Well, Delta changed their program once again for 2015. Rather than reward on miles flown, it is now based on ticket price. Basically for international travel it cuts the reward miles in half or thereabouts.

Business travelers who pay full till will benefit the most from the program, smart shoppers will be the ugly stepchild. I suppose the good news is there will be more reward seats available - if you can accumulate the miles.

The bright side is their stock has doubled in price over the past 12 months. Quadrupled in the past two years.

We just flew Delta business on miles from Denver to London. Deltas service was topshelf. I was unable to get a reward ticket for the wife heading back and the plane, both in coach and business) was half full! I explained how we even offered to pay for the upgrade to the ticketing agent, but was met with no upgrades available.... the Purser said lets see what we can do. My wife was shortly thereafter escorted up front to join me. Even had they not done that, the crew was one of the best I have seen in a long time. my pilot friends all share that Delta has emerged as an awesome airline. The miles things does suck, as Delta even before was stingy with reward seats. My miles are all based on purchases, not actually flying, so I am not sure if I am screwed or not yet.

The crappy part of the whole deal is that reward miles are based on dollars spent, but MQDs are not. Be nice if you could pay $3500 for a B class ticket to Europe and get 38,000 MQDs.

The older I get, the more I am inclined to send my youngin's out. Amazing what they will do with a free club pass and the lure of FF miles...

Getting ready to hop on Delta in Frankfurt to fly back to the U.S. Saturday and I'm sorta sitting the fence on this one. I do think it is going to be harder for the frequent economy class traveler to keep getting Diamond status but truth be told there are so darn many with it now that it doesn't mean much. I love the new global upgrades they put in for diamonds this year replacing the system wides. I can actually use these and have. I also think the seat availability will get better as the new rules go in play. I hope.

Don