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Best use of DL Skymiles to get to Africa & ME?

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Old Oct 23, 2014, 9:00 pm
  #1  
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Best use of DL Skymiles to get to Africa & ME?
Hello gang,

I have some holiday travel coming up and I want to use miles to travel.
I'm based in PHL, but will likely be traveling out of IAD.

I want to do IAD - BKO (12/19 or some time that week), BKO-JED, and JED-IAD (1/5 or 6/15).
I have the BKO-JED segment booked on star alliance, but I was wondering if you had recommendations for the other 2 legs.

I'd like to fly business as these will be long trips

Any recommendations?
I have almost 200k miles on DL, and somewhere around 80k with UA. If I can use up all of my DL skymiles for both trips I'd be happy!

Thanks!
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Old Oct 23, 2014, 9:34 pm
  #2  
 
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Use airfrance.us to search as it will show most Skyteam airlines' award seat availability. The problem with using DL miles is you will be facing hefty fuel surcharges. I don't know if this is avoidable (I'm not very familiar with the Skymiles program).
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Old Oct 24, 2014, 1:18 am
  #3  
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Originally Posted by mtoure80
Hello gang,

I have some holiday travel coming up and I want to use miles to travel.
I'm based in PHL, but will likely be traveling out of IAD.

I want to do IAD - BKO (12/19 or some time that week), BKO-JED, and JED-IAD (1/5 or 6/15).
I have the BKO-JED segment booked on star alliance, but I was wondering if you had recommendations for the other 2 legs.

I'd like to fly business as these will be long trips

Any recommendations?
I have almost 200k miles on DL, and somewhere around 80k with UA. If I can use up all of my DL skymiles for both trips I'd be happy!

Thanks!
mtoure80,

Welcome to FT.

These threads should help with redeeming DL SkyMiles:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...er-thread.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...on-thread.html
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Old Oct 24, 2014, 7:23 am
  #4  
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Originally Posted by dukerau
Use airfrance.us to search as it will show most Skyteam airlines' award seat availability. The problem with using DL miles is you will be facing hefty fuel surcharges. I don't know if this is avoidable (I'm not very familiar with the Skymiles program).
AFAIK using DL miles can mean fuel surcharges exEurope, the same as those imposed by the AF/KLM FF programs, but you won't see them on tickets originating in the USA in general.

However, DL doesn't yet have one way awards for half the miles required for a RT, so using one *A segment combined with a DL award ticket might not be the best use of miles. Note that DL allows one open jaw AND one stopover on award tickets.
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Old Oct 24, 2014, 10:17 am
  #5  
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Thanks guys... this is very useful... I think I've found my IAD-BKO leg.

Now I need to work on JED-IAD.
Any recommendations as to which alliance would be best for that trip?
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Old Oct 24, 2014, 11:20 am
  #6  
 
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Originally Posted by mtoure80
Thanks guys... this is very useful... I think I've found my IAD-BKO leg.

Now I need to work on JED-IAD.
Any recommendations as to which alliance would be best for that trip?
As MSPeconomist said, Delta doesn't allow one-way awards (or, said more officially, "one ways are priced at the round trip level"). So you'll need to book it all as an open-jaw itinerary with DL miles or get more miles as you don't have enough UA miles for the whole itinerary. That is to say, Skyteam is the alliance you need to use for the whole trip.

I wrote this under the impression that you need to book IAD-BKO and JED-IAD, and you already have BKO-JED booked in some other manner, which I believe is what you were saying in your OP.
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Old Oct 25, 2014, 10:00 pm
  #7  
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Originally Posted by dukerau
As MSPeconomist said, Delta doesn't allow one-way awards (or, said more officially, "one ways are priced at the round trip level"). So you'll need to book it all as an open-jaw itinerary with DL miles or get more miles as you don't have enough UA miles for the whole itinerary. That is to say, Skyteam is the alliance you need to use for the whole trip.

I wrote this under the impression that you need to book IAD-BKO and JED-IAD, and you already have BKO-JED booked in some other manner, which I believe is what you were saying in your OP.
Assuming that BKO-JED-IAD, possibly ITH other connections is a legal routing using Saudia on SkyTeam, OP could fly something like IAD-BKO destination BKO-JED stopover JED-IAD as a single award ticket using DL miles if low partner award availability works for the desired dates.
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Old Oct 28, 2014, 3:06 am
  #8  
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Thank you MSPeconomist

Do you know I could go abt booking BKO-JED stopover JED-IAD?

