Hi, this is my first time posting here, and I have a question for all you Skymiles gurus:

I’m planning an award trip to London and Milan in a few weeks, using miles to get myself a business class Skyteam award. The routing is as follows:
Wed: JFK-LHR (connect in CDG) on AF
Tue: LHR-MXP on AZ
2nd following Mon: MXP-JFK on DL

I’d really rather avoid the connection in CDG, and I know Delta now offers awards on Virgin, so what I’d like to do is fly the NYC-LON portion on Virgin, and the keep the rest of the itinerary in its current Skyteam form. Upper Class on Virgin costs 80K miles roundtrip, the same as Business on Skyteam. I ran this by the DL agent, and she said this was impossible, but seemed a little bit hazy on why. I know that only roundtrip awards are available, but technically this is a roundtrip, I just want DL to construct it out of half of a Virgin award and half of a Skyteam award. Is there any possibility of getting DL to go along with this, or am I hoping in vain?

Thanks much for your help!

P.S. Yes, I know there are other possible connections from NYC-LON besides AF, but late meetings on my departure date make me very wary of any flight leaving prior to 10:00pm at the earliest. In the world of DL partners, I think this limits me to the 11:10pm flight on Virgin or the 1055pm AF connection. Or am I missing some other possible late night connection from NYC(any)? Thanks!

[This message has been edited by Bram (edited 03-09-2003).]