Originally Posted by
darnold
Actually, both GA and VN have published revenue fares with these flights - specifically testing with DPS, since it is easier to search:
VN: NOXVN
GA: TOXSVNVN
Garuda's website indeed returns pricing for revenue tickets with these flights.
Well that sucks.
Published revenue fare isn't enough. It needs to be a thru-fare, not a constructed fare. Look for the phrase
constructed fare in the ExpertFlyer fare rules.
Returning revenue pricing isn't enough: it needs to be a single fare component between origin and destination airports. The good news for SGN-CGK-MDC is that GA can, indeed, price this as a single component. I see, for example, fare basis VOXCVNVN on 13 March.
If you confirm it's a published thru-fare, try challenging Delta once again.
There may be some unpublished rule that prohibits DL award travel on GA and VN between those points, sort of a 'because we said so' rule. Published fare, thru fare, and married segment availability have variously been
features of AA, DL and UA award redemption for quite some time. With DL, this forum has inferred those requirements from thousands of observations - they aren't explicit rules in the SkyMiles program materials. And AA - another program I know pretty well - plays the same way.