to get elite status on any airline based on flight miles.
Thanks Anton. Until recently I would have said that United is best. It is part of the largest alliance: star alliance, and so award availability for international flights is typically much better than AA or Delta. Now, though, United has made their premium award prices on partners much more expensive. And, with US Air leaving the Star Alliance (due to the merger with AA), there will soon be fewer domestic awards available as well.
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Currently, I’d say that AA is best, but it really depends upon what type of travel you are likely to seek awards for. Also, it is likely that AA will soon change their award pricing (unfavorably) as well.
What about Alaska?
[…] other way to look at this as well is in points earning. Frequent Miler pointed out this week that it is still easier to earn Delta Skymiles with credit cards then to […]
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I propose that the ‘frequent flyer community’ be renamed ‘frequent miler community.’ That would give proper honor to Greg and remove a misleading term commonly used. It does look like Delta’s #1 preferred customers are first/biz only and #2 are credit card holders who never fly Delta. Both groups may do well, depending on what happens to redemptions (I am not optimistic there), and most flyers will be worse off.
[…] Am I the only one happy about Delta’s announced program changes? […]
Strangely, I think mileage runners may be among the least affected overall. The sort of person who’s willing to mileage run is generally the sort who will also have a wallet full of mileage-earning credit cards, who’s also playing the manufactured spend game to supplement their points-earning. After all, if they’re willing to look for good CPM deals, it’s all but guaranteed they’ve heard of at least some basic credit card deals, even if it means just having a CSP in their wallet.
For those mileage runners doing it to earn status, this only affects the ancillary bonus of accruing RDMs in addition to MQMs and MQDs, as the latter remain unchanged in terms of calculation.
Which means, IMO, that the burden will mostly fall on business travelers (as others have mentioned) who do a disproportionate amount of flying for work who lose the side benefit of the extra RDMs, leisure travelers who may not be in the game enough to have acquired the best mileage-earning card and certainly isn’t manufacturing spending, and occasional Delta travelers who may be racking up the points on another airline but only occasionally fly Delta and for whom it’s not worth ponying up for a Delta-branded card.
Business travelers are admittedly rather nebulous since it depends on route and fare price. I’ve seen a lot of comments about how business travelers benefit since they tend to purchase close-in, expensive short-haul fares, but there are also those whose work tends to focus on the long-haul, where they seem to lose out if flying economy. Of course, if their employer is willing to spring for a premium cabin, then the difference in price may well put them ahead anyway.
[…] and others (including me) thought it wasn’t that big of a deal. Frequent Miler asked “Am I the only one happy about Delta’s changes?“. He […]
You missed the fact that the new award availability will be for lower LEVELS -plural. So instead of 3 levels we will have 5. The plural means that the current saver level will be spread accross the 2 lowest of 5 levels, not the lowest saver level. So they can actually reduce the number of lowest saver level awards and say that there will be more lower LEVELS available. If they had not used plural for lower levels- the. On its face it would be good news. But that does not appear to be the case. So with splitting saver awards into a few milage catagories, will only the lowest saver level be available to partners?! That is what is on my mind
I like the quietness and relaxing atmosphere of the lounge sans children. I can’t count the times Jr. is running around or sequels while on a business call. I might as well have been at the jungle gym or the constant chastising from the parents for them to settle down. Grants not all children are like that…but when the typical biz traveler spends more time on the road than home to parent/teach/mentor their children, it tends toward misbehaved children. Not saying all or most cases, but from what I’ve seen and experienced, if you want them in, then pay.
It’s an interesting debate for sure. I certainly think it is hard to call the changes good when we have not yet seen the redeeming side which I cannot imagine being a positive change. It is excruciatingly naive to think that a company that acts the way Delta has historically will be make this anything but bad.
That said it could ultimately be great for the credit card mileage runners. I would say we are the most profitable customer – we never fly them but give them money via Amex. If the end result is that the only good redemption’s are domestic coach, where DL is giving away seats that would otherwise fly empty, then it can be very profitable (and thus sustainable) for all sides.
Which brings to my last point and that is I really don’t understand why Delta and it’s peers are so focused on this. The FF programs are profitable as they are. Sure the high end partner uses cost them money, but the UA approach seems to address that. I don’t understand why they are trying to kill the golden goose?
