DL Skymiles: Using Delta Miles to Book Awards

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PatBateman

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Search for Awards: Some Partners can be search using Delta.com DL, AS,AF, KLM, HA
Some partners can be searched using KVS tool or expert flyers: TN,MH economy, china Eastern , all skyteam except Korean air and Aero Mexico
Some partners have to use long sell by agent to do the search, MH Business, China Airline, Kingfisher.
V Australia can be seen by Delta booking agent or you have V OZ acct
Jet Airways can be checked by calling American Airline.

Stopovers/open jaw: you can have one stopover AND one open jaw, the stopovers can be anywhere, you can even have one stopover+one open jaw for travel within a single region. Some routing I have done, PVG-ICN-KIX-ICN//(stopover, co ternimal)GIM-SHA-WNZ(open jaw), all within Asia. NRT-PPT(stopover)-AKL(destination)-ICN(layover)-KIX, can you tell me PPT or AKL, where one is stopover which one is Destination? Since everything is auto priced by computer, so the agent won’t argue with you on routing

Routing restrictions: Some routing have restrictions than another, but Delta permits US-Oceania via Asia. You can also do “mini around the world” US-India via Atlantic, return from Singapore to US via Pacific. As I said, everything are computerized, so it doesn’t matter how you route. Delta does enforce MPM rule on some routes, this primarily for travel within Asia, especially from China to south east Asia city via NRT, some destinations will be priced as 2 awards if route via NRT for intra Asia

Segments:Max is 8, strictly enforced. Also you can not have more than 2 domestic connections within US for intercontinental travel.

Fee:Delta charges you $20 ticketing fee per person unless you are Gold or above, but I have talked about how to get away with is. Delta also charges International Origination fee for travel from certain regions and fuel surcharge for certain carriers, I have mentioned here and here

Hold: There are two primarily ways to hold the award, one is book whatever segments is available online, then call to add other partners. sometimes, agent will tell you they can not hold the reservation anymore once they add segments, “hang up and call again” and tell them don’t touch the reservation. You will find an agent is willing to hold the ticket for you even after the modification, but they may shorten the holding period. As long as they are willing to hold, you can issue the ticket online to avoid the fee.

Another way to hold ticket is you don’t have enough miles, even if you are 1 miles short. This way, you can still hold the ticket online, then after modification by the agent, they will leave the reservation on hold because obviously you don’t have enough miles.

The hold is 2 to 7 days depends on where you are traveling FROM, award from Asia or India are 7 days.

Change or Cancel: Unless you are Platinum or Diamond, any change after ticketing will result in $150 change fee unless there is significant schedule change(miss connected, illegal connection, change more than 1 hour).

How many miles will my award cost? change Delta doesn’t publish the award charge for travel btw regions other than North America, so I can only tell you some of them based on my knowlege

Intra Asia, 20000 Econ/40K business

From Asia to Oceania via ICN or NRT, 150K business, otherwise, 120K business

From Asia to Europe 80K econ, 120K business

Asia to Africa, 120K econ, 180K business

Europe to Africa, 100K Business

Europe to Central Asia/India, 80K business

Within Africa, 80K business

Award blocking and IT glitch: Delta has award blocking for KE cross Pacific flight in business class, regardless how many actual award seats released by KE, delta only sees 1. Delta also use uniform blackout date for MU, CI and KE. what that means is, these carriers blackout dates are by region or route, but delta just blackout all redemption on these partners whenever there is a blackout date. However, if it’s not the airline real blackout date for that region and you talked to an agent forget to check their system, ticketed can be booked or issued.

There are also many IT glitch, the biggest one for US travel is, JFK-LAX via PHX, the award will be counted 2 separate one, even if both segments are low inventory and you don’t stay over 4 hours?

How long will my call take? Not too long, because I know what to look for when I called, in experienced agent can finish whatever my request is in 10 minutes.

Quelle: Using Delta Miles to Book Awards - TMtravelworld
 

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05.04.2010
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How many miles will my award cost? change Delta doesn’t publish the award charge for travel btw regions other than North America, so I can only tell you some of them based on my knowlege

Intra Asia, 20000 Econ/40K business

Leider sind skypesos gerade mal wieder um 50% entwertet worden. Wie bei flyertalk zu lesen ist, sind es ab so fort: 40K eco/ 75k business. MIST - ich hatte schon für nächsten Sommer geplant... Gibt es sonst noch irgendwelche guten Awards, wo man mit >1 cent pro meile Nutzen bei weg kommt...