pjs

FYI - I attempted to book a lowest tier biz class SkyMiles award from ATL-SVO using VS and SU connecting at LHR. When my date (next June) opened up 331 days out, the award was showing as available at DL.com, but would not allow me to book it. A call to the online service center indicated that it was the Aeroflot segment that had not been opened up yet and the agent was unsure why it was showing as available when he could not book it either. They apparently called SU. He said that SU said that the award seats were not available yet, to which I replied "that's fine, then just don't make it available to book on DL.com."

This morning (7 hours later), I just tried again on DL.com and lo and behold, I was able to book my award seats. Perhaps the call to DL (and in turn to SU) got someone to release the seats? These are a pretty good deal. VS UC to LHR and SU lie-flat Biz to SVO.

Kuhnto

I am getting closer to the date where I can start searching for August 2016 Award tickets for our anniversary vacation in August 2016. We need MCO-BCN then we take a cruise. We need FCO-MCO on the way back.

I know that it is harder now to piece together low fare tickets, but I have played around with the online tool a bit and found it somewhat easier at least to fine low fares (125k) if I do a simple round trip vs. multi-leg because I can use the calendar and our dates are slightly flexible.

Do you think it would easier to:

1. Book an MCO-FCO round trip and catch a cheap flight on Alitalia to BCN to start our trip?
2. Keep trying to book MCO-BCN / FCO-MCO until something comes up in the low fare?

I still have a few moths to figure out how to do this.

gooselee

Use the calendar to search for MCO-BCN one-way, and find a set of flights pricing at 62.5k. Do NOT book the one way, but write down the flights.

Then use the calendar to search for FCO-MCO one-way, and find a set of flights pricing at 62.5k. Again, just write down the flights and do not book the one-way.

Then, use multi-city to search for MCO-BCN on the outbound date you found earlier, and FCO-MCO on the return you found. Pick the same flights you found earlier, and it should price to 125k round-trip, with reasonable taxes/fees since you won't be paying the European origination fee.

Married segment logic prevents you from doing some of the old tricks like finding MCO-ATL in low, then ATL-BCN in low, and expecting MCO-ATL-BCN to still price in low. But you can still search for things one direction at a time and then put it all together.

SpeedAdvantage

To those itching to burn their SkyPesos while it still has value, there's a low award 80,000 one-way HKG-CDG-JNB (vice-versa) in J. You get to enjoy the new AF J cabin in the B777 and jump to AF A380 on another leg. That's more than 20 hours of flying in J for that amount of miles.

mattp1987

It's been a long time since I've been able to successfully use the multi-city search for award tickets. It just spits out an error message every time. This might require calling after performing the searches like you described (although it's worth a shot to try multi-city online).

gooselee

I've found that multi-city now fails if you are trying to use it to piece together a certain specific routing by inputting all the segments. But it still works if you're using one row per direction.

I.e., say you used one-way searches to find acceptable flights on 8/1 MCO-ATL-CDG-BCN, returning 8/10 MAD-JFK-MCO.

This search will fail:
This search will succeed (IME):
However, because married segment is in full effect, the second search will only produce desired results if your initial one-way searches were MCO-BCN and MAD-MCO, and produced the MCO-ATL-CDG-BCN/MAD-JFK-MCO flights you wanted.

You can no longer use one-way to search one segment at a time, but you can use it to search one direction at a time.

Of course, if all else fails, just call and get the booking fee waived due to website not working.

mattp1987

Ah, ok, that makes sense. It's a shame you can't put together an itinerary and see if it passes the married segment test, but I guess that's what we're stuck with these days. I managed to get in a redemption to Australia for next spring before they fully rolled out married segments, and my next DL redemption will be a one-way to Europe which I've had good luck finding in business low through regular searches.

I do have to wonder how you'd add in unforced overnight layovers now or if those are now a relic of SkyMiles past. I don't have any need for it in the near future, but I guess I'd be tempted to try to book a trip using the connecting cities I wanted and then call and try to change the dates of the flights.

RealHJ

I am pretty sure that the site is "working" exactly how it is designed to.

I also haven't heard of DL waiving the phone booking fee due to not being able to book flights online, esp. since such non O&D searches will need to go through Global Ticketing Support and be likely manually put together and priced.

gooselee

My most recent overnight layover was in fact necessary (only afternoon/evening flights available from origin to hub, and only morning flights available from hub to TATL destination). Even that couldn't be booked online, and took about three weeks of back and forth phone calls and emails to get it priced correctly and issued all on one ticket. System kept wanting to price it as separate tickets even though the connection was <12 hrs.

So, I guess that's how you add in those overnights.

Oh, I agree that the website is working as intended, thus the need to call.

But I thought I have seen reports of people being successful in saying "I found these flights online, but the website gives an error when I try to actually book them, please do it for me" - and then having the ticket issued over the phone with no fee.

No direct experience as I've been exempt from phone fees for some time now.

naranjero

Maybe it was due to time difference or something. (Russia is ahead of time though and not behind, so not sure.)

BTW, SU doesn't fly lie-flats on European routes. LHR-SVO is only 3.5h and it certainly would be regular J, not lie-flat. Still it is waaay better than KL/AF/AZ 'J' aka Y seat with middle blocked. Nice deal.

cyberdentist

Guys, am looking to get my wife and son in biz. We want to fly Aug 21/22/23 and return Sept 12

SFO-BLR

I think the only way is SFO-CDG (via MSP,DTW,JFK,ATL)-BLR

How do you get upgraded using Delta miles on Air France flights? They don't even offer business class ticket with miles on this anymore..

Anyone have any experience flying to India on Delta with miles/upgrades?

gooselee

The problem you're facing is that you're booking less than a month out, so all of the business class award inventory is gone. And even if this was well in advance and there were some available, very unlikely that three J awards on a partner (particularly AF) would be available all at once.

If you were flying DL metal, you'd be able to pay a much higher rate in miles to secure the seats, but since CDG-BLR is only operated by AF, that's not an option.

Cash prices on those dates are in the $4,700 range for J. If you are miles-rich and cash-poor at the moment, you could theoretically secure a Delta Amex within the next few days and then use PWM to redeem 470k RDM for each ticket (though I'm not sure tickets on partner airlines are PWM eligible).

cyberdentist

I have 4 Global Certs - which won't apply for AF unless booked in YBM i believe. Miles are not a concern as I have 1.5M miles but PWM is not an option at all. I don't mind paying $4700 but its getting extremely hard to get to India using miles. Skyteam has the worst presence in India. If this goes on, i should consider a switch to Star Alliance or One World!

gooselee

If you don't mind paying the $4,700, then that may be your ONLY option right now (and actually, it seems that SkyTeam has the best cash price at the moment).

While I agree that ST doesn't have a good presence in India - coming from the N. America/Europe you're basically stuck flying AF and AF codeshares there - I would again say that your biggest problem in this case is timing.

Your departure dates are 3 weeks away. It's going to be pretty hard to find good long-haul mileage redemptions to ANYWHERE in that timeframe, and even on DL metal, your GUCs are unlikely to be confirmed at booking, sending you to the airport waitlist.

Kuhnto

Thank you everyone. I have been super busy at work t had a chance to respond to everyone's great advice. Thanks again!!