Originally Posted by
colerc
Given the difficulty of 5x longhaul business class, I'd say this is a "beggars can't be choosers" situation, unfortunately.
One thing to keep in mind, Delta does now allow one-way awards, so if you can find something else good in one direction, you could pair it with a Delta award on KE in the other direction. Note that Delta charges fuel surcharges on KE on awards originating outside the US, but not on awards originating in the US, so if you were going to do a DL award only in one direction, it would be best to do it on the outbound. Similarly if you were going to do a multi-hop award using DL miles, best to book it as a single multi-city award originating in the US, not as multiple one-ways. (On other Asian partners like China Southern and China Eastern, and probably also Garuda Indonesia and Vietnam though I'm not sure on those, Delta charges fuel surcharges regardless of origination point. So if your middle segment is into or out of PVG on China Eastern, it won't matter whether you book it independently or not.)
Depending how many stops you're considering, it may not be *too* painful to do a multi-city Delta award. I believe it should just be 20K miles for a one-way business class Asia-Asia award, so US-Asia-Second Asia-US in business class should be doable all for 160K. Not great, but again, not so many choices out there for 5x.
One other place where 5x business class seats are routinely available is VS, on JFK-LHR in particular. Delta's award engine isn't likely to present you with a JFK-LHR-PVG routing, but you could search segment-by-segment, and if you find something then you could book it with ANA miles if that proves to be cheaper miles-wise. Though, unlike DL, ANA charges fuel surcharges on VS, which tend to be very high ($1000 US-London alone), and you would probably end up with an awkward overnight layover somewhere along the way using VS.
BTW, KE's A380 is much better than AF's. Much better business class seats (fully flat instead of angled flat), much more spacious/open cabin, and awesome lounge area at the back of the upper deck. If you liked the AF A380 you'll love KE's.
Wow. Thank you. I've looked at the DL now in both directions as one ways and as open jaw RTs and they come out with nominal fees (taxes around $80 for each ticket...didn't see fuel charges or anything higher than $80 even on the one ways as inbound). I think, given the low fees and the ease of booking 5x without any positioning flights, this is going to be my best bet. We didn't particularly need to do a stopover in Europe, but if I get a 14 hour layover in AMS or CDG or INC for that matter (and I'm seeing a few of these: 6 AM-10 PM layover), then why not take a spin around the city while we wait for our next flight. My boys would love to see AMS, esp (been to CDG). So that might be worth it right there. I'm SO SO bummed DL did away with stopovers b/c I would've liked to do our inbound/outbound that way with stopovers in Asia (which is why I liked the ANA routing).
The internal flights from NRT to CGK or SIN are running 20k econ and 40k biz on DL. I may just do econ for those b/c they are during the day and so not as great a need for biz, particularly with the kids. Or put the 2 teenagers in econ to save some points. Anyway, I'm feeling much more optimistic about our chances of nailing down flights that aren't nuts and that don't cost a fortune.
I did know that about the AF 380 (no lie flat) but I was so enthralled by the aircraft that I didn't care. It was awesome.