Delta has announced limits on access to Sky Clubs using American Express cards, to annual limits on entry with their premium reserve card to a ban on entry by passengers traveling on basic economy fares. They’ve also announced that qualifying dollars is the only metric going forward for elite status, but that card spend earns qualifying dollars – albeit slowly.
- Silver: $6,000
- Gold: $12,000
- Platinum: $18,000
- Diamond: $35,000
The Delta Reserve card earns 1 qualifying dollar per $10 spend; Delta Platinum 1 qualifying dollar per $20 spent; and other co-brands do not earn qualifying dollars. But booking car rentals and hotels through the Delta portal earns qualifying dollars (you’ll give up hotel points, credit towards hotel elite status, and elite benefits on your stays) and so does booking Delta vacation packages.
Earning status from credit cards alone means spending on the SkyMiles Reserve Amex:
- $60,000 for Silver
- $120,000 for Gold
- $180,000 for Platinum
- $350,000 for Diamond
Using a Platinum co-brands you’d have to spend:
- $120,000 for Silver
- $240,000 for Gold
- $360,000 for Platinum
- $700,000 for Diamond
Compare to American Airlines where $200,000 in spend earns top tier Executive Platinum, where doing that on their no annual fee card is sufficient, and where their Citi and Barclays premium cards actually earn bonuses so you could even earn top tier status with $165,000 in card spend.
For most people that travel (income skews higher) they might be able to focus on a single card and stretch to $25,000 in annual spend. Putting that all on the $250 annual fee Platinum SkyMiles Amex would net just 1,250 qualifying dollars. A Platinum cardmember who did this would no longer be allowed to buy a Sky Club day pass. And if they aren’t already Silver they aren’t allowed to buy a Sky Club membership.
If they do get a hobbled $550 annual fee Delta Reserve they’d earn 2,500 qualifying dollars. When they finally earn enough miles for a free ticket, Delta books the cheapest awards into basic economy, and they’d now be turned away at the club.
- Delta and American Express want more cardmember spend. You don’t get unlimited lounge access from your card anymore without $75,000 spend. You don’t get status without big spend on a premium card.
- Just having the cards is worth less. They cut benefits to having the premium Reserve card.
- We will see some increased spend and a lot of cancels.
- We will see fewer top elites and fewer people in Sky Clubs.
- They are doubling down on big spenders when managed business travel is stagnant.
- The rate of qualifying dollars earned from Reserve card spend is semi-reasonable. Requiring having a neutered Reserve card to get decent qualifying dollars for your spend is absurd.
- Delta owns Atlanta and the Upper Midwest. Those customers have little choice but to fly Delta but they don’t have to stay on the devalued SkyMiles hamster wheel. So far all of the program guttings haven’t cost Delta. At some point they will.
- Delta is a slightly more reliable airline than competitors. Their flight attendants are a little friendlier. Their Sky Clubs offer more food. But in competitive markets they demand too much and give too little.
- At the end of the day you need to commit hard to Delta Amex spend for status, status is worth less (eg no more confirmed business class upgrades when you buy international coach), and in the end you have… a whole lot of SkyMiles that are worth less than what you would have earned on other cards.
- And many people don’t have the spend to do it. $25,000 spend on a Delta Platinum Amex only nets 1250 qualifying dollars! And that is pretty normal spending.
- So customers either can’t or shouldn’t play along. I would have thought that gutting the value of their points for free travel would have killed their golden goose but it didn’t. Will this push their loyalists too far?
Delta says that nearly 1% of GDP is currently being charged to their Amex cards, why would they risk this? A lot of Delta cards are going to be cancelled since they no longer have unlimited or any access to Sky Clubs, and since the thresholds for earning status are so high.
There will be some people who double down on their Delta Amex cards, but at the end of the status chase if they can put hundreds of thousands of dollars of spend on those cards, they will have… Delta SkyMiles instead of more valuable rewards currencies they could have earned. The opportunity cost is high!
The airline committed to bond investors not to devalue the program as part of mortgaging SkyMiles for $9 billion in 2020. In this context, that means making material changes that would reduce revenue largely from American Express. The bet here is that they’ll drive more card spend, not less. We’ll see if they’re correct that customers continue to stick with them.
