Originally Posted by
eneq
Have to think this was largely driven by Delta. They clearly want to eliminate any kind of points usage on their flights.
I see two possibilities:
1. DL is charging VS more (in dollars) for seats, so VS has to raise prices.
2. DL knew about the 60,000 mile sweet spot and pressured/told VS to raise award prices on DL metal flights.
It came out last year that VS pays NH $665 for a one-way F seat on IAH-NRT, so I'm actually quite curious how much VS is paying DL. Given that NH F is also 120,000 points roundtrip (the same price as VS was charging for a DL roundtrip), on the order of $500 to $600 seems plausible.
Is KE now the best program to book DL flights? Only MB transfers there unfortunately... If I'm using AF/KL miles for North America to Asia I'd probably rather book JL