This is one of the rare times I'm thankful DL downsized some routes to RJ's. So I planned two trips to the midwest around Thanksgiving and Christmas using award tickets. Due to the crappy DL policies (lack of 331 inventory, etc.) one ticket was Skysaver first class through ATL, and the other was combination Skysaver first and coach also thought ATL. That resulted in redeeming 45,000 and 35,000 miles.

Now going from SAN to midwest via ATL is not pleasant and takes all day, but there were no SLC options at the skysaver rate. Of course there were umpteen schedule changes, so I was able to change both trips to route through SLC several weeks ago. ^

However, last night I saw they changed the schedules yet again so I had serious misconnect issues in SLC. As it turns out, the best flights were now all on RJs that had no first class.

The nice SMS agent then refunded the difference between first class and coach skysaver award tickets, which came out to 20,000 miles for one and 10,000 for the other trip. Of course I'm now in coach through SLC, but that's want I wanted in the long run anyways.

So schedule changes and aircraft swaps MAY work to your advantage. I expect plenty more schedule changes between now and the 2008 holidays, but DL has always been good about accommodating changes so I'm not too worried about it and I came out 30K miles ahead.

The SMS agent was quite pleasant, a joy to work with, and really showed DL's professionalism and southern charm. Too