Watchful

Trying to book award travel on Christmas Day ROA-LAX...

ROA-ATL leg is available at saver (25K)

ATL-LAX leg is available at standard (40K)

When you put the two together you get peak (60K)

Is this a glitch or is this just the way it is??

(Yes, I know, in 2015 all of these problems will be solved and we will be deluged with attractive options in award travel booking - yippee! )

Justin026

It's not a glitch, it's a feature.

When you were checking the various legs of your trip, you were shopping. When you looked at what you actually decided you wanted, you were buying. Delta has rigged the shopping side of things to give an air of optimism, but when you go to buy it is rigged to become... reality.

But I am being cynical. The usual reply to your post is to direct you to the huge sticky above on how to search in ways that avoid this problem. I have read through it several times and almost understand how to do it. But others have succeeded. They have a separate thread going where you can report your success, too.

Watchful

I more or less understand the "availability shows on the calendar but not when you click through to select" glitch.

I more or less understand the "availability does not show on the calendar but does show as available when you search the separate legs" glitch.

I more or less understand the "availability shows but is not bookable but if you call they can book it" glitch.

I more or less understand the "this award is not bookable unless you treat it as a multiple destination booking" glitch.

I have dealt with all of these and managed to do work-arounds.

This one is vexing because it continues to happen with multiple searches at different times. The individual legs look bookable, but cannot be combined.

Really trying to figure out if this is journey control or award glitchiness.

Can't wait for January 2015 when this will never happen.

rylan

My guess would be both.

3Cforme

The 'search by segment' technique advocated in the 5-year-old sticky thread 'How to search' wouldn't have worked had Delta been using married segment availability for awards. One example doesn't prove they're using it now but it's reason to be wary.

FlytheTail

Why am I not surprised by this? It's Delta's award program afterall. It would be interesting to call Delta and inquire.

Yesterday I searched for one seat ATL/ORD/JFK/IAD to LAN/FNT/DTW, one way, in F or Y, with or without stops, and couldn't find a single low-tier option +/- 1 day from my desired travel date in March. What a joke.

Justin026

Please say it ain't so. I invested a lot of time apprenticing on that sticky thread, never figured it out and instead learned how to do multiple rebidding on Priceline. Which also is a dying art form. I write this as well on the day AirTran's frequent flyer program vanishes.

Are Soduku skills timeless?

xliioper

DL has not implemented true one-way awards yet.

TTT

I have been told by DL reps that they can no longer do point to point searching. The can only search by O/D.

Renes Points

Right. HUCB.

3Cforme

Me, too, but that has been their 'time saver' mode for years. It's not a recent development related to implementation of married segment availability for awards (if that is, indeed, the case).

I will need to see more than one verifiable example but I do observe that some of Delta's competitive set applies it to awards. AA does. AS denies it does but replicable examples pop up now and then.

Watchful

I hear ya, but not sure the award calendar is quite that smart - also, I consider the times that the award calendar gave you an air of pessimism but after some digging and digging, I was able to find what I was looking for!

Bowgie

Lazy phone agent. Tell her one segment is enough. When she finds it, keep adding "one more segment, please" until you've built your complete trip.

FlytheTail

Yeah, I know. I was looking for a RT and that was the outbound. I didn't get to the return since I failed getting there. I'll probably just buy a ticket on UA or DL, whichever is cheaper and/or has a better schedule.

GrizShel

I don't know why this isn't getting more attention. There's a massive problem with Delta introducing married segments logic on what I guess they consider peak travel dates to more desirable award ticket destinations. On such dates you get everything priced out at the high mileage level (e.g., 60k for a domestic roundtrip). If you try to use multi-city, then you get the stupid flights sold out message:

Yet another massive devaluation of our miles done without any warning.
Thank you Delta.

P.s. - if you find workarounds you best not discuss them here as Delta will promptly squash them imo.