msp2msy

I spent far too much time yesterday trying to get my wife and me to Fairbanks on an award and can shed some more light on getting there using Skymiles.

I finally got frustrated enough that I took a very methodical approach testing specific scenarios until I'd sussed out the rules that kept triggering 50k+/person (even 90k) tickets in economy. The Delta agents on the diamond line tried to be helpful and gave a few tips but never could give me a complete explanation.

PROBLEM - Mixed Fare Classes
An element mentioned here but perhaps not totally clear is that when you mix in a medium/high segment on Delta with a Low on Alaska, the fare breaks. For example:
MSY-MSP(DL LOW)-ANC(DL MED)-FAI(AS LOW) / FAI-ANC(AS LOW)-MSP(DL LOW)-MSY(DL MED) would price as:

Fare 1:
MSY-MSP-ANC @ DL MEDIUM = 20k.
ANC-MSP-MSY @ DL MEDIUM = 20k.

Fare 2:
ANC-FAI @ AS LOW = 12.5k
FAI-ANC @ AS LOW = 12.5k.

Total: 65k/person.

PROBLEM - 6 Segment Limit
I don't think the 6 segment award limit has been mentioned here. This is a major problem when you are in a Delta spoke and need to reach an Alaska spoke. In other words, MSY to HUB to HUB to FAI is my route. Given that FAI is only served from SEA and ANC and that anything more than 4 hours is a stopover, this is a major routing challenge. By the way, I cannot find this referenced anywhere... Delta's web site seems to say nothing about a 6 segment limit and blogs all say 8 segments. In this case, it seems like a hard rule but I haven't tested whether it's a general rule for award tickets, an award to US domestic tickets, or a byproduct of the Alaska airlines partnership.

Let's say you go to 8 segments all in LOW (to avoid the problem above), as in:
MSY-MEM(DL LOW)-SEA(DL LOW)-ANC(DL LOW)-FAI(AS LOW) / FAI-ANC(AS LOW)-MSP(DL LOW)-ATL(DL LOW)-MSY(DL LOW).

It prices as two fares again. This time it's:
Fare 1:
MSY-MEM-SEA-ANC in DL LOW = 12.5k.
ANC-MSP-ATL-MSY in DL LOW = 12.5k.

Fare 2:
ANC-FAI in AS LOW = 12.5k.
FAI-ANC in AS LOW = 12.5k.

TOTAL = 50k/person in all low.

SAVING GRACE - Stopover
Coming from a reasonably well served Delta spoke (MSY), it's still difficult to line up 3 segments in all low on a time line that actually works. Without a stopover, it appeared that MSY-MSP-ANC-FAI is the only 3-segment outbound route that could EVER work without a stopover. Once I added in a stopover, many more routes through Seattle or Anchorage opened up with 4+ hour stops.

The timetables for returns were modestly better without using a stopover. Your route timings in other Delta spokes may vary of course.

Example:
MSY-ATL(DL LOW)-SEA(DL LOW - stopover)-FAI(AS LOW) / FAI-ANC(AS LOW)-MSP(DL LOW)-MSY(DL LOW)

Prices at 25k/person since it's all LOW and 6 or fewer segments and uses only one stopover.

FALL BACK STRATEGY - Open-jaw
If you just cannot find 6 segments in low that line up, a fall back strategy is to use 7 segments to price it as an open-jaw with an extra segment.

E.g.:
MSY-MSP (DL LOW)-SEA(DL LOW)-ANC(DL LOW)-FAI(AS LOW)
FAI-SEA(AS LOW)-MSP(DL LOW)-MSY(DL LOW).

This prices as an open-jaw + an extra segment:
MSY-MSP-SEA-ANC in LOW = 12.5k.
FAI-SEA-MSP-MSY in LOW = 12.5k.
Delta will add the extra segment of ANC-FAI at 12.5k.

(Of course, you could also just use 12.5k AA or 7.5k AS miles to book ANC-FAI as a one-way award but we all know those miles are more valuable than DL, right?)

TOTAL = 37.5k/person.

GETTING CREATIVE
All those theoretical exercises finally established the rules that I needed to operate within. While Delta.com shows NO possible award routes from New Orleans to Fairbanks (though it can find a couple returns), I know that it fails to find lots of options so here's what I put together:

MSY-MSP(DL MED)-ANC(DL MED) - Medium with no stopovers = 20k DL.
ANC-FAI(AS LOW) - Effectively a stopover since it's the next day but no pricing issues since it's booked separately = 7.5k AS.
FAI-ANC(AS LOW)-MSP(DL LOW - 12 hour stopover)-MSY(DL LOW) - All Low with 1 stopover. 12.5k DL.

Net: 32.5k DL + 7.5k AS per person. Leverages cheap intra-Alaska fare, open-jaw, and stopover. And it, mostly, works on our schedule. I'd rather not spend 12 hours in Minneapolis on the stopover but it does work.

I'm still hoping to use PM/DM changes to improve it... I'd love to get low up to Alaska and to eliminate the 12 hour layover in MSP. With only 5 segments on the Delta award ticket, I still have one more segment I could possibly throw in. All said though, I think, coming from New Orleans, 40k total is pretty reasonable, 32.5k would be great, and 25k is next to impossible.

SUMMARY
There are really four scenarios.

A) An all low, 6 segment trip possibly using a stopover for 25k.
B) An all low, 7 segment trip for 37.5k.
C) A broken fare at 50k+. Before I knew the limitations, I was regularly hitting 90k-100k/person. 110k/person is a very real possibility.
D) Use the Alaska 7.5k one-way to make it work and get creative with open-jaw and stopover... See my final example above.

Just finding an example of A to prove a successful 25k ticket took a ridiculous amount of work.

I only did the work after several other frustrating experiences using skymiles and finally decided to document this one thoroughly in a letter with screen shots.

Toward the end of the letter, I write the following:

"If it takes 3 calls to the medallion line, 3-4 hours of searching, diamond level calendar access, a search spanning 7 months, and an incredibly methodical approach leveraging the relatively unknown stopover feature of Delta awards to find a single example (with a ridiculous schedule) of a 25,000 mile domestic US ticket just to prove it can technically be done, then something is sorely broken with Skymiles in my humble opinion."

Hope this helps others. And if I'm wrong in any of my conclusions, please correct me. I believe I did tests of each feature (stopover, segments, fare levels, open-jaw) to isolate the effect on the fare but it's possible I missed something or interpreted the result incorrectly.

For what it's worth, log in to your AA account and search for saver level awards from an AA spoke (which MSY is also) to Fairbanks and see what you get... The dates I wanted didn't work but availability was dramatically better. Surely that's a product of both better low availability and lifting the 6 segment limit.

And here I thought I was going to use my Skymiles for domestic trips and save AA for international award cabins... That strategy looks a little more difficult than I thought now.