Time to burn the NW ff miles, the DL wolf is at the door

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

For those holding NW Worldperks miles, the existing awards chart will go away on January 15 to be replaced by Delta's 3-tier chart. Not only does the 3-tier chart mean less tickets will be availible at the lowest level, there are some significant places where the lowest level is being increased like NW's 50K to Europe going up to DL's 60K, and NW's 35K to Hawaii going up to DL's 40K. As I recall, there may be a similar increase for award tickets to the Caribbean, as well.

Again, the day your NW miles turn into a pumpkin is January 15, so burn them if you can before then.

Also, for NW elites, CO is now comping status from NW, which is a far better bet than getting stuck in the DL rut. US also comps NW status, but lately they have been almost as anti-consumer as DL. Send CO a copy of your NW elite membership card plus a copy of your statement, together with your CO number, and you will become a newly minted CO elite. Alaska Airlines also comps status from NW and may be a good choice for those on the west coast. Although they do not comp status, UA and AA will offer you a ''challenge'' to get into elite status through a shortcut.

[jericap Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close jericap]

I was just on a Delta flight last week and after their miked spiel I heard ..."thank you for flying delta...soon to be the largest airline in the world"

Any thoughts?

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

I was just on a Delta flight last week and after their miked spiel I heard ..."thank you for flying delta...soon to be the largest airline in the world"

Any thoughts?

I guess when an airline goes out to gobble up other airlines, it either ends up larger, or like the old Swissair, bankrupt.

The key as a frequent flyer, though, is 1) what their alliance is like, and 2) whether their ff program is customer-friendly. As to number 2, DL's was at one time, then they started a war against their customers (see www.saveskymiles.com ) which their customers ultimately won and they had to waive a white flag, and now they are in a war of attrition to try to undermine their ff program more gradually so that they don't get the big uprising they did before. DL and US for the last several years have been the two airlines trying to lead a race to the bottom to devalue ff programs. I would be leary of either of them regardless of the size of the program. US just had to retreat on some major devaluations they had tried to impose.

[jericap Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close jericap]

I was upgraded to first class because of my FF ticket and was wondering if my husband could be also upgraded since I know we have some sort of medallion points,whatever those are. Anyway, when I asked at the gate, he laughed and said they haven't done that in a long, long time.
needless to say he sat in coach, I was in first with about 5 empty first class seats. But i could have taken 3 bags free with me...and then have to pay extra that last leg of the trip.
I have 1 more flight through continental for elite status

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

I was upgraded to first class because of my FF ticket and was wondering if my husband could be also upgraded since I know we have some sort of medallion points,whatever those are. Anyway, when I asked at the gate, he laughed and said they haven't done that in a long, long time.
needless to say he sat in coach, I was in first with about 5 empty first class seats. But i could have taken 3 bags free with me...and then have to pay extra that last leg of the trip.
I have 1 more flight through continental for elite status

I have 1K status on United this year. United certainly doesn't go out of its way for elite travelers. I was 20, repeat 20, miles short of 100000 miles last year and they would not "give" me the status. I took a quick US Airways flight just to get the extra miles.

However, on our trip to Hawaii in June, I asked each time to use my upgrade certificates and they wouldn't let us both use them because DH was on a mileage award but they would have allowed me to be upgraded so I sat with him. I couldn't believe it when at KOA, they allowed him to upgrade too. They only used one of my certificates (presumably for me) and just put him in first too. I was amazed and grateful because it was a red-eye flight. However, I now have 4 certificates expiring in Jan and it doesn't look like I'll be able to use them.

[dmbrand Member Find all posts View Profile Close dmbrand]

We used up all our points...

We had been saving points for a couple years for a "big" trip. When I heard about the Delta/NW merger, we decided to use them up. We lucked out and were able to snag 4 round-trip tickets from our little Appleton,WI airport to Honolulu for 35K each for next June's trip. Might have been a computer glitch, but they were listed under the Perksaver column(17,500 pts), normally I only found them under Perkpass.

I am hoping they don't find a way to retract them before we go.
DawnB