Last month, Delta introduced the following promotion for flights originiating and terminating in the following cities: Raleigh-Durham (RDU), St. Louis (STL), Pittsburgh (PIT), Nashville (BNA)
- 5,000 bonus miles plus double MQMs when you fly to Delta hub cities—Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis, New York/JFK and Salt Lake City
- 10,000 bonus miles plus double MQMs for flights to all other cities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean—over 350 to choose from
- 25,000 bonus miles plus double MQMs for international travel in Economy Class to over 70 countries
- 50,000 bonus miles plus double MQMs for international travel in BusinessElite®
Attacking RDU, STL, and BNA was no doubt deliberAAte and now American has matched, though their offer is a bit simpler:
Like DL, the trips must originate and terminate from one of the cities above (the same one) and you must register for each city separately (links for each city above).
The promotion runs through December 31st on both airlines and tickets purchased on or after June 17th on Delta and July 2nd on American qualify, as long as you register before your trip. The promotion covers all fare classes.
I have no use for Skypesos, but I am quite tempted by the AA offer. At the same time, RDU, STL, BNA, and even PIT are not close to me. Now if UA or CO decides to match, I will certainly take advantage, but I’m sorry AA/DL decided not to spar in PHL or QLA. The 2x EQMs are appreciated, but I’m really eyeing those 3x RDMs. Those extra miles would come in very handy…
UPDATE: Per Fozz, apparently trips do not have to originate and terminate in RDU, STL, PIT, or BNA when flying on Delta. Rather, you simply must fly through one of the airports. This is not reflected in the fine print of the offer details (see links above).
As someone who calls RDU home, I seriously doubt UA/CO will match this. They have extremely small operations here (especially compared to the massive operations of DL/AA). If a star alliance carrier were to match it, it would be US, as US really owns NC
@mowogo: You’re probably right, though UA does serve STL and PIT from each of the hubs (except for LAX-STL). I don’t think UA needs to match.
@Matthew: PIT is a cesspool of a market where UA is winning the market over just by offering the flights to LAX, and STL is mostly a UX operation anyway. DL started the promo to try and attract customers who have suffered from the de-hubbing of these airports,and AA is just responding because even in their reduced state, they still have significant operations at both RDU and STL (I know RDU is primarily because of corporate contracts, since they still have kept the RDU-LHR flight).
I feel so bad to see the demise of PIT. One of my favorite airports. I remember the US hub days…