bgriff

(begin rant)

I have to say, my original excitement at the improvements to the award booking engine (the calendar, mainly) have quickly waned over the past few days. I've been trying to book a low business class award NY-LON at the end of next month.

Under the old engine, there was a clearly observed bug with VS award booking, such that going through to a certain point in the booking process would put some sort of "hold" VS award seats and make them unavailable, both by web and by phone, if you then did another search right away. The holds seemed to clear overnight and the seats would often become available again the next day.

It seems this may still be happening, but a lot of other weird stuff is happening too. Changing the terms of the search radically changes what awards kick up -- searching JFK-LHR returns flights that don't show up on a search for NYC-LHR, for example. Seats that show up on separate one-way searches don't appear as part of a roundtrip search (one white whale of a VS flight in particular), and sometimes the roundtrip search produces routings that don't appear for the one-way search.

Slightly "weird" routings, notably JFK-(DL Connection)-IAD-(VS)-LHR, sometimes appear and sometimes do not, seemingly at random, and sometimes are priced correctly (62.5K) and sometimes seem to exhibit the "additive" pricing problem (12.5K domestic coach + 62.5K TATL J) that others have noted. Of course, as has been noted many times, trying to do a multi-city search to force those routings to appear is fruitless.

Totally unclear how much of this is a system problem and how much might be a phantom space problem. It's a mess. I haven't invested too much time on the phone yet, but the one time I did call they supposedly couldn't see some of the space I was seeing online (whether it was because of the VS hold effect, I am not sure).

I have some more calls to make but at this point will wait until the snow clears so as not to tie up the lines. And worst, if I could (at very least) rely on the roundtrip award search to kick up the same flights that appear for one-way searches, I could just cancel my existing ticket (which isn't quite on the days I want) and rebook. But of course the alternative flights I want appear only as one-ways, not when I do a roundtrip search. Perhaps Delta is just trying to force us all into booking separate one-ways so as to charge hefty fuel surcharges on the return from London.

(end rant)

mnredfox

Sadly it seems that the IT enhancements result in many mispricings that result in flyers calling DL agents. This certainly is a frustrating experience for many of us that I hope DL heeds as a problem.

jdhnyc

Speaking of website changes...I'm attempting to book a JFK-LAX-SYD award on Delta and Virgin Australia. Every time I try to book the whole thing (or both segments through multi-city) it pops up that the itinerary is not available or only show tiers higher than they should be. I'm looking to do Virgin Australia biz on the LAX-SYD segment but am fine with economy on the JFK-LAX segment. The problem is it seems like Virgin Australia openings come up much later than midnight when I can see Delta space. Does anyone know what my best option for booking this is? Does saver economy/business space between JFK-LAX open at midnight 330 days out? Can I book that and then add the LAX-SYD segment later in the day? Can't find anything in previous posts. Any help would be appreciated.

bgriff

I suspect you are going to have to call -- the website doesn't usually offer mixed cabin economy/business awards unless a segment is operated by a single-cabin aircraft or a partner has award space only available in a certain cabin. With the current award booking engine, a multi-city search will not price correctly online.

JFK-LAX business class space in low is available on some dates, Saturdays especially, but even at 330 days out most flights through the week do not offer any low business class award space. So you can either try to find dates with low business class awards for the domestic flights (search one direction at a time using the award calendar and choose nonstop flights only), in which case the website should automatically price those dates correctly if you search JFK-SYD, or call and ask the agent to put together a ticket with DL low economy seats and VA business class seats.

fakeman

Quick question, I never able to search HKG-TPE with Skymiles, it always tells me no such route can be found (hey, they forget CI?), should I call or there is issue redeeming Skymiles on CI flights?

MSPeconomist

Call. Not all partner award flights are bookable on line.

jdhnyc

Thanks much, bgriff. As you called it, there's no biz space on JFK-LAX, which is fine. The VA flight is open so I'm just waiting for an automatic callback from Delta to book both flights.

mnredfox

Yes, sadly DL still makes us call for most of the itins, but now gives agents much more reason to blame computer pricing with all the complex rules. My hope is that DL continues to add partners and increase lows (for real).

fakeman

But I figured out that I can see award flights for HKG-ICN on KE.....weird....

RealHJ

Seeing how as of Jan 1 normal award availability went to one seat per int'l flight from 331 days until it's booked to no normal awards on some routes at all, and if any may be once a month or two on others, it's only likely that DL will continue the direction that it's going and keep eliminating what little there is of tier 2 availability next (and then tier 3... and then announce that it's "simplified, now easier than ever to redeem" skymiles with only two tiers, 4 and 5, left, as there was nothing available in 1-3 anyway...just wait, 1-2 years from now (if EOS isn't matured and SkyMiles don't become SkyPennies by then)). DL has never added normal award availability, continually taking it away, while increasing the normal level pricing by nearly 50% in the process (so now one-way at normal level costs as much as RT did not long ago).

I know I'm being selfish, but I, for one, hope that DL doesn't add more other airlines to online booking, as that will have Joe Schmoe SkyMiles flyer book up those seats, of which there are far too few given the demand practically no normal availability on DL. The only reason why normal SkyTeam flights can still be booked is because most are not bookable online. (Look at airlines that are bookable online, such as KL and AF. What has happened to their availability? When it's open to the SkyMiles hordes and with no normal awards on DL, it'll be all booked by DL pax, which will result in availability blocking.)

tmontemb

Any experience booking VS for some of their routes that go past LHR? I.e. connecting in LHR to CPT, BOM etc from USA? I always get a failure when searching on dl.com

bgriff

Note that VS no longer serves CPT, only JNB. And no BOM, only DEL.

But, I have had success seeing the likes of JNB-via-Europe appear. It can be tricky because if you start with a date that has no availability (on a route with no Delta service), even if you select "flexible dates", you will get an error, even if the calendar would have shown other dates that do have availability.

It might be best if you start with a very far-off date likely to have availability (like the last Tuesday open for reservations), then bring up the 5-week flexible dates calendar, you can then scroll backwards through the months to the dates you want.

And of course, search one way at a time and note the dates you want from the calendar, then put them together in a roundtrip, since otherwise the calendar shows you only trips of a fixed number of days.

tmontemb

Cool...thanks. I am able to show in coach if I look far enough out.

Edited to add:Spoke too soon! Just took some more digging and was able to find some Upper Class availability as well! VERY COOL!

LM225

Very unfamiliar with redeeming SkyMiles and I couldn't find an answer here when I searched, so apologies if this has already been answered.

Does DL's access to Garuda seats differ from FlyingBlue's? KLM showing plenty of award availability for a DPS-SIN flight, Delta agent says it's not there.

Is this worth a few HUCA's, or is their inventory indeed different?

Thanks!

bgriff

Where are you starting from in the US? I have had luck getting DL.com to show itineraries starting in JFK, but the routing logic may not be smart enough to send you over LHR if you are starting from other places. Some routings may also create long layovers in LHR, and the current DL.com logic seems to dislike long layovers, whereas VS may still show them.

Finally there's no guarantee that DL has access to all of the same seats VS makes available for awards -- this has varied somewhat over time.