After seemingly firing all their elite members, Delta announces revisions to their loyalty program that more than undoes their intended changes. Now all I can see is an easier path to elite status for everyone, making it difficult to get the same level of service as before.

Background

I’ve previously written about the Delta changes here and here. For a brief reminder, Delta attempted to change their elite program by focusing only on one metric (money spent with them) and completely removed all reason for long-time loyal customers to continue to do business with them (destroying its rollover elite mile feature that long kept me engaged).

The Revisions

Delta outlines its latest developments here on their website. While I mostly guessed correctly about what Delta would do regarding lounge visits and lowering elite thresholds to more reasonable levels, what surprised me the most was earning $2,500 MQD by holding one of four higher-end credit cards (Delta Platinum, Delta Reserve, and their business counterparts). In fact, if you own all four, you could start each year with $10,000 in MQD. That would instantly earn you Delta Gold elite status and only $5,000 MQD away from earning Delta Platinum elite status.

The Delta Platinum credit card has a $250 annual fee. The Delta Reserve credit card has a $550 annual fee. The business versions have the same annual fee as the personal cards. That would then stand to reason you could outright buy Silver elite status for as low as $500 and Gold elite status for $1600, if you don’t value any of the other benefits the credit cards give. Given The Points Guy values Delta Silver elite status at $615 and Gold elite status at $1,820, I’m guessing many writers over there are going to view this as a great deal. Assuming you have all four cards, it would only take $50,000 of spend on a Delta Reserve card to hit Delta Platinum status ($10 of spend = $1 MQD).

That’s a surprisingly low threshold to earn Platinum elite status. In the old program they moved away from, you needed to spend $60,000 annually on credit cards just to earn Silver elite status. Why would they decide to make it so easy?

Also, adding MQD for just owning the right cards now makes Amex’s strategy of not awarding a sign up bonus for the Delta Platinum credit card if you have had the Delta Reserve credit card understandable. Delta elite members previously were trained to go right to that Delta Reserve card as it offered lounge access and was a first class upgrade tiebreaker. Now Delta and Amex likely will anticipate many of them to add the Delta Platinum credit card to their collection but that acquisition will now be cheaper with no sign up bonuses to be paid out.

Rollover MQMs

Owning the right cards isn’t the only way they inflate the elite ranks. They added an extra option for using your rollover MQMs: spending 100,000 of them to maintain your current status for another year. Have 300,000? You get to keep your current status for three years.

While it is generous to offer this option, they needed to do something after their whole strategy during COVID-19 shutdowns was to pad everyone’s MQM balance with year after year of rolling over the amount in full and offering bonus MQMs for flights and spend. To fully trash the MQM concept once flying rebounded was a bit disingenuous.

That being said, I can only view this as a hedge to prevent the higher elites from defecting to other airlines. Alaska and JetBlue directly targeted Delta elites with status matches and extra perks. Delta responds with potentially years of free status.

Lifetime Status Improves Too

Now that they’re making it harder to earn lifetime status by removing the MQM component and moving to purely butt-in-seat miles, they’re making the lifetime status earned at each threshold more valuable. Rather than earning Silver elite status at one million miles, you now earn Gold elite status. They’re also opening up access to their invite-only Delta 360 status for those way-too-loyal five million mile travelers.

On top of that, lifetime status also has higher importance in the tiebreaker methodology than it previously did for first class upgrades. This change again just tries to encourage those with lifetime status to continue flying Delta rather than defecting to other airlines.

So… What Gives?

Sure, seeing a company roll back hugely-negative changes after getting trashed in social media is nice to see. But I thought Delta was trying to fire all of its elite members and beg them to give more money? I thought their CEO was bragging initially that he wanted to go even further than what happened with the initial changes.

Delta now is handing out elite status like candy. You can earn elite status just by having the right credit cards and paying the annual fee. But that might not matter much because Delta Diamonds with huge MQM balances can just coast the next few years. And you’re now going to be treated more like royalty if you have lifetime status with a boost to what you previously would have under the old program.

When everyone has elite status, no one has elite status. All of these changes are intended to clearly swell the elite flyer rank. This after clearly trying to lower the ranks. I assume the change of heart was driven by two things:

• They must have seen or forecasted some large weakness. They recently claimed during their investor call that there was no card spend drop off. But what about upcoming trips for elite members? What about claims from other airlines saying that status match requests have gone up? There’s no reason for such significant change to their elite member strategy unless they saw a reason to change.
• The change specifically to rollover MQMs feels very much like it’s meant to stop members from taking on challenges at other programs. If Alaska and JetBlue didn’t directly target Delta elites, I don’t think this change happens at all. Those with the highest MQM balances were the biggest Delta advocates and that’s who Delta wants to save since they would likely continue to represent the customer Delta wants in the future.

What Will I Do?

I’ve been a mostly-loyal Delta Platinum elite member for a few years now. Back when the drastic changes were announced, I strongly considered leaving Delta. I currently only own the Delta Reserve personal credit card, but have previously had all the other cards that would earn $2,500 in MQD just for having them.

Given the revisions to the program, the only status levels that seem worthy of investment now are Platinum and Diamond. For better or worse, I now view both Silver and Gold as hand-outs. And with extensions of status for those with large MQM balances, I expect what most people value highly (first class upgrades) will be extremely difficult to come by for the next several years even as a Platinum elite.

With my own large MQM balance, I’m given some time to think about it more. It also gives me a chance to actually try out other airlines without needing to worry about qualification. I did sign up for Platinum Pro status with American (via a promotion from my Hyatt Globalist status) and Mosaic 3 status with JetBlue. Perhaps that’s not the intent Delta had in mind when it offered free status with their rollover MQMs, but I’m going to still take advantage of life with other airlines for a bit before settling on a decision. After all, I’m actually writing this article while on an American Airlines flight, so my travel shift has already begun.