AANYC1981

As someone who flies both oneworld and Skyteam (Star seems good but no personal experience).....Skyteam seems like the junk alliance minus a few members.

aero0729

And delta is turning into Junk. The new planes feel packed. Tightly packed to the brim. The lack of bulkheads and space in first sucks then you add in a crappy mileage scheme on a junk allaince. Unless you just fly around the southeast DL has turned into what is the worst overall value in the US

BenA

I too have redeemed for plenty of low-level awards in my day, but it's getting dramatically harder. The value used to be in booking close-in with partners to get the most available inventory, then adding a stopover to maximize the ticket. But they've systematically removed each of those value propositions, by removing free stopovers, increasing partner costs, charging extra to combine carriers in some cases, and - now - apparently increasing prices for bookings 21<t<5 days. With flexibility, you can still find low level redemptions, but they're a lot more restrictive than they once were.

I just find the value to be much greater in domestic itineraries these days. One of the beautiful parts of a wildly competitive TPAC market is that discount fares pop up all the time; I've had many cases where Pay With Miles even beats the sticker price for a flight. (YMMV if you're in a less competitive market than the west coast, of course.)

In contrast, booking a SEA-FAI economy round trip for 15k miles that Delta wants $400 for ordinarily delivers incredible value in dollars-per-mile. Much more boring, but I think it's the better use of miles these days, that's all.

It takes away the fun aspirational side of accumulating miles, but it's possible I'm actually saving more money (and accumulating faster in the process, since it causes me to book more and more paid partner J tickets.)

The game is changing, that's all. Used to be that Delta redemptions were the least attractive use of miles, because availability was so bad and prices were often higher. Now, they've fixed that problem, primarily by making everything else worse so the few improvements they've made to Delta metal redemptions look better in contrast.

flyerCO

However they also don't hand out miles left and right. Like any currency, one doesn't equal the other.

javabytes

I don't understand why this claim continues to survive. It's simply not true.

RealHJ

Sort of...but still how high the normal levels are put now, for any markets, DL or non-DL flights, it doesn't make sense, as the market price is often below $0.01 for the miles cost. Intra-Asia flights are very competitive and on many routes can be purchased for a cash fare of less than $0.01 vs. the award cost in Y. Same for trans-Pacific. For example, HNL-KIX on Air Asia X normally (when not discounted to ~$90) costs $208 all-in (but sure, you will pay a few $ extra for food, and if you have bags to check...but at least that Y food will be likely better tasting than the poor excuses for food that DL often serves in "Delta One"). Normal level (X) cost is 30,000 miles. The in-flight experience in DL Y is not that much better than D7, though there are some pluses...if the nominal price is 1 mile is worth less than $0.01 given the market pricing, then even adjusting for the slightly better seat pitch, it's still, at best, 1 cent per mile.

Now more and more often, indeed most, award redemptions using DL miles don't make sense, be it short-haul regional or long-haul trans-oceanic, given the competitive fares. Another example, say for CI flights going via TPE to SE Asia. The cash fare is ~$600 RT for Y with CI. or 70,000 miles RT. Again, value of less than 1 cent.

It's a bit better for J fares, but not by much, where an ~$800 market fare flight may cost 60,000 miles, so just slightly above 1 cpm.

I would put the actual usable value of DL miles at pretty much 1 cpm now. +/- variance of quite a bit still, yes, but less and less so, and less and less often so. So there is really very little reason to have any "loyalty" and collect DL miles these days.

DL miles are some of the hardest to get. AA are by far the easiest to get and accumulate, and UA are also easier (esp. thanks to MileagePlus X) than DL.

DL is the most stingy with giving out miles of all 3 major American carriers, AND has the worst value per mile.

+1000

flyerCO

All programs are per $ now. However DL hands out miles left and right as CS gestures. AA especially does not.

Agree DL doesn't have the best value. However the idea that 1DL equals 1UA, equals 1AA just isn't true.

Air Houston

And DL will continuing to ratchet them up until they get close to the "cash" price equivalent at one cent per mile. So, expect a $5,000 one-way D1 ticket to go for 500,000 miles. It seems absurd, but it is no different than pricing a $250 domestic ticket at 25,000 miles.

CPMaverick

Yes I am dropping DL and burning SM as a result of the last 12-18 months of nonsense.

I could deal with staged devaluation, which has always been the case to some extent, but the lack of transparency and the dropping of a public award chart is very customer unfriendly (one might even say hostile) and it certainly seemed like foreshadowing for more poor policies to come (unannounced).

Yes I can still find decent deals but they make it more and more difficult. Moving to a mix of VA and Star Alliance.

RealHJ

DL? Never (OK not never, just rarely). May be many years ago it was how you say, but so is certainly not the case now. DL gave up caring about its passengers a long time. DL is clearly after the Joe Publics who fly once every year or two and that is the market that they are pursuing.

AA is a bit stingy, yes, but more generous than DL, while UA really treats its pax right and even without being asked for anything will give many fold more than DL or AA ever would.

DLATL777

I think its pretty much a fact and has been for a long time. ST is awful-the carriers clearly go to Star Alliance or One World first then will come to ST if they cant get in

StayingHomeIsBetter

I must wonder whether the average FF member is as successful in getting CS miles as the typical FT devotee is.

Our past performance may not represent a guarantee of future success for others.

aero0729

Problem is. Not everyone is like me and will dump Delta. They can do whatever they want

HeadInTheClouds

I agree 100% with this. I am finding it harder and harder to justify any travel or credit card earning on DL. I used to be able to find pockets of value out there in SkyMiles (mostly partner tickets), but even that now it seems is gone.

As you say, there is some remaining value in these short haul redemption (and the flexibility the award tickets provide), but there are only so many SNA-LAS placeholder weekend getaways I can do!

The redemption opportunities as a UA GS are so otherworldly better, there is now just no reason to stick around, unfortunately.

luv2ctheworld

Grateful I was able to burn through my half million SkyPesos last year. I usually like to have some miles on hand for redemption in emergencies but it has been so ridiculously difficult to find decent value that I stopped accruing DL miles for the past few years and waited for 3 years for a decent opportunity that made sense.

At any rate, like some posters have mentioned above, no skin in the game anymore but still painful to see how they deal with customer loyalty. Operationally they have been pretty good, but the way they treat loyal customers is dismal.