Icing on the cake would be if AMEX massively increases the annual fee on the Delta cards. A $250 annual fee for the Platinum SkyMiles Amex? Let’s make it $499! A $550 annual fee for the Delta Reserve? Let’s make it $999!
You said it. Last night I tried to book a flight for a family member using SkyMiles. Istanbul to anywhere and everywhere in the US. Minimum was 120,000 miles in Basic economy, regardless of airline, regardless of date.
I was in Argentina a few months ago. I had to carry BUNDLES of paper pesos, literally, to pay for my hotel stays that were $500, $600 USD. It’s like Monopoly money. Same said for SkyMiles.
Wow, this is a big F. U to the bondholders as this is a material risk for the program. You got to have big brass ones to do that in a highly leveraged industry that lives or dies on leverage.
Fortunately they have a safety net – a corrupt and dysfunctional Congress that will shovel billions of taxpayers dollars to the airlines and ask for nothing in return except nonstop flights to their homes.
I think they’re banking on being able to run “triple mqd on Reserve spend!”-type promos. But the issue there is that it’s no way to engender *loyalty* when even if you scrimp toward status via promos, there’s absolutely no guarantee you’ll be able to keep it up in future years, so why invest now instead of focusing on a program that lets you more sustainably achieve status?
Gary, good points. I do see DL losing with their cobranded Amex cards, Amex not so much. I believe many people will switch to straight Amex cards, if they don’t already have them. The one point I will challenge a little is DL’s FAs are a lot more friendlier. I was a loyal AA customer for over 20 years until their flight attendants became like UAs, rude and no helpful.
Gary,
you yourself have noted that Delta is bringing 1 million new SM members in per month and convert 1 in 8 to Amex card members
The hype of demise for DL is vastly unrealistic. there are simply more than enough people coming in the door and willing to do what is necessary to meet DL’s new elite requirements than are being cut from the ranks.
And, as much as you want to believe this is all about DL, other airlines will do the same thing in different ways. Loyalty programs cost money and they will reduce their costs as well.
The end result will be more and more than network (AA’s claim) and ability to win corporate contracts (something DL has long done better than the rest of the industry) will determine the amount of premium revenue.
DL’s network in the largest corporate travel markets is growing faster than competitors while its grip on its interior US hubs remains high.
DL is simply in a position to do this because it is competitively stronger than it has ever been.
I don’t know about others, I canceled my Delta gold and moved to AA when Delta stopped giving miles for basic seats.
I will be cancelling my Amex Plat after AF posts this year.
Delta can take their hubris and shove it.
“Delta is bringing 1 million new SM members in per month and convert 1 in 8 to Amex card members”.
So what? Sign-up, grab the bonus, close the card.
A lot of focus is put on qualification levels. There seems to be less discussion about the value one gets for achieving them. I’ve been a United 1K for years and have seen the benefits slowly melt away, the frog in the pot scenario. If UA raised it’s levels to what Delta has done, without a significant increase in benefits, I would have to seriously consider if it’s worth it anymore. I’ve cleared 1K again for next year, but for what, very weak Polaris upgrade availability, sky high redemption rates for award travel, etc.? Course corrections in these programs are inevitable. It will be interesting to see how far it goes and the ramifications if any.
@Gary
Good time to do a review of cash back cards?
I only fly FC to my jumping off point so I don’t have to worry about bag fees.
Don’t use their lounges anyway. Crowded, noisy and I can find an unused gate to relax between flights. And my international carriers of choice offer superior lounges at my jumping off point.
Don’t use their companion passes anyway since none of us fly basic.
So don’t see the need to continue to pay for a card with little return for the bucks.
Problem with the new DL system is card spending isn’t gamified like it was before- no more spend thresholds to reach the MQD waiver and get a MQM boost. I’m actually sort of shocked they didn’t build in small MQD boosts at certain spending thresholds to keep people engaged in using their cards.
It is hard for me to really know the reason why Delta set levels the way they did with the new program. I just know that I’m in a position where I can generate a lot of credit card spend and was interested in seeing what Delta would offer. I’m currently working on AA Platinum Pro status for myself and Platinum for my wife but would have happily shifted over to Delta if they offered something comparable, since we prefer flying with them and their network works better for us. However, I can’t justify spending a dime on a Delta card under the new program, other than going for minimum spend on a new card, since the thresholds are so high. $60K in spend on the Reserve card, a card I really don’t want to get, just to get Silver has no benefit at all.