I found IAD-BKO via Skyteam, if I could do everything on Skyteam that would be fantastic.

When i look for individual segments I can't find award flights with Saudia on airfrance.us
Last edited by mtoure80; Oct 28, 2014 at 3:15 am
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Old Oct 28, 2014, 3:51 am
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Originally Posted by mtoure80
Thank you MSPeconomist

Do you know I could go abt booking BKO-JED stopover JED-IAD?

I found IAD-BKO via Skyteam, if I could do everything on Skyteam that would be fantastic.

When i look for individual segments I can't find award flights with Saudia on airfrance.us
You might want to call DL. If they want to charge a phone booking fee, explain the tickets cannot be booked online and they should waive the fee.
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Old Oct 28, 2014, 4:22 am
  #10  
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One more question... I've been toying with Expertflyer and have found some options that would work with AF and Saudia.
Can I book all award types with my skymiles account? (for eg. AF has awards for elites.. would I have access if I'm gold on DL?)
Is there a way expertflyer can tell you how much the "fare" would be in terms of miles?
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Old Oct 28, 2014, 4:46 am
  #11  
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Originally Posted by mtoure80
One more question... I've been toying with Expertflyer and have found some options that would work with AF and Saudia.
Can I book all award types with my skymiles account? (for eg. AF has awards for elites.. would I have access if I'm gold on DL?)
Is there a way expertflyer can tell you how much the "fare" would be in terms of miles?
You can only book low awards with SkyMiles.

As far as I know, expertflyer does not provide the number of miles required.
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Old Oct 28, 2014, 6:21 am
  #12  
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A DL elite won't have access to AF elite awards when using DL miles, even if the person is also an AF elite.

Check the descriptions of inventory classes displayed on EF. It should tell you whether the buckets shown are low (IIRC called classic), etc.
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Old Oct 31, 2014, 4:05 pm
  #13  
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It seems I'm still having issues booking this itinerary...

I tried calling DL to book the following flights, but they told me they couldn't book any of them... I found the following on ExpertFlyer, but can't get DL to execute?

Leaving 12/22 - IAD-BKO AF55 & AF3852 (Business & PremE Classic Awards)
Leaving 12/27 - BKO-CAI AF3873 & AF508 (Business & PremE Classic Awards) and then I'd book a one way on EgyptAir to Saudi Arabia... the times work
Leaving 1/5 - JED-IAD SV1056 & SV37 (EconValue Award & First Award)

What am I missing?
Do I need to call DL back and give them each flight number?
How much do you anticipate this would cost - in terms of miles?
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Old Oct 31, 2014, 5:45 pm
  #14  
 
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Originally Posted by mtoure80
I have almost 200k miles on DL, and somewhere around 80k with UA. If I can use up all of my DL skymiles for both trips I'd be happy!
Welcome to FlyerTalk... Although you mention having miles with two programs, you seem to be seeking advice only about the use of your DL miles. As such, this thread has been moved to the dedicated Delta forum for further feedback. If the discussion changes direction to include ways of using the UA miles, as well, please alert a mod to have it moved back to the info desk.

Good luck.

~Moderator, Information Desk
Last edited by aBroadAbroad; Oct 31, 2014 at 6:05 pm
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Old Oct 31, 2014, 6:00 pm
  #15  
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Originally Posted by mtoure80
Leaving 12/22 - IAD-BKO AF55 & AF3852 (Business & PremE Classic Awards)
Leaving 12/27 - BKO-CAI AF3873 & AF508 (Business & PremE Classic Awards) and then I'd book a one way on EgyptAir to Saudi Arabia... the times work
Leaving 1/5 - JED-IAD SV1056 & SV37 (EconValue Award & First Award)
One can't use DL miles for AF Premium Economy.

One can't use DL miles for international First (the Saudia segment to IAD?)

Coach or Business class - that's it.

Try giving flight numbers to a DL agent for booking segment by segment.
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