Frequent Miler, you’re right in that one-way awards will be great, and the best mile-earning opportunities are from credit card sign-ups and spending anyway. It’s also good that Delta will finally fix their award chart. However, I’m very skeptical of their claim that award availability at the lowest level will improve. It seems intuitive that there would be less award availability in each tier in a 5-tiered award chart than in a 3-tiered award chart. Also, who knows what that lowest award level will be? This uncertainty frightens me, and chances are the changes will make Delta start to deserve their Sky Pesos nickname.
Much of this depends on the promise of improving the award chart etc but I think many of us business travelers will come out ahead. I am looking forward to a better lounge experience, less elites and rewarding the top customers.
I don’t think most people earn most of their miles or their status milerunning. What milerunning got done was opportunistic when there were some great fares, and yes, that will probably not pencil out at all except in extreme elite threshold cases.
The people who get screwed here are the people who fly frequently for business and/or leisure. Most businesses require lowest available airfare, and it’s not at all unreasonable to think they are doing plenty of flying at 10 cpm and below. Heck DL even recognized the 10 cpm average for elite levels. Those people are going to be losing half their RDMs or more. If you were an elite getting 100% bonus, and purchasing a ticket at 10cpm, you got 20 miles/dollar. Now you are down to 7-9 miles/dollar, even worse since tax and fees don’t count.
I understand you don’t fly, but churning credit cards and manufacturing spend are borderline activities and if too many people pick up that hobby, that will get restricted too. It certainly isn’t profitable and it will only be tolerated if it remains small enough.
By the way, I noted that DL didn’t say that they’d make more award seats available at the lowest level but rather they used the plural levels so for all I know they will consider the bottom 3 levels the lowest levels.
You may say you won’t be much affected, but it’s impossible to spin this as good for anyone who does travel, unless they are in the 2% traveling on Y B C fares
I agree with your assessment from the bleachers that the changes are mostly for the better. I don’t fly Delta or manufacture their miles because of their legendary reputation as SkyPesos. That said I think Delta seems to saying to the flying community that we will win on our hard product and don’t worry your silly little head about the frequent flyer program because we haven’t really figured it out. And I have to respect an airline that says Wow the flying is what we’re all about…..and honestly every time I flew them in the past their hard product was better than other domestic choices……………
Delta isn’t Southwest. And sheer number of redemptions doesn’t tell you about the value members are getting out of a program.
I’m sure you’ll get your share of “Delta PR” and “Delta payroll” jokes but an interesting perspective and its easy to see you thought about it. The emotional loyalty equation can run pretty high on these things and for good reason. While I don’t have a particular POV (did not even fly Delta at all in 2013), I did take a look at facts— award redemption on Southwest before they introduced their revenue-based program and after the changes. The results might surprise you and while not a barometer for Delta, my guess is that they did this to try and get to where they need to be on award redemption and as you point out, it’s a shallow place they are starting from.
http://insideflyer.boardingarea.com/proposed-new-delta-award-chart/
Thanks Randy (at least, I think this is Randy?). Southwest is an interesting comparison. With SWA, people still do find ways to get outsized value (via companion passes, for example), but of course there are no premium awards. With Delta, your chart shows that they may be keeping economy award prices in-tact. It would be fantastic if that”s true for business class as well. If business class prices go up too high, I would probably only look to use Delta miles for domestic economy flights (and then the comparison to SWA would be even more relevant).
I wouldn’t say I’m happy, but I’m not unhappy. I think it’s mostly either unknown outcome (will they gut the redemption side) or positive (one-way awards). All in all, if they don’t gut redemption, it’s not horrible IMO. It’s bad for mileage runners, no doubt. But I don’t really enjoy MRs, even though I do them from time to time.
I agree with you that these changes are not as bad as other bloggers think they are. While they are bad for mileage runners looking to earn status, I do think most people now earn miles through credit cards rather than mileage running.
While I personally do not earn and use Delta Skymiles (I like American and United because it is easy to fly international first class) I agree with you that some of the changes could improve the Delta program. It is a major improvement that one can now redeem miles for one-way award tickets at half the price of round-trip tickets. Also, if Delta does actually offer more award seats and a better award calendar then people that redeem Skymiles would definitely benefit.
