Any of you fly Delta? Well they realigned their Medallion program so that you need up to twice as many miles to qualify for basic preferred status. Delta Air Lines web site outlines the changes. Note that instead of needed 25,000 miles or 30 segments to get preferred status, you now need 25,000 'qualifying miles' to get Silver Medallion. The kicker is that the miles are multiplied by a coefficient based on your fare.

If you fly deep discounted coach fares, your miles are multiplied by 0.5, whereas if you fly a full coach fare, the coefficient is 1.5. (Regular discounted coach fares are multiplied by 1.0) Therefore, if you usually fly deep discounted L-class fares, you now need twice as many miles (50,000 x 0.5) to get basic Silver Medallion status.

What this does is even the playing field between the expensive tickets and cheap seats. Those buying last minute tickets and paying $1000 for full fare coach will now get a bonus. Those flying the deep discounted $150 fares will get their mileage credit cut in half.

This can still screw the business travelers though. Many commuter travelers that fly weekly, book in advance to take advantage of the savings. Even though they are still the 'bread and butter' of the airlines, they get screwed for 50% of their mileage.

Other damning changes include no longer issuing complimentary 800 mile segment upgrades when you reach Gold or Silver levels. Also, earned mileage upgrades are being cut from 800 to 500 miles in May. That means that 510 mile segment you used to fly will now require two upgrade certificates instead of one. If you are connecting, and have a 510 mile leg followed by another 510 mile leg, you'll need 4 certificates instead of 2.

Not only are upgrade certificates being cut from 800 to 500 miles, but they are getting more expensive too. Four 800 mile certificates now cost $120 or 10,000 miles. Effective May 1st, four 500 mile certificates will cost $160 or 25,000 miles. That is quite a boost in price from $0.0375 to $0.08 per upgrade mile, or a 113% increase. If you use mileage to pay for upgrades it's even worse, increasing from 3.125 miles to 12.5 miles per upgrade mile, or a 300% increase. (Assuming you use all 800 miles of an upgrade certificate versus 500 miles under the new program.) Earning certificates through flying becomes more difficult to, in that Gold level fliers now earn only four 500 mile upgrades per 10,000 miles flow whereas they used to earn eight 800 mile upgrades.

On the brighter side, in May those cheap L-class fares will now be upgradable on the day of departure, whereas before they were not. Also, a good part of their new program is that those that have 75,000 or more 'qualifying' miles at the end of 2003 can opt to carry over up to 15,000 miles to the next year. That should give people a jump start on maintaining their preferred status the following year. Of course now that preferred benefits are cut back so much, is it really worth it?

Personally, I've given up on airline loyalty. Delta has fucked me over for the last time. I now consider airlines like a commodity, and just fly whoever is cheapest. There isn't much difference between the major carriers any way.