A year ago Delta Air Lines announced severe changes to its SkyMiles elite program and for access to its Sky Clubs.
- They were increasing the spending requirement for top status from $20,000 to $35,000
- Credit card spend would count – it would take $350,000 spent on their $550 annual fee credit card to earn that status, or $700,000 in spend per year on their mid-tier card.
- And club visits using the premium credit card would be capped at 10 per year (American Express Platinum cardmembers would get just six.
Delta Sky Club LAX
Delta Sky Club LAX
Delta wasn’t offering any more benefits than before, just asking more of customers. Their message to customers: stop being poor.
The blowback was severe and both Delta and American Express clearly got scared. They were trying to get customers to spend hard on their co-brands because while the American Express relationship is successful, it is stagnating. They failed to hit their $7 billion relationship revenue goal for 2023 – and that was a goal set before 20% inflation hit over the course of the pandemic. They thought they’d be much farther along.
So Delta significantly moderated the changes to elite status earning and club lounge access. They even threw in generous improvements to lifetime status. But we’ve known that they still had the same goals as before, and that airline CEO Ed Bastian said it was a mistake to go all the way with the changes, all at once – not that they believed the changes themselves were a mistake.
Indeed, they’ve said they actually want to go even further in the long-term.
So it shouldn’t surprise that Sky Club employees are talking about the full changes to lounge access coming back.
The credit card visit caps will revert to the originally announced ones last September, undoing the “backtrack” in October
The visit cap will not apply to Diamond or 360, assuming they have legit access
The 3 hour before flight rule will no longer apply to Delta One or Diamonds
Delta Sky Club Austin
The credit card limits are harsh. Amex Reserve cards would see a reduction from 15 to 10 visits per year while Platinum cards would drop from 10 to 6. Many cardholders would fine their products no longer worth it, reducing fees and spend.
However it’s interesting that in this version Delta makes efforts to preserve the business of their most frequent and lucrative customers. So they’re only sticking it to semi-regular loyalists.
This remains a rumor, and the rolled back cap doesn’t even go into effect until 2025, so this presumably wouldn’t happen until 2026 if announced.
(HT: Enilria)
Yawn, tim
You get so off topic because you can’t discuss or respond to anything when you’re corrected
Somehow on a topic about delta club access, you’re now trying to misdirect about aa hubs?
First it’s a misleading bit about departures
Then it was about nearby airports which you clearly know nothing about and showed that
We get it. You know about 3-4 stats and repeat them over and over and usually somehow bring a topic back to them every time
Get a life, loser
You have no idea what you’re talking about and you should spend your life outside a comment section
to no surprise, max pushes back when actual facts derail his notion about DL having monopoly hubs when the evidence clearly shows that
CLT and PHL do not have two commercial airports.
AA has more ability to monopolize its customers in its hubs than DL
AA has lost share in major competitive markets primarily to DL but also to UA
AA doesn’t carry the high revenue that DL does and even what UA carries.
AA ticked off travel agents and corporate travel managers so takes an even bigger hit on high value travel.
AA has a small international network compared to DL or UA with no strategic advantage over either across the Atlantic or Pacific.
AA has decided to use a high unit cost strategy of excessive use of regional jets when there are very few domestic markets that AA serves with its strategy compared to DL or UA.
Amex cardholders have higher earnings and cardmember charge volume is tied to corporate travel so AA (and UA and WN) loses on two accounts to DL
Lounge access and volume is directly tied to the number of passengers that have status
To no surprise, AA has deployed yet another strategy that doesn’t work to generate the highest revenue at the lowest costs and they don’t carry the high value customers as a result.
It is not a surprise that DL’s lounges are more full even though DL has more lounge capacity than AA or UA.
the only idiot is the one that throws a temper tantrum when he loses an argument that he started.
and we still want to see the quote from DL about its monopoly hubs and the names of those two commercial airports in Charlotte and Philadelphia that are not CLT and PHL
Personally, we bring a welfare state to everything. If you want club access, pay for it, based on requirements, Medallion sliding scale, or whatever, not CC.
Just like TSA giving FREE to people, they should pay, as well as their kids.
If plane tickets were priced correctly vs. Chasing cheap fares (Spirit, cause Southwest ain’t cheap), then less folks would fly or make different decisions.
Chasing with CC spend just makes us make more bad decisions to go into debt. I mean, who is spending $700K, unless it is a business?
So does ol Timmy get paid to shill for Delta on a per post basis, or is he really just a Delta exec posting from a burner account?
Delta’s “loyalty program” is a joke. Why would anyone stay in it?
Since you actually do seem to be this stupid, Tim.
CLT & USA/JQF (ULCC airport)
PHL & ILG (former F9, now Avelo). And that completely ignores the ease and SHORT time it takes to go from Philly Amtrak station to BWI or EWr for a lower price.
God knows how you’re off on your normal rants again but if you don’t even acknowledge what Delta says about their own “core hubs”… there really isn’t much reason to chat with you.
It’s like talking to the most autistic stupid brick wall. Same responses over and over. No knowledge of competing airports, it seems. Just arguing for the sake of arguing and CONSTANTLY trying to redirect the topic to other things when you can’t answer the simplest of questions (and, apparently, are completely unaware of) like the existence of Concord airport and Wilmington much less saying PHL has no competing airports for PHL metro patrons to consider.
“AA has more ability to monopolize its customers in its hubs than DL”
Just idiotic to even say given the existence of a competing airport or airline in ALL of AA’s hubs. It’s amusing that you’re even trying to say this and it just betrays your complete ignorance on Delta’s profitability.
