FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Really weird delta search results today to CUN on 12/26/26

Feb 9, 2026 | 8:42 am

#14

hurnik

Join Date: Mar 2008

Posts: 2,012

Quote:

Originally Posted by xliioper

Weekend before Christmas and day after Christmas are going to be high demand dates with higher fares/awards. These are simply the days when many people want to start their holiday vacation trips. It happens every year. Days in between those will be lower, but still relatively high. Cheapest one-way F fares are $429 Z fares and have a fare basis code of VNNL0NFS and have a 21 day advance purchase requirement. Most FC fares are dual-inventory like this one which also requires V class Main inventory (first letter of fare basis code). The corresponding award with Amex discount is 29.7K miles with fare basis code CSV297 which requires OZ class award inventory and is also dual-inventory and requires NV class Main inventory (third letter of fare basis code). It also has a 21 day advance purchase requirement just like revenue fares. You can see only after Dec 30th when demand starts to die down, can you find availability for these cheaper Z class revenue fares and OZ class awards.

Yes, the rates are super high (IMO) but this was more for a budgeting purpose at this point. However, given the *current* state of Money vs. Award on Delta, I think I'd get less than $0.01/mile with the F/Delta One fare. But, if we can swing it and fly out on Christmas Day, the pricing is almost half (and I've got some FNC from Hilton so staying at a hotel for one night until we can get to the resort isn't that bad, when it shaves off like $800).

I may have bad "luck" but generally my anecdotal experience with DL is that the pricing almost never goes down and almost always goes up (at least for F tickets/awards that I buy). Meaning: I buy 9-11 months in advance, and keep checking almost daily until maybe a week out and the pricing by then has almost always inceased by at least 30-100%. (Our Key West trip went from $690 to over $3,400 the other day and it doesn't leave until 4/26/26).

So that's why I usually book far in advance (knowing there will be multiple schedule changes). Although not always a big enough change to warrant a rebook (if there was a 95% certainty I'd probably book the crappy flight that's cheap and then change to the better itinerary). But that goes to hell when using the Companion Cert because you're still stuck with the inventory bucket situation (sorry nothing available for those fares).

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