The good thing in all of this is it will cause me to be more rational. Instead of spending $60K on a Delta card I’ll pick up the Capital One Venture X business card and get the 150K signup bonus and still have $30K in spend to put on whatever card I prefer. AA’s program has caused me to act somewhat irrationally, favoring spending on AA cards that earn 1 point/$ because I want the Loyalty points and status, but if I just put spend on higher earning cards and bonus categories, I can easily earn 2-5 points/$ with Amex/Citi/Chase/Capital One/USBank and far more points that are also more valuable.
Look – as a Delta flyer that vacillates between Platinum and Diamond, this undoubtedly makes things harder. Am I going to switch? Probably not – the experience and route network flying out of NYC is just better. I can reasonably maintain Platinum through flying and Delta Reserve spend. If you have a few paid J transcons or TATL flights, it is definitely within reach. Diamond seems very hard at $35K, but Delta must have some targeted Diamond membership number to set such an aggressive target. Hopefully, the number of Platinum and Diamonds fall pretty meaningfully, making domestic upgrades (the real reason behind Delta status) more achievable.
At the end of the day, more than the other big US airlines, Delta had too many elites, and too many people had access to SkyClubs. They had to cut down. Ironically the casual level flyer up to Silver seems to be the least impacted by these changes. They may only need 6-10 SkyClub visits a year, and maybe Silver becomes a more useful status.
The Thrill is gone with Delta & Amex.
I believe this will benefit Jet Blue & Southwest. FF miles have been devalued to the point that they just aren’t worth much anymore.
Unless you’re flying weekly.
I’ve just looked for the cheapest fare and non-stop. As long as it’s not an airline nickel & diming you for everything FF Miles just aren’t worth the hassle.
I think you give people too much credit Gary. The lemmings will continue to chase the ever devalued program. The single best travel move I believe I ever made was dumping American Express for a free Chase card and no longer pursuing status with anyone but booking what was best for me whether it’s hotels or airlines. I have to admit at my current spend the change will move me from gold to Platinum. But I’m also smart enough to know that is meaningless.
Congress my slap Visa/MC with some anti competitive regulations and kill rewards points altogether since Interchange rates only go up and hurt the consumer.
I think one key difference for people with a choice between AA and Delta is that, from a user experience perspective, it’s just easier to conceptualize how many miles you need.
For AA, one dollar of spend is one mile. For Delta, it’s every $20/$10 is worth one dollar. How much effort are people willing to put in to think about that? This seems very similar to the idea of Barclays transferable points card that was quickly pulled (I can’t even remember the name of it!).
Obviously, Barclays and Delta are vastly different, but, still, I think AA is gamified it in a way that people actually go hunting for LPs, while Delta has made it take a lot of headspace, which your average person does not want to do. Maybe they’re banking on that (because an informed person wouldn’t invest in Delta elite/mileage programs at all, given the better value you can get from AA and United).
There are four different constituencies at play that are impacted (and may respond) differently to the changes:
1. People who live in a DL fortress hub city…of which there are four (ATL, DTW, MSP, SLC).
2. People who live in competitive hub cities…of which there are four (BOS, NYC, SEA, LAX).
3. People who live in a non-hub city.
4. People who live in a hub city for another airline (PHL, DC, CLT, MIA, FLL, CHI, DAL, HOU, DEN, LAS, SFO, PHX, PDX).
Fortress hub flyers are stuck unless they don’t mind connections. For everyone else it seems like the next best step is wait and see what UA and AA do for 2025 qualification requirements and then make the judgement about the best strategy for you.
I’m the idiot who sits in #4 so I’m eagerly awaiting what AA and UA decide to do.
Anthony gets it
Delta has plenty of other customers just like him but they don’t take up near as much bandwidth as those that argue about the huge negative impact they will create – and then don’t.
And it is no surprise that Gary and other credit card and loyalty bloggers diss on DL’s changes because it makes the job of selling loyalty harder.
DL is insourcing more of that job to themselves using the customer data that they have.
I like DL as an airline, and am happy to fly them when they have the route.and time I need, but it has never made sense to me why people want to accumulate Skymiles with them. My Amex Plat – which I keep for lots of other reasons – gives me club access when flying them. Heck, even when I fly DL, I credit my miles to Flying Blue, a much better award program.
