Originally Posted by
WannaTheater
I am sitting on ~450K Skymiles that have been around for many many years. Wife and I are planning some travel over the next 18 months, and am wondering if there are any good values available for points redemption- mainly for international, and focusing on Scuba destinations. Also don't mind partner airlines, which seem to be of better value, especially for Premium Economy/Business.
Home airport is TPA, but have no issue with repositioning if needing to go out of major hubs (ATL, etc). Any advice would be appreciated.
Skymiles awards largely correlate with revenue fares these days from US/Canada (there are several threads on recent harmonization of DL and partner metal award levels from US/Canada). 450K miles will probably max out at about $6K worth of flights when comparing with revenue fares. That means most destinations in EU, Asia, South Pacific will be out of reach for business class with 450K miles (you'd likely have to settle for Premium Economy awards). If you reposition to JFK, there are JFK-BCN/MAD D1 awards from 230K miles roundtrip (BOS-LHR goes from 148K miles roundtrip, but probably not what you had in mind). On very rare occasions, they will run a 48 hour D1 award sale, but you may have a very long wait for one of those. Repositioning to ATL will probably not be helpful as it tends to have higher fares due to DL hostage hub status.
The other option is to reposition to Caribbean/Mexico origin like NAS or CUN where there are still some decent award values. Business roundtrip awards to EU region can be had from 150K miles, Northern Asia starts at 160K miles roundtrip, and Australia (SYD) starts at 240K roundtrip. Availability at those levels can be challenging to find though. Price Calendar award search (you can switch to it after a Flexible Dates search) can be useful here.
