lwildernorva

From the point of view of the airlines, the best kind of loyalty program of all: fly on us, paying for a revenue fare, to earn currency best spent somewhere else--thus, saving seats to be sold to others on revenue fares and not award redemptions. It would be like Kohl's Kash being worthless at Kohl's but a good deal for buying stuff at KMart. By the way, I know that BA pays or gives credit in some way to its partners for such award redemptions, but it's still a valid analogy.

That being said, I'm a big fan of using Avios on BA by buying a WT+ ticket on sale (like the current sale running through tomorrow--with another 10% coming off by use of the Chase BA card) for around $1000 and then paying another $150 plus 10K Avios to upgrade only the TATL portion to Europe to CW, while earning 10K Avios and tier points for the entire flight. I did this to Dublin in November and will do it again to Rome in March. Club Europe is nothing spectacular, especially for a flight of less than three hours, and I've found the WT+ seat perfectly acceptable for a westbound TATL flight where I'm not looking to sleep.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I did that enough in 2012 that I hit Silver status, meaning that because of the status bonus, I'll actually earn 20K plus another 2500 Avios for putting my Rome flight on the BA card.

BAEC stinks for earning free flights on BA--just (nicely) ask the folks on the BA board.

Happy

Have you searched AB flights out from MIA, JFK and RSW? It may not be available from ORD but I have seen plenty of availability from the MIA and JFK and vice versa.

Of course that may not help you since ORD would be more convenient for you.

FederalFlyer

The strongpoint of DL is hard to answer. You can book open jaws and stop overs on a single award. You can reach almost any part of the planet. SkyMiles are relatively easy to earn. Unfortunately there are just as many/more drawbacks. With advance planning and flexibility, it's a little easier to take advantage of the strong points and avoid the drawbacks - but not everyone has that luxury. Also, being a Platinum with Delta helps tremendously, because it allows free award changes/cancellations. However, without flexibility, advance notice and (to a lesser degree) Platinum status, DL may not offer much in the way of a strong point.

But, as to your other questions, there's usually a lot more space on partners (which all book at the low level) than on DL metal (especially if you're booking more than 1 seat). Some partners charge fees, some do not. Those that do charge are nothing like BA though.

cruisr

That was what I found also. The taxes were something like 1.45 for each one way tkt and it was only 4500 miles. The flight would have been around 400.USD.

luv2ctheworld

I've got a large amount of miles in both BA and DL programs. People need to realize they are different tools for different tasks, so to speak; and they do not fit for everyone.

For example, I find very little value using BA miles to go to Europe from the West Coast due to their taxes (beyond insulting) and distance based redemption. However, they are great for redemption of AA miles for short/medium distances, and the best bang for the buck going West Coast to Hawaii (25K miles). Just as important, they charge 10% of the MILES for an infant under 2, instead of all the other airlines who charge 10% of the published FARE... a difference of several hundred dollars. I can also afford to use BA miles to take a short hop up to SFO via AA for 9K miles round trip whereas I would never redeem 25K for a short hop unless the price point warranted it. Using them for CX and JL aren't bad either.

For DL, I use them mainly on Skyteam partner flights and they are very good for use to Asia. The difficulty is finding award space, and for that, I rely on KVS or EF to assist me in the process. The taxes are not as outrageous as BA (typically) and there is a good number of destinations I can use ST for (SVO on SU/CDG on AF/CAN on CZ/TPE on CI, etc.). I hate that I cannot do one-ways on DL, but there's also the flexibility of open jaw/stop overs.

Don't get me wrong, each program has it's major drawbacks, like taxes and segment + distance based pricing on BA; lack of availability and med/high redemptions on DL, but if you determine what you are trying to accomplish and think critically about what the pros and cons of each program, they will fit the bill; not perfectly, but which FFP is?

To close out, I do think DL is the bottom of the pile in terms of usability and flexibiliy, and BA is better.

CALlegacy

For me, captive hub. I bet a lot of people find their FF fate dictated by that.

Richklhs

My 25k bonus avios for $10k spend posted today. 35k avios will be nice for my wife and I to get around Japan when we move there in 3 weeks! I'm done with DL, spent my last skymiles today getting my wife an ATL-BOS r/t. Hasta La Vista skypesos, hola Avios.

redtop43

For a variety of reasons (none of which have to do with actually flying on DL) my biggest single stash is DL miles. Two years ago I got a 60K coach ticket to OTP, and last year I got two 100K J tix, one to OTP and back with a stop in Paris, and one to Paris. Cash cost was reasonable on all these tix.

And Skypesos are pretty easy to get. I have a Suntrust debit card which, with some judicious use of various techniques, is getting me well over 100K Skypesos a year. Amex signup bonuses and bonus points are somewhat easier than, say, Chase.

However I will say that:

• It took a lot of work to get these flights. I have learned a lot, and one thing I learned is to get a subscription to a flight tool (I used KVS) for the period of time I'm searching for flights. (Usually in the fall for the following summer.)
• DL availability for low-miles dometic awards is awful. (Tell me something I don't know, eh?)
• I've never had BA points, and haven't booked an award flight on AA since about 1995. However, I live in BDA now, and the mere prospect of being able to take my Amex points, convert them with the periodic bonus, and get a 7500 Avios ticket to MIA or JFK, is literally enough to make me consider moving my family to one of those cities. (Before I got serious about this, I'd check availability.) Unfortunately, to most other carriers, BDA is "The Carribean" even though it's closer to, say, CLT than MIA.

akcae

I've seen a ton of AB availability out of MIA via TXL and/or DUS when searching last fall for Dec.

mikelat

F or Y?

mikelat

really kicking myself for having cashed in 80k+ Amex Membership Rewards for $800 in gift cards instead of using for Avios or Singapore Airline miles. At least I know better now than I did 5 years ago.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Roundtrip Y (12.5K Avios each way).

F would cost 3X the Avios.

pinniped

I've never searched on any of those three specifically. I tend to search ORD and DFW more than anything (if I'm looking for OW awards) since I know I can get directly to abroad from those two, connecting from my short MCI AA flight. Once in a while I see a JFK result but it's usually BA metal.

Anyway, if I ever find myself getting stonewalled on seats, I'll keep it in mind. JFK and MIA aren't easy to get to from MCI, but LGA and FLL are. Since OW is all segment-based anyway, it could work...

AlohaDaveKennedy

Naw, I wouldn't bank on that. You would get charged cash advance fees if you did. I'd take my money to the bank that that would not happen with a Chase card.

AlohaDaveKennedy

Argh! I'll bet 5 years ago you never heard of Plastic Jungle!