Question for Gary (or Tim Dunn since he seems to be up DL’s a hole). I’m lifetime elite on DL, AA and UA so not chasing status (retired and locked in at mid level elite). However if DL is basically going to AA’s loyalty point plan (which I do think makes more sense than butt in seat miles) will DL have escalators on MGDs (like AA has got LPs) through their shopping portal or hotel bookings. Granted the days of huge Rocket Mile bonuses are gone for AA but there are still some nice LP bonuses available. I haven’t seen anything from DL about these.
Deltas been doing this for many years and it has always worked well. All airlines use bait and switch techniques to get you hooked. Why anyone even cares about SkyMiles is beyond me. They are bad , have been for over 15 years.
In the AP article Amex stated *median* spend on the SkyMiles cards is $75k a year
@Tim its hard to take anything you say seriously because you are never objective about DL. I fly AA/OW for about 60K in annual spend on flights +CC and TBH I could give you the good AND THE BAD about their future plans. You always have a positive spin like you work in the DL media room. You put too much faith in human decisions which in turn do make errors. It is possible that DL does make a mistake. What is funny is my company has a loose contract with DL and the only reason I have a SM Account is because of a last minute KE Business Class Flight last week from ICN to JFK. You talk about DL having the network possibly be the product but lets be honest anyone who has a travel budget internationally isnt flying DL. If im going to Asia ill fly a east asian airline, India/Africa a middle east carrier, europe a european carrier. AA has the best domestic network period.
Also lets talk supply and demand. Delta could charge more with higher demand for tickets which scaring off massive numbers of SM Elites they will go to other carriers allowing them to charge more per seat. Plus its those mid value members that will keep the airline afloat when travel budgets get slashed during the next recession.
Hands down the public opinion is out there this this is overwhelming awful. You and a few others are loving this move but time will tell. AA right now is LOVING this and UA will adjust to meet in the middle closer to AA.
@Tim also you know who this hurts, people who charge flights to their corporate card as spelled out in their policies. Guess they have no value.
@ Gary — Reponse to my email to Ed Bastain today:
Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups:
“edward.bastian@delta.com (edward.bastian@delta.com)
The email address you entered couldn’t be found. Please check the recipient’s email address and try to resend the message. If the problem continues, please contact your email admin.”
Hmm, I thought you could email him anytime? May not so much anymore?
I’m not giving up flying DL. I’m giving up sending any extra money to DL beyond purchasing a ticket. The money I spent on their CC will now go somewhere else.
We put enough on CC to make platinum but I can do better elsewhere.
@Gene
Maybe you didn’t do this:
Take into consideration that you should only email Mr. Bastian and other Delta executives if you have not received a reply within six to eight weeks after emailing or telephoning the company
@ Patti — How would that chnage the fact that my email was bounced? Plus, why would I would waste my time calling these jerks? I’m certain that they don’t value me as a customer. They made that quite clear today.
And AmEx knows how this could happen. AmEx used to be the Costco card and also SPG. In that past time almost all my spending went to SPG AmEX. Now my SPG spending is very minimal and I mainly keep the legacy card for the free night certificate.
It used to be that FF programs provided tremendous kickback – now it is barely 10-12% and you have to fly the same airline. In comparison, hotel programs were always revenue based and still return ca. 20%. Then I would rather spend on my Hyatt card than on any of the airline cards. Or just do the flight booking through Chase Sapphire to get slightly below return on travel (about 7.5%) even without being a top Elite member of an airline FF program.
Overall, I think that the airlines are rather shortsighted by relying on CC revenue because banks do not need a middle man to build and expand their business.
Some long time ago my friend from Netherlands told me about times when you were getting KLM miles from almost any retailer there. But that Golden Goose died rather quickly.
Finally, there is another market force – the cost of CC transactions is likely to go down because the digital currency technologies are getting cheaper every day.
@Gene
I was joking.
ATL is a great hub for free agents but in the past ATL flyers didn’t have a good reason to explore options. These changes will force more ATL folks to look at other options and I think they’ll be surprised what the find. Over the last year I’m flying DL much less while opting for much cheaper Southwest flights. I’ll still fly DL but only on routes no one else flies i.e. ATL-SJC or ATL-COS. Loyalty died with tying it to credit card spend.
Patti gets it.
Chasing status via mechanisms that didn’t provide mutual benefit or excluded other options are going to backfire.
