Originally Posted by
TheMadBrewer
Add me to the list of DL pausers.
I was looking to book an open jaw in J -- into BRU and out of BER in October. Delta has suspended service to those cities -- that is fair. But it means flying into AMS or CDG and taking a train -- which also means another country's COVID paperwork. OK, doable.
But the AF and KLM flights out BER to connect to LAX leave at 6am, which probably means staying at an airport hotel the night before. Again, doable. Also looked at returning from FRA -- four hour train ride and lose most of day in Berlin.
One time when searching on Google Flights I didn't check the "Sky Team" box and lo and behold a UA routing came up $1000 - $1500 less than DL (this is out of my pocket) lie-flats all the way and reasonable flight times. So I strayed and booked on UA. An added bonus is avoiding the mess at LAX T2
Maybe I'll like it, maybe I'll hate it -- we'll see.
I fly NYC-DEL/BOM frequently for work. Used to bend over backwards to fly DL/AF/KLM/VS with routing via AMS, CDG or LHR. For a short period of time, when JFK-BOM was operational, it was all great. Currently, as work travel restarts, not only flying via Europe to India is a pain in the rear (Indian Govt. has special COVID requirements for transiting pax), but I am starting to question my personal reasoning of being a DL/SkyTeam loyalist "at-any-cost". Is it really worth?
Case in point, I am about to do EWR-BOM non-stop next weekend. Really looking forward to their Polaris product.