Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
What about international award tickets? In the past, I've tended to do well with low availability close to the departure date.
At least for DL metal the award ticket prices rise the closer it comes to departure date, and close-in changes in availability at the traditional "low" prices don't take place like it used to take place at this time last year. For international, long-haul flights on DL's own metal, in the aggregate there is now a de facto "close in" mileage price booking surcharge that didn't exist at this time last year.
Is anyone really that surprised that DL would make this kind of move? I expected it from DL, and thus I had run down large DL SkyMiles balances before the start of this year.