RealHJ

You generally should be booking awards 331 days out, as often within a few days of availability the available seats will be booked and often no more will be released (each airline does it differently though and some may release more award seats closer in).

Also, you need to have good flexibility on your dates (+/-a month or so helps) and avoid traveling on or close to peak travel dates such as holidays, if you want to find an award at the normal price.

You can book your Dec, 2016 travel at the end of January next year. For this December peak season it's highly unlikely for you to find anything at the normal level. You'll be likely only able to find things at double (if you're lucky), triple, quadruple and higher mileage levels this very close in.

SkyBuck

Yes. Go to www.flyingblue.com and click the box that says "Join Flying Blue, it's free!"

toadman

So, for those of us who procrastinate on booking award travel, are we SOL on finding lower tier awards on DL? I've been looking the past few weeks, and haven't found much in the way of R/T awards, SEA-ZRH for end of December. I did evntually snag to Biz class awards on the outbound, SEA-FRA-ZRH in biz class using my UA miles on LH metal. So, now the trick is getting home! I basically burned up most of my miles on UA to get to Zurich in style. And now it looks like I might be stuck burning some serious DL miles just for coach return. Although, there's always going the paid EC route after paying about 62.5k miles for coach, which hurts since the UA biz awards were 70k miles each. The search continues!

kmandrew

I apologize in that I know virtually nothing about Delta awards using partner miles. I am 98% AA but do have 185k Virgin Flying miles and would like to fly home to OMA from any Delta European gateway city next Oct; getting near the 330 days. Using the miles on Virgin metal would run 40k in UC + around $500 + I would have to pay my way to ORD; on top of that Virgin stops the ORD-LHR route mid Oct. I think Delta would run 50k for J and I hope low fees plus Delta flies to OMA. AA posters are constantly bashing Delta on reward availability so will it be near impossible to find 2 seats? If this is feasible I would use 80k to get to LHR then use Delta from let's say CDG to get home - total 180k.

mattp1987

I don't know much about VS awards, but from what I've read partner awards (other than VA) are only allowed on a roundtrip basis. I'm not sure if they'll let you combine VS one-way with partner the other. If it has to be roundtrip, you'll need 15k more VS miles.

For searching Delta award space, 330 days out is usually pretty generous. You can use delta.com and limit your searches to Delta only. One thing you might be able to do is look for the TATL flights and then look individually for flights to the gateway. This doesn't necessarily work if you're booking with Delta miles because of married segment logic, but it might work for partner bookings of Delta flights. You're looking for prices of 62.5k (O class) on the TATL flight and 25k (R class) on the domestic for VS to have access to it. You might also want to check out the five week search for the most recent five weeks of bookable dates to get an idea of trends of award space released to certain cities.

michael_v

I would have booked ZRH-SEA on UA because ZRH-SEA on DL incurs fuel surcharges because it originates in Europe.

To find SEA-ZRH low level on DL, search for low level SEA-LHR and LHR-ZRH, then call and hope for the best.

Hoyaheel

I found some older threads on this by searching, but nothing since 2013....

My husband and I want to use miles to get business award tickets to Asia next Nov/Dec for a cruise. While we each can cover a ticket if we can find lower tier availability, neither of us has enough miles in our SM account to cover both tickets. So what is the best way to search & purchase tickets so we can actually be on the same planes? (not even going to worry about sitting next to each other)

I'm thinking searching award mile calendar for 2 seats, then calling an agent to purchase from separate accounts if dl.com shows it's possible to get 2 seats? I don't want us to be online trying to buy at the same time on 2 different computers - I'd rather pay the (outrageous...) phone agent ticket fee just to make sure we're able to get 2 seats on the same flights....

Things I'm overlooking - problems with this approach, other possibilities? Thanks!

JBJ2435

If you search, even for one ticket, it will show you how many seats available at the price shown. I assume if it doesn't say more than one, there is only one.

First
( R , A ) from
60,000 + $ 120.53
2 left at this price

Burj

Before you do that.... I *believe* that when you purchase an award ticket you get the same 24 hour no fee/no penalty cancellation guarantee that a normal paid ticket gets.

If you read the fine print at this link:

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...cellation.html

It does say:
" For SkyMiles Award Tickets, please call Delta Reservations to request cancellation."

With this one of you can book and then later that day the other one can book and if the second ticket is NOT available...the first can just cancel.

Hoyaheel

I wonder how long it would take the miles to be available again, though, if we go that route and needed to cancel...I fear this is going to be a very time sensitive endeavor...I checked the FAQ and it doesn't mention a timeline for award mile cancellations (though it does for credit card & check....)

TrojanTraveler

When I have cancelled an award ticket, the miles were back in my account as soon as I checked (aka right away).

Hoyaheel

Good to know - thank you!

TrojanTraveler

One thing I should add is that I've no idea when they refund any fees paid on award tickets. Now that I think about it, I've never paid attention...they could have never refunded any of them and I wouldn't know.

gooselee

Most often the miles show back up in my account within minutes, and the fees arrive back on my credit card 2-3 business days later (which indicates to me they were processed immediately, as well).

In one case with a somewhat complicated itinerary and several levels of escalation to combine/change/etc. different PNRs, the miles didn't show back up for maybe 36 hours.

Also, just open two browser windows and you can book from your separate accounts at nearly the exact same time. No need to wait until later in the day. Or if you call, just be honest about what you're doing, that there's no good way to do it on the website, and they may waive the phone booking fee. Even if they don't, the fee isn't too bad if you get the flights you want with the miles you have.

Hoyaheel

Yep, that's what we've done (with other issues) in the past. Paying $50 to get what we want (considering the price of the rest of the trip) isn't such a bad deal for peace of mind....

Our dates have opened up - husband insisting on DL metal so low cost options are limited. Of course longer than we want to spend in SIN (going for a cruise). I don't think there's any way lower award availability would open up (except possibly at the VERY last minute?) Is this true?

We would prefer to travel 11/26-12/11 but the lower mileage flights are 11/23-12/12. Just want to confirm my impression that this is the best we can get so we should book now or forever hold our peace

Well, I scared my husband too much so we ended up booking ;-) 242,500 each for business to Singapore, return from Hong Kong to/from east coast of the US. I called an agent to do the booking because of the miles coming from 2 accounts (didn't have to pay because I'm gold now - yippee!) So the itineraries are linked but still separate - we'll just check regularly to make sure they stay the same. Not as concerned about seats but will keep an eye on that as well. Considering we're on Delta metal the entire time (well, we have a DL connection in the US but...) I am happy with that price....It's not like it was going to get any better over time, right?