How is this good news for you as a blogger? Blogs exist to find and utilize sweet spots in reward progams. When programs go to a dollar spent system, no more ‘deals’ can be had. Goodbye blogs.
Hopefully this will thin the Medallion ranks.
Further, as a paid forward cabin pax, I look forward to having transcon forward cabins not being completely full.
I know I’m in the minority on this.
Before I started collecting miles, I always assumed the FF programs were geared towards getting employees to push for their companies to be loyal, not the personal travelers. The airlines seem to be moving back towards that. DL did this with the MQD requirement.
With all of these cheap fare search engines why would they not make the milage price based? I think we sometimes lose sight that this is all about money for them. As time goes on and more people join the ranks of the manufactured spending and third party fare search engines, all airlines will slowly strip away the benefits or rewards programs for cheap travel.
The accrual rates will help me earn more miles.
The big unknown, however, is what the “five levels” of award redemptions will be. It is too early to claim “win” until we know how valuable these points will be.
You just know that the redemption changes are going to be even worse than the earning changes. There’s a reason we haven’t seen them yet. You know they have them. They’re just cushioning the blow.
Greg, As a Delta PM who earns status on pure leisure travel, I see nothing good here at all. I am sick over these changes and nothing you can rationalize will make it right. Less rewards for miles flown, No assurance of pricing or availability in the new award chart. Less/No earning on partners. This blows. Yes, I can fly on credit card spend but in fact I always could so no change there.
Frequent Flyer Programs are supposed to be a incentive to be a frequent flyer on Delta. These change are a complete disincentive to flying on Delta.
I might as well fly JetBlue all the time. Nice consistent product with a known reward earning and redemption pricing. Why chase Delta Status now?
I agree. I have no DL status, but I’m worried that other airlines may follow suit.
What confuses me is if cheap fares don’t make DL profit, why not just discontinue selling cheap tickets? Another approach could have been just reduced RDMs based on the fares, just like Korean/Singapore and other airlines.
Do you really think that the CC bonanza is going to persist indefinitely? No offense, but you and the other full-time bloggers seem doubly exposed — if the airlines continue to dismantle their FF programs, I’ll need to find a new hobby. But I’ll still be able to go to work tomorrow.
Can you say the same?
Much like deficit scolds you seem to relish the idea that it is better to scam your way to more mileage by churning credit cards than to earn them by actually flying. Not to mention there are many DL members who don’t have access to high bonus credit cards either due to income (and the fallout of the 2008/9 economic collapse) or they live outside the US where such credit cards are not available. And on another front, these changes really benefit those fortunate enough to work for major corporations that will continue to buy high$ tickets while the rest of us are on economy drives to keep such purchases within reason. It also pre-supposes MRs are solely to earn miles/status and not to actually see various parts of the world. Yes, this change will have major repercussions in the FF world. If DL is correct, UA and AA/US will follow. If DL is wrong, it could be a New Coke fiasco with its two major competitors benefiting from the loss of millions of customers as long as they don’t go the same way. (And I can see Status Match offers popping up from UA and AA/US any day now.)
The reason everyone thinks this is so bad is because you know United and American will follow suite and we’ll be looking a tiny rebate when flying rather than the ability to fly partner front cabin. It will basically be the end of my caring about frequent flyer miles, since all I’ll be able to do is fly coach around and I can already afford that easily enough.
Bad news for DL. You loose miles you get on flying, you get a promise of a better availability for redeeming. How much are you ready to pay for DL promise?
I guess I must have misinterpreted when you said those who flies on discounted fares. I assumed you were referring to those who flies on the lowest fare buckets.
This change hurts most of their profitable customers. That is where it sucks the most.
Happy for you that this has little to zero impact for ya though. In everything, some people win, some people lose.
nobody mentions that this is basically how the Hotel Loyalty programs have worked for years. You earn points based on the price of the stay, but the elite qualification is based on number of night or stays. Then there are categories 1-7 (or more) of hotels for redemptions. Is this not basically what DL is doing? I am not a fan of the change, but while most people are comparing this to the Southwest’s and Virgin America’s, I actaully see them emulating Starwood and Hyatt more in this case…
I can’t see Using Miles as much of a positive. Yes, low level DL award availability is worst in class, but the sweet spot is mid level and partner awards. You can easily tweak 1.5 – 2+ cpm value (not to mention get change flexibility with platinum status). I really doubt DL is going to let us tweak anywhere near the same value with the new award chart. For those of us thinking clearly in terms of value (as opposed to availability) it can’t be a positive.
Delta has made promises about award seat availability in the past many times and those promises have never held true. Jeff Robertson himself specifically explained, for instance, that the ‘high’ availability level would only apply to rare instances of high demand events like the Superbowl.
If you earn miles from non-flight activities only then you don’t care about changes to accrual. I don’t think that’s most members of the Skymiles program, even if that’s most readers of this blog.
But even folks earning strictly from credit card bonuses, manufactured spend, or what have you will see a new five tier award chart.
We haven’t seen the workings of the new 5 tier chart but just as the three tier chart was supposed to generate lower average award prices (Delta promised) and did not, the five tier chart will not either.
Delta won’t release details until the fourth quarter, which in and of itself should make you suspicious. If it was good, they would come out with it. (And excuses about anti-trust making advance announcements of reward pricing are completely bogus, as confirmed to me by folks in the federal government to emphasize they do not regulate mileage programs.)
Furthermore, it’s really crummy not to announce the redemption-side changes now. People are earning miles now to redeem next year and Delta won’t tell them how valuable those miles will be.
How do you even calculate what it’s worth doing for those miles? Delta only wants customers who do not calculate value, it would seem.
It is funny how people are quick to paint MRs as the only loser any $$$ related changes or tell them the “game” is dead.
I am not a MR, used to be when I was unemployed a few years back, and I fly on average to above average fare and this change will screw me massively. Same holds true for vast majority of DL flyers unless you fly on insanely priced short hops like PIT-DTW for a grand r/t or full fare tickets.
Let’s say one flies JFK-SIN via NRT on a $3K ticket in Y. That is a rather expensive fare and close to the ceiling for Y fares. Every one will earn less. Even Diamonds! In the past Diamonds would earn a litle over 45K miles, now the most a Diamond will earn is 33K and it is even less for everybody below. Even the 1-2x traveler will get shafted as they will only earn 15K as opposed to slightly over 20K.
What about JFK-SFO for $1K r/t. Diamonds will only earn 11K which is less than the 12,930 they earn currently and it is even worse for the lower tiers.
I would reasses the “almost all good news” logic on your part.
I thought I made it clear that it is bad news for those who care about earning miles from flying? I agree with your analysis. The difference is that I earn miles primarily from credit card spend, etc. so I don’t care about losing some miles that I would have earned from flying.
It’s hard to verify their claim that they will be offering more low-tier award availability. Yes, we can rely on anecdotes (as we do now to give them the SkyPesos moniker), but even those surveys of airline award availability are fraught with systematic problems.e
The new system works fine for me – I’d have had a slight increase in RDMs last year, and this year so far I’d be way ahead. Fortunately I’m not a frequent international traveler, but I suspect that most of them don’t make long-haul decisions based on FF returns.
I’ll still probably make the occasional MR to ensure status (though not right away – my next flight should get me PM for 2016). The calculus of miles/cash/cash & miles changes a bit (fewer foregone miles on long-hauls means using miles looks slightly better). But overall it’s a wash to a slight improvement for me.
Whether this is good or bad news depends on if the award redemption would or would not become revenue or fixed value based (like SW and VA), and how soon will that change come.
They have said that it will still be zone based, but by going to 5 tiers it does give them more freedom to make quasi revenue based awards. That is, they can use the 5 levels to fine tune awards to make them closely aligned to ticket prices. As you said, we have to wait to see it before we’ll know how bad it is.
You’re really stretching here IMHO.
DL also said that going to 3 tiers would mean better availability at lower levels and look what that did for the program.
Now you’re going to believe them that 5 tiers is going to be a good thing and mean more seats at lower levels?
Seems hopelessly naive at best.
This is just a step towards making miles worth a penny or less each. And they’ll try to control that via 5 tiers.
That all may be true but the point is they didn’t say that awards would be more expensive and they did say that low level availability would increase (which I read to mean level availability). Are they lying? Maybe, but the point is that I’m happy about their declared changes. I’ll complain about award chart changes when they make them public if they’re bad. No point in worrying about them now. They would have happened with or without this announcement.
If you believe that Delta will increase “low level availability” without anything negative to go along with it (i.e. low level awards now cost a lot more) I have a bridge to sell you.
Its basically a different way of making it difficult for mileage runners (instead of increasing miles to redeem for flights), since they don’t generate revenues anyways…
Mileage runners do generate revenue. They are normally in potentially unsold seats, if the airline has priced appropriately. They may be trying to reduce the loyalty rebate, but I doubt they want the seats unsold completely.
1. Thanks for catching (and quoting) the typo in my post! 😉
2. I can see how these changes would seem positive for manufactured spenders, but I think we agree that this is terrible for the regular traveler that flies on the cheapest fares.
3. I don’t think we can *really* say whether these are positive for manufactured spenders until we see the new award chart. If they double redemption rates then I’m pretty sure we’ll all see this as a negative!
4. You can be the new DeltaPoints 🙂
1. Sorry, I didn’t even notice the typo. Fixed
2. While I mostly agree, even that is debatable. Today, many regular travelers think that the price Delta shows them to redeem for a flight is the price. As a result, if they really do release more low level space, those same travelers may get more bang for their miles. So, the net result of earning fewer miles may not really effect them at redemption time. Yes, that’s a lot of “ifs”, but just pointing out that it is debatable.
3. Similarly, we can’t really say that the new award chart is bad when we haven’t seen it yet. All we know for sure is that 25K round trip domestic coach and 12.5K on-way will still be available. So, I see the award chart changes as a separate topic. Since they didn’t announce one way or another, we are left to talk about the things they did announce. And, those are mostly positive for those who earn miles in ways other than flying.
With the number of miles they’re giving away on a TPAC TATL long haul business class ticket (up to 75k a pop), I see it as inevitable that Delta J redemptions are going to be 200k+
Not releasing the 2015 award chart at the same time does not bode well
I don’t see the two as being related. People will only earn lots of miles when they spend lots of dollars. I doubt this will lead to more Delta miles being in circulation than today.
I don’t think total circulation is what would drive the rates of J tickets, but the rate of paid J to redeem one J award ticket. Asian FF programs already grant lower mileage based on fare class from 0% to 100% for Y and 125-150% bonus for J/F, but you’re looking at maybe 20k RDM before status bonuses for a TPAC J ticket, for award tickets that cost around 120-150k miles.
Delta even without status would grant way more miles than that. Unless they’re going to allow 3-4 J trips to fund a J award, I can only imagine that prices can only go up
Can’t you still mileage run for status? I usually do 4-5 transcon trips for the eqm, and that’s not changing.
Yes you can. The problem is just that you won’t earn as many redeemable miles to help offset the cost of the mileage run. Plus, you’ll have to make sure you spend $25K on a Delta credit card to overcome the MQD requirements
As always, you have excellent points and great perspective. I think the biggest problem is the unmentioned change – like this has happened just after their award chart devaluation a few months ago and they have not yet released an award chart for this new structure. Also, will they release news later on this year that they are gutting MQM earning amounts for cheaper fares to stay in line with this change?
I think the loyalty program is wagging the dog here.
The ones flying economy on business paid travel are not happy
The ones flying business long haul are going to be OK
What DL has done is reward @5% cash back, unlike DL Amex – 2% cash back rebate (assuming 1 cpm)
Cost to DL is 0.5 cpm, so they are really giving 2% cash back and Amex is giving 1% back.
I totally agree with your whole post. Mileage running is dead (at least on Delta) but we knew that already.
I earn my miles through CC bonuses / spending (and the other ways you mention). With a family of 8, I don’t like to pay for ANYTHING, and certainly not travel 😀
I think most of the whining is from a) people who are affected (like people who pay for a lot of flights, b) mileage runners, and c) people that just don’t like change (which is most folks)
Delta’s change is mostly positive news for the people who want to buy a cheap fare (to actually go to the destination) but have been getting shut out by the “mileage runners”.
Also, if those cheap tickets were bought by people who actually WANTED to go to the location, there would naturally be much more efficiency and less waste in the system. It will also stimulate the economy by having a few more paid tickets, and less people fighting over the award seats, which should make them easier to get.
I’m assuming that some mileage runners will stop flying Delta.
The idea of flying a long distance somewhere/anywhere just to get the frequent flyer benefits is wastefull in one other very important way. These Runners do not pay for their carbon emissions!