Originally Posted by
Carolinian
That's right DL is really crappy on redemptions. SkyMiles are the Zimbabwe dollars of the sky. It is even worse is you are an expat and get hit with DL's unique and unfair foreign origin surcharge which adds about $200 fee to an ''award'' ticket. I would definitely not consider accumulating miles in this program. Due to time demands at work, I was not able to burn all of my NW WP miles before they got involuntarily converted to SkyPiles, and those remaining are now worth about half of what they were as Worldperks miles.
I have to second that. I have had UA status for several years but decided to give NW/DL another try last year. The flight experience on DL is comparable (miss the E+ on UA though) but the DL redemption options are a joke! With some planning, never had issues redeeming UA miles for UA or *A awards (domestic or international). No such possiblities with DL unless you are willing to fork over 2-4 times the miles compared to other airlines. I have now resorted to redeeming SkyMiles for hotel stays as that's the only decent use I can find for them.