I guessing that you are referring to international because domestically, nah.

and how does it effect all those people who don't fly us very often/never but use that Delta American Express Card?

Boeing Bargains With Delta for a Billion-Dollar Deal

Boeing Bargains With Delta for a Billion-Dollar Deal | Wall St. Cheat Sheet

My understanding is if you have the American Express Skymiles card, you're exempt from the minimum spending requirements.

george posted a story about this last night. My question is, don't we still have options for 30 more 737-900ERs?

Would Delta be exercising those options, or is this a separate deal?

I'm sad I made you read such a crappy sentence.

i love my droids swipe keyboard, just don't love the word prediction function nor trying to edit in this tiny little window with the cursor going "you want to go to the top of the paragraph? how about the bottom of the post? middle of a sentence? top of the post? do you see me? back to the bottom, top, middle, bottom, oh you started typing and I'm not sure where i am. do you see me? I'm the cursor that doesn't blink. did you want a space between every letter btw?"

As a former iPhone guy now using a Samsung Galaxy Note, I sympathize. :eek: The cursor placement function is practically non existent, and infuriating at times. The iPhone is far superior in this regard.

I don't know your individual situation and I'm not a financial advisor, so I'd recommend you consult with your tax professional.

That said, I do think tax rates are going up. I just can't see how they don't rise. Not only the individual rates, but I think more people will be paying at least "some" income tax. Our government continues to borrow hugely and sooner or later we, the taxpayers, will have to pay for their profligate spending.

I'm, as Clint Eastwood so eloquently put it, "on the back nine of life" and retirement planning gets a great deal of emphasis from me. The benefits of a Roth conversion are greatest for those whose tax rates are (relatively) low now and have many years for their Roth accounts to grow. I personally have a decent income and don't have that many years prior to mandatory retirement, yet I'm still going "all-in" on Roths.

As I write this Roth income is not "a tax preference item". What that means is it's not subject to the calculations involved in determining if you owe alternative minimum tax. Additionally, Roth income is not currently counted (as income) in retirement when determining what social security benefits are taxed.

Yet another benefit is one is not required to take minimum distributions from a Roth the way they are from 401K's and IRA's after age 70 1/2. So the benefit there is you can literally manage withdrawals from various income sources to minimize your tax bite.

There are also estate planning benefits that accrue to your heirs, but that gets complicated and somewhat convoluted.

Now the big risk is Congress could change the rules in the future and take away some, or even all, of these benefits. My "gut" feeling is they would most likely "grandfather" existing accounts (and their balances), but that's just my opinion.

No matter who you are I think you should take a hard look at a Roth conversion with the benefit of advice from a tax professional/financial advisor.

In other news, your airline is now funding yet ANOTHER competitor.

Republic/Shuttle/CHQ just inked a deal to fly 53 E-175s for American Airlines.

They now fly for every single one of your competitors, except SWA. They also own Frontier.

It all goes to the same bank account.

Johnso,

I took Ferd's post to mean someone who spends a lot but doesn't fly much.

For example I have a good friend/snowmobile buddy who owns an excavating business. He doesn't really fly much for business or pleasure but he puts everything on his AMEX card...to the tune of about $1.5M a year. He and his wife/family often take great vacations and they fly first class on Delta everywhere using up those AMEX Skymiles.