“AA has lost share in major competitive markets primarily to DL but also to UA”
This is misleading. It’s no surprise that Delta grew at LAX (though is still smaller in every respect from a mileage program and alliance perspective — what matters to Corporate clients). Delta has been ceding share to AA THROUGHOUT the entire Southeast and in the Mtn West/Pacific via their Alaska partnership.
“AA ticked off travel agents and corporate travel managers so takes an even bigger hit on high value travel.”
No sh*t. lol. So? You think I’m you? Just baselessly defending AA or United for no reason? LOTS of things wrong with AA, but that doesn’t make your lies true either.
“AA has a small international network compared to DL or UA with no strategic advantage over either across the Atlantic or Pacific.”
1. Given the JVs, not even true nor does pure AA vs DL vs UA metal even matter when discussing this. Most people would consider JV partners in LHR (real ones, not VS), TYO, and SYD to be quite the advantages but… reality doesn’t seem to matter with you.
The rest of your nonsense is just the usual drivel and trying to bring up topics no one else is even talking about.
You are unique in your brain. I’ll give you that. Don’t forget your Adderall.
As long as you have pre-check/clear/whatever and no long layovers, who needs the lounges? Used to be nice to use my delta plat amex to get into one before an international flight, but otherwise not worth upgrading the card or increasing my spend.
I get more out of the Marriott relationship which should say how bad DL is doing.
it is no surprise that the people who do not understand the airline industry are the loudest to attack those that do and share that information – in this case, me.
Tell us the percentage of traffic that airports other than CLT and PHL carry in their metro areas and the answer is next to zero.
Every airport loses some traffic to airports in metro areas.
The real reason is that you can’t stand to admit that your statements about DL monopolizing their hub airports is categorically false. AA has more flights in virtually every one of the comparable hubs to DL’s hubs.
The reason why AA has lost revenue is because they can’t compete esp. in large metros which is where carrying high value revenue is necessary – and AA continues to lose that revenue to DL and UA.
DL just released its investor update and said several things which I have said would be true:
1. They still are at the top of the industry in on-time and cancellation performance despite the CRWD meltdown.
It is most significant that AA had minimal impact from CRWD or have the MAX 9 grounding which impacted AS and UA but AA still underperformed all of the other big 4 and other airlines in their operations.
It is no surprise why AA can’t win over corporate and high value traffic because they run such a horrible operation compared to their peers. The same has been true of B6 for years and B6 is finally trying to fix their operation – and are seeing some success.
Not AA, though.
2. DL just said that its earnings are not expected to be negatively impacted by CRWD even though revenue forecasts were revised down because of CRWD.
3. DL says that corporate and premium revenue is coming back stronger than any time since 2019.
4. DL also says it is on track for the $10 billion per year contribution from SkyMiles laid out well before last year’s changes that resulted in higher qualifications.
The 3 people that frequent this site and tell us they cut up their Amex card and won’t fly DL aren’t making any difference.
The host of the conference noted how incredible the DL One Lounge at JFK is and DL said how much they expect it to move the bar in NYC and LAX and esp. in the transcon markets.
DL is and will remain at the top of the industry. Lots of people except other airline loyalists know it.
Ed Bastian CLEARLY said that the initial changes were Delta’s long-term goals and that, rather than rip the bandaid off (as at first), Delta will now take an incremental approach.
Lounges are a premium travel experience. Such things are intended to be paid for. Set the price as appropriate to preserve that premium experience. These changes are in that light. What’s the problem? You have to climb the mountain if you want to enjoy the view.
@ Max — Let us not forget Timmy knows more about the airline industry than anyone.
@Maxpower:
“It’s like talking to the most autistic stupid brick wall”
What the effing hell are you talking about?? Are you making fun of or insulting people with autism??
Hi Jacob,
not making fun of anyone. Perhaps if you read a years’ worth of Tim Dunn’s reads, you’d realize why we all hope he’d get back on his meds.
It’s not an isolated feeling.
That said, given when your comment was posted and when the timestamp said you posted it, you’re clearly just one of Tim Dunn’s new aliases since new emails are on a moderator-delay for approval.
So Tim, Cute… but you’re just sad… to use fake names like this although it’s literally your ENTIRE internet history and why you were banned ISP and all from airliners.net
I have the reserve card and its changing to 15 visits next year. Also its 75k spend to get to unlimited visits to skyclub. If your spending 700k a year on a cc you likely don’t need to wait in a lounge and fly private.
What wasn’t mentioned about Delta is they have banished economy tickets from the sky club completely regardless of amex platinum or delta amex.
If a ticket to next level up seat costs $200 to $300 more you can just take yourself to the finest restaurant in the airport and pocket the change
Jacobin has been on aviation social media for years.
He sees what everyone can see which is that Max is hellbent on denigrating anyone that dares speak truth he doesn’t want to hear. He is so hellbent that he denigrates anybody he can think of it in the process.
DL’s premium lounges are full because DL carries far more premium revenue than any other US airline.
Despite the threats that some have made about quit flying DL or cancelling their cards, DL’s leadership of premium revenue is unchanged.
It is purely supply and demand.
When DL’s tightening hurts its revenue, it will stop.
As long as DL maintains a growing revenue premium to the industry, it has the ability to keep restricting access.
Other airlines simply do not have the track record or leadership that Delta has.
I’m sure the C suite execs and their families will still have unfettered access to Sky Clubs.
Extremely insulting to the Frontline employees who’ve been kicked out even though they paid for it.
Does old Timmy ever get tired of fellating Delta on a daily basis?