Jeff Robertson, who runs the Delta Skymiles program, is now participating regularly on Flyertalk. He’s only made six posts so far, but they’re excellent. By excellent I mean that he avoids the usual marketing speak. Explaining the change to Delta’s mileage expiration policy, he actually says

[R]egardless of how “loyal” someone may be to us, anyone who hasn’t had activity with Delta in anyway in the last two years, is not all that valuable to us.

Of course, I disagree harshly with Jeff’s assessment (not about the value proposition of customers hurt by mileage expiration, he has better access to the numbers than I do). Making the change essentially retroactive is inherently dishonest. This is a company that years ago advertised during the superbowl that their miles would never expire.

Perhaps they now find they can make more money by dishonoring their commitments. Never mind the moral case here, in the long run reneging on commitments undermines confidence in the business, customers come to learn they can’t trust Delta. Delta becomes modern Russia.

But at least Jeff is honest about their motives, and I appreciate his participation and candor greatly.