bubu-SNA

...a bit of a rant, and hopeful that someone may have some insight.

I found "low tier" 50k each way business seat availability LAX-CDG on AirFrance.us. Delta does not see the seats. DL Platinum reservations does not see them, and tells me that AF does not release all seating to Delta/alliance partners. I asked the agent to do a "long sell" by booking class...came up empty handed (assuming she bothered to do it vs humoring me).

What is the bottom line story on partner availability & delta...specifically AF "holding back seats". KVS tool search via "Amadeus: Awards/SkyTeam" show 9 seats available in business and these seats look like they are bookable by any program other than Delta

...is this what SkyPeso's have degenerated too? "High" level availability on Delta metal 99% of the time?

charms81

Wirelessly posted (Galaxy S2: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.3; en-us; SGH-T989 Build/IML74K) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/534.30)

You should find 40k seats which are the ones DL can see. But there may not be much you can find since availability has decreased a lot due to all the awareness created by the bloggers, news sites, etc.

bubu-SNA

Charms81,

so the 50k "classic" business award (each way) on flyingblue is not the "low level" award that goes skyteam wide? As I mentioned, KVS shows the seats exist...just not on delta.com

charms81

Wirelessly posted (Galaxy S2: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.3; en-us; SGH-T989 Build/IML74K) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/534.30)

Kvs does not support the new AF categories (based on what the company rep told here). If you see on EF, you'll find on delta.

charms81

Nevermind, I take back my comments. Not sure why 40k came to my mind. It should be 50K and yes, there has been a lot of discrepancy in AF inventory types since past 3-4 months. But EF has been spot on. So if you find it on EF, DL will have it. KVS is not working fine for these issues.

bubu-SNA

I'm not sure how EF would help with this situation...I'm not that familiar with it, the "freebie" version does not appear to allow you to look for award space unless I'm doing something wrong?

bubu-SNA

It looks like this is been going on for the past 5 months based on posts & various blogs. Intentional or not, shame on you Delta.

vgb2001

There has been little to none availability in the "regular award" business TATL seats (O fare bucket) from AF lately. Either for FB or SM members.
OP, let me know your dates and I can check on EF. I'm pretty sure though that EF will show there is no O available. Nothing to do with Delta but rather AF.

KVS

What's the flight #/date?

blagger

From my recent experience, delta.com lags a day or more behind real AF availability. I have regularly seen AF awards on delta.com that do not exist any more (not visible on AF or AwardNexus). When I select one I get the "oops, one of your flights just sold out" message, but the flight continues to appear for a day or two when I search.

I have also seen AF classic awards that take ages to appear on Delta. As it happens, I've just seen a classic business award seat become available on AF (it wasn't there earlier today)... it will be interesting to see when it appears on delta.com.

Sabai

When it comes to bad IT, Delta Air Lines is incapable of being shamed.

Want vapid promises of better things to come? The Delta Blog has Best In Class empty promises that go back to 2008.

roknroll

Ask them to do a long sell (they know what it means). If they play dumb, ask them to contact AF directly to check inventory. If it's showing up at AF.us as available, and you can see O class available on EF, it should show up on DL.com.

Just make sure that it is really business class showing for 50k one way on AF.us. Click all the way through to the booking page to make sure it's really there.

c_d

That is not entirely true: there IS plenty of award space for FB members, however, it is significantly more expensive than it used to. DL cannot/will not access that more expensive inventory and consequently shows nada especially in O.

While I agree that it's primarily a AF issue, I partially blame DL for not re-negotiating the deal: it's a JV after all! DL is not simply a powerless bystander but they indeed can realign the classes. On the bottom line, yet another SM instrument has been devalued or even disqualified.

IMHO they should at least inform us about such a significant change regarding their most important partner. Another approach would be to raise the required mileage amounts accordingly so that we at least have a choice (at the expense of your SkyPesos ofc.)

3Cforme

One already has a choice: accrue FlyingBlue miles if you want FB Flex/Elite redemption opportunities.

c_d

3Cforme, are you referring in irony to the statements of a certain FT member trolling this boards?

This is not a solution but another cold devaluation of all perks. Not only would someone be stripped of the PM/DM perks (as domestic upgrades), but also the mileage accrual on most DL fare classes is sub-terrestrial. With T and U only yielding 25% of total miles and Q, K, L only 50% the meaning of devaluation is actually redefined. Good luck in producing enough miles to actually qualify for an award within the new increased classes.