Skift Take
Delta has moved the goalpost for more than 100 million members of the SkyMiles program. What does it mean? Delta does not want your loyalty anymore but rather your spending.
Life was simple in 1979 when the first loyalty program of an American airline was launched. How much you flew was the number of “miles” you earned, a currency for a free seat with the airline you were being “loyal” to.
Since then, loyalty programs have increasingly moved from encouraging flying to encouraging spending. And they’ve become pseudo-banks, issuing their own currency (miles) and determining the value of what they can buy daily.
In 2020, United valued its MileagePlus program at $21.9 billion, according to a filing with the SEC. American Airlines said AAdvantage could be valued at up to $31.5 billion. In doing so, the programs became valuable assets that could be used as collateral for loans.
That brings us to Delta’s latest change to its Skymiles program.
Delta has informed members that, effective January 1, 2024, the sole metric that the airline would use to measure members’ loyalty would be Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs). To earn them, one can fly with Delta and other partner airlines, spend on eligible Delta co-branded American Express Credit Cards and book car rentals, hotel stays an