hockeyinsider

The airfares I referenced earlier were out of MDW. They drastically increased last night when my friend was trying to book. You should still play around with the calendar as I saw sub-$700 airfares to SIN were theoretically available out of MDW and LGA using the Google Flights calendar mode.

I actually had to manually write down the flights and have the Delta agent book mine segment-by-segment to get the best airfare and apply a $400 voucher -- making one of my two status runs a "free" flight. Once I had to hang up and call back as the diamond desk agent didn't know how to do it. If you know the legal routing rules you could probably get upwards of 21,000 MQMs but I couldn't get anything with more than three connections at the right price.

I was also able to replicate the super-low airfares through the American Express Travel website, but I wouldn't have been able to use my Delta voucher.

If you can replicate on Delta.dumb you could use pay-with-miles to make it even cheaper. For me, it's all about status and global upgrade certificates -- not redeemable miles -- for when I don't have a client to pay $7,000 for a business-class Delta airfare.

By the way, yesterday Delta was willing to clear global upgrade certificates for SIN via ATL and ICN in August and September, but you'll need to ride Korean economy between ICN and SIN. Upgrades on Delta metal to/from NRT were not clearing for August and September flights.