The people that DL wants in its status levels are those that will have no problem meeting the new requirements.
They and Amex have tons more data than any of us and know who will drop down or drop out and who will not only engage more with Delta.
And Delta said semi-indirectly on their call today that they will shift their growth focus from transatlantic to Latin America and Asia to take advantage of their partnerships and their growing network opportunities – which simply means more AA and UA elite passengers come into play for DL based on the core of what each airline offers and from which hubs which moves the needle on elite status far more than those people that have gamed the system to move up a status level or two.
other airlines simply will not be in position or have a desire to meet the demands of elites that lose status at DL any more than what DL is doing.
@Tim Dunn
You said…
“ [T]here are simply more than enough people coming in the door and willing to do what is necessary to meet DL’s new elite requirements than are being cut from the ranks.”
Given that we have only known the details of the new look SkyMiles program for ~24 hours, I’d be interested to know what evidence you have to support this claim.
I live in the southeastern US and like they say “you connect in Atlanta on the way to Heaven.” Post Covid my business travel is way down. I was Diamond and with the card spend + roll-over I have maintained Plat. Now with no roll-over + increased thresholds – it’s no longer worth it. Good-bye Reserve card and I’ll find the best fares for the class I want to fly. SkyClub is nice – but there are more and more nice bars/restaurants in terminals these days. For the guest fee I was paying for my wife, it doesn’t make much difference. My MM benefits are a “thank you” from the flight crew (which is nice.) But – oh well.
@ Patti — Sorry! 🙂
I listened to the Delta mgmt call…
The 2 senior execs admitted they were themselves confused by the MQD + MQM schemes, so there’s a bit of over-erring on simplicity on their part
That said they were also clear there is a specific segment they are after, that they know can handle this spend if they are more loyal to Delta. Although they seem to be relying more on the hotel/car bookings than might actually work in practice.
Amex was fully involved.
I think they underestimate the impact of the otherwise irrational spend they got because of the gamification. Will be curious to see how that plays out.
They were also adamant that culling the skyclubs and integrity of the overall premium experience was a priority. They are probably getting feedback from high yield fliers like the 360s things aren’t reliably premium anymore which is very fair and needed to be addressed.
Not sure why they couldn’t gate the unlimited club access another way.
For example, make it so 360/Diamond, etc can ‘always’ can get in with Reserve card. Others can have unlimited visits, but on a space avail basis, can be turned away based on forecast demand, forced to be on waitlist, etc.
Oh and Delta mgmt hinted there would be further changes to how raw miles are earned in the coming years. Not done yet, and probably even more tied to yield / margin.
You’ve been warned again.
Tim mentioned in a comment that “The people that DL wants in its status levels are those that will have no problem meeting the new requirements.”
I don’t disagree, but the problem is that EVERYONE wants those customers. Delta may very well be the ones to win those customers over (marginally better quality, as the article mentioned) but we’ll see if AA and UA also focuses on them, or instead embraces the opportunity to scoop up the less-desirables.
Adios American Express card
Delta Platinum Amex card member since 1998 here who just paid the renewal fee last month. II consistently have been able to get gold status with my $60k per year spend and the MQM boost that came with it. I’ll barely make silver according to the online calculator. with my spend and flight plans. So now, with the loss of Skyclub access it’s no longer attractive for me to keep the card or fly Delta.
As a loyal Delta flyer I am looking into switching to United. I love the Sky Clubs/Centurion Lounges, but a hard limit of 10 Sky Club visits does not make the card make sense for me. I only visit about 15 Sky Clubs per year, but putting such a low limit on the card makes me see less value in my Amex Delta Reserve card.
Another reason to sign up for a Skymiles Account is to get Wifi on board? Sure it captures contact data but we will see in the fiuture how many these additional sign-ups are worth or if it was just done for getting wifi on board.
ziggy and Pat,
DL specifically said what I have said which is that DL’s share of the elite passenger market in the NE – NYC and BOS is growing much faster than they expected and is directly attributable to the end of the Northeast Alliance and also to the reduction in the number of flights united can operate at EWR because they overhubbed the airport. Delta is simply competitively in a stronger position in some of the largest premium travel markets than they have ever been.
and as noted in the most recent (until now) article from Gary, Delta intends to create a higher quality premium product which is possible when more people pay more for it and there are fewer people that are trying to get in via status.
