Many frequent air travelers take part in programs that allow them to amass points or miles that accumulate toward awards such as airline tickets, first-class upgrades and luxury products.
United Airlines (UAL) -), for example, has a frequent flyer program called MileagePlus. Customers can gather points for it using more than 35 airlines worldwide, including Star Alliance member airlines.
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On American Airlines (AAL) -), it's known as AAdvantage, which has 20 partner airlines of its own.
Southwest Airlines (LUV) -) has a frequent flyer program called Rapid Rewards. In addition to points toward flights to destinations in the U.S., Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, Rapid Rewards customers are offered free checked bags, no fees for ticketing changes and the absence of blackout dates.
Delta Air Lines (DAL) -) offers points and miles to its passengers with SkyMiles, which can be amassed by traveling with Delta and by using Delta co-branded credit cards.
But Delta is reportedly about to make some changes that its SkyMiles participants will want to know about.
"Delta Air Lines reservations agents are reportedly receiving training on upcoming changes to the SkyMiles program, slated for September 14," wrote travel expert Gary Leff on View From the Wing.
A recent Reddit entry, on a Delta thread, was titled "Training and Onsite Support for Upcoming SkyMiles Changes" and was posted Sept 5.
"On Sept. 14, Delta will announce changes to its SkyMiles program," the post said. "Since we know any change to our SkyMiles Program can generate questions or concerns from customers, we want to ensure our frontline team members are fully prepared to respond...."
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Guesses about the coming changes are plentiful
This sparked speculation about just what specific changes Delta will be announcing.
"You currently need 125,000 miles or 140 segments, plus $20,000 in qualifying spend, for Diamond status," Leff wrote. "One rumor is that Delta would move to a single metric, like American Airlines Loyalty Points or United Airlines Premier Qualfiying Dollars (although United isn’t really a single metric, since there are different numbers of qualifying dollars based on segments flown)."
There was also conjecture about possible changes to the protocol around Delta's airport lounges.
"It also seems possible that Delta could announce changes to credit card-based access to Sky Clubs at the same time, although that’s not necessary," Leff wrote. "And the changes are reportedly about SkyMiles itself rather than Sky Clubs."
Delta, being a dominant airline brand, hasn't needed to invest much in its frequent flyer programs, according to Leff.
"In general SkyMiles is the weakest major loyalty program. This is literally by design, what the airline intends. They are the strongest airline brand, and the strongest carrier in their largest markets, and haven't needed to invest in loyalty," Leff wrote.
"Where other airlines have seen dropoff in co-brand credit card spend when they devalue, Delta hasn’t, and reports that nearly 1% of GDP is charges to Delta American Express cards," he added.
Leff had a few more comments about SkyMiles, the co-branded credit cards and the changes that are on their way.
Ultimately you engage with SkyMiles if you fly Delta, rather than choosing to fly Delta because of SkyMiles. However charging anything to a Delta co-brand credit card for any reason other than status earning is literally insane. And that’s true even if you somehow want to earn Delta miles, since American Express has cards that earn points faster in their own currency and that transfer to Delta as well as to other programs....
You can bet that any changes aren’t going to be favorable to customers, but might be favorable to the airline.
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