I know the ins and outs of booking awards with Delta, but this will be a first on AZ. Just trying to figure out if I can use AZ miles to book the routing from SFO, which would require the first segment to be on DL. Can I have a mix of AZ and DL segments on an award? This would be perfectly legal and do-able using the DL miles, but would require more miles and also I couldn't do premium economy.
Looks like I found most the info I needed on the Alitalia SkyTeam North America award page. 120k miles round trip from North America to Euope 2 which includes the UK. I'm assuming it shouldn't be a problem booking SFO-LAX-FCO-LHR assuming that SFO-LAX is showing up as low level available. Will they allow me to book economy for the SFO-LAX leg and business or premium economy for the other legs (assuming I am paying business class prices).
The key rules were:
The journey must be booked on the most direct itinerary. <- Hopefully SFO-LAX-FCO-LHR is considered most direct itinerary. I doubt anything better would have availability.
The Multicarrier award ticket can be made up of a maximum of 6 flight legs. <- Looks like I'm good here, 3 segments out, and 3 segments in.
The itinerary cannot contain the same airport more than once in each direction. <- rules out creative routing to fly through Rome to a stopover city then back through Rome to destination
Only one voluntary stop-over is allowed, but it must not last more than length of stay in the final destination of the travel itinerary. <- stopover allowed, nice
If the award ticket concerns a domestic itinerary, the airports of origin and destination for the outbound flight must be the same as the airports of origin and destination for the inbound flight. If the award ticket concerns an international itinerary, the destination airport for the outbound flight need not be the same as the airport of origin for the inbound flight, but must be in the same award area; alternatively, the airport of origin for the outbound flight need not be the same as the destination airport for the inbound flight but must be in the same award area. <- Looks like I can do an open jaw too, as long as the open jaw stays in the same region
It also appears that a SkyTeam mixed award is only economy or business, and no premium economy.
That's absurd and should be a misunderstanding. If you search the DL forum you'll find plenty of people booking on AZ.
It's possible that DL never has it showing as available in their system until they do a long sell or check directly with AZ. I've booked 3 awards in the past week on AZ with DL miles. All 3 times I saw inventory in Z (business) on ExpertFlyer, and all 3 times the DL rep said there were no seats available. When I asked them to do a long sell and check with AZ directly, each time they found the seats available, after being put on hold for 3-4 minutes.
Several Delta operators confirmed that Alitalia doesn't list its inventory in their system when it comes to mileage seats: half of the ones I talked to just said "I don't see availability" -- you do have to specifically tell them to send the request to Alitalia, which takes a couple minutes. But worth a try!
Several Delta operators confirmed that Alitalia doesn't list its inventory in their system when it comes to mileage seats: half of the ones I talked to just said "I don't see availability" -- you do have to specifically tell them to send the request to Alitalia, which takes a couple minutes. But worth a try!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EastcoasterWestcoaster
Several Delta operators confirmed that Alitalia doesn't list its inventory in their system when it comes to mileage seats: half of the ones I talked to just said "I don't see availability" -- you do have to specifically tell them to send the request to Alitalia, which takes a couple minutes. But worth a try!
No idea what a long sell is... I'm not very savvy to the lingo & the expertflyer thing here. Still can't figure out how to see what Z inventory is available on a flight via expertflyer... trying to figure that thing out is like a full-time job unto itself!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EastcoasterWestcoaster
Several Delta operators confirmed that Alitalia doesn't list its inventory in their system when it comes to mileage seats: half of the ones I talked to just said "I don't see availability" -- you do have to specifically tell them to send the request to Alitalia, which takes a couple minutes. But worth a try!
Kirby
Yes, confirm, it's a long sell. Happens the same, vice-versa, when I book skyteam awards. Just booked in C on AeroMexico (don't ask - really) and it was exactly like that.