Delta has long had the best position in terms of corporate travel and these moves simply accelerate their growth as an even larger part of that segment.
$550 a year for my reserve card and they think I’ll stick around for this crap?? Bye bye
@Gary. Yes, Amex had to be in on this. I’m guessing paying Delta for all that unlimited Sky Club access hurt their bottom line. Amex has to take some of the blame here as they handed out Plats as long as the applicant had a visible pulse.
Exactly this. On Reddit and FB groups, I’m seeing a lot of Delta CC holders who have done the math and concluded there is no longer any point to chasing status with Delta, which means canceling the Delta credit cards, which in most cases will mean shifting their spend to other premium travel cards under Visa or Mastercard.
In my case, I have until mid-October to research alternatives, estimate my 2024 travel, and decide whether to keep the Delta Reserve one more year or cancel it now. But that card is 100% gone from my wallet at some point in the next 12 months.
A as native Atlanta person, I simply can’t understand what Delta is doing. I remember when they were a tiny airline. I know they are now the largest and consider themselves to be better and want to have an Elitist attitude. But let’s review some very basics. I’ve had 3 cancelled flights this Summer. They have lost my luggage not once but twice, and they were nonstop flights. I am a Platinum and I’ve been upgraded a total of ONCE this entire year. The food: bags of chips, Sunchips, Oreos and other junk food. Who is going to spend $180,000 to maintain Platinum? Why didn’t they talk about what THEY are giving? It’s all about how much harder it is to achieve, but if you achieve it, what are we getting? A bag of Sunchips and a vodka tonic? And why spend $700 on a reserve card if I can only use it on 4 round trips per year? This literally makes no sense to me. The economy can change in a second, inflation is going up, and they are making harder and harder. Seems to me this might not work, Amex is sure to suffer with literally millions of cancellations on their Platinum cards, which are literally worthless now. And if I commit to the Reserve another year, I have to be willing to spend close to 200K on it. I mean they don’t want any elites anymore? I personally think this won’t last – I do get there were too many elites, and the clubs were too crowded. But as a business executive, you start in the ‘middle’. They went to an EXTREME, and did it all at once, instead of baby steps. And if I were Amex, I’d be shaking, they have not thought of the millions they are going to lose in annual memberships for Platinum cards, but perhaps their hands were tied. I wish Ed would retire and bring in someone who cares about passengers and employees. And their 757s are disgusting with the dirty, brown screens and old smelly seats and cabins. Like put some money into aircraft and catering and if you are going to make it next to impossible to achieve status, make it more glamorous than a bag of Oreos and Lays in first class to Hawaii. I hope it flops in their face, but again, maybe they simply don’t care and want to end this entire program, and this is the way to achieve that goal. I remember when Delta competed against Eastern – they tried harder and were so much better. Southwest is not a ‘real’ compeititor and not their target market. That is the problem – there is no real competition in Atlanta against Delta.
I mostly buy domestic first class seats (big guy, coach is close to torture). For me, Delta’s value prop was that I could earn Platinum elite status with regular business spend and 4-6 flights a month up front. For this, I would get a quicker response time to calls and 4 regional upgrades that I usually get good value from.
I may keep or upgrade my business Platinum Amex for next year to see if I can hit Gold for 2025 with flight, Amex spend, and MQM conversion. But after that, there is no reason to spend on them as I may just hit Silver (who cares?) for 2026 with normal travel and will not make Gold unless I put all my spend on Delta Amex cards. No thanks.
TL:DR – after 2024 I am cancelling my Delta Amex and moving spend to other cards.. No longer chasing status and will just buy cheapest seat up front on any airline.
@Tim Dunn
You failed to answer the question I posed.
You made the following categorical statement:
“ [T]here are simply more than enough people coming in the door and willing to do what is necessary to meet DL’s new elite requirements than are being cut from the ranks.”
So let me ask you again, given that we have only known the details of the new look SkyMiles program for ~24 hours, what evidence do you have to support this claim that you make?
I have to admit that I think you’re typing Delta fanboy nonsense and are making up “facts” to suit your argument, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.
So please enlighten us, what metrics do you have to support the idea that following the changes to the SkyMiles program that were published yesterday, there are “more than enough people” happy to bow to Delta’s latest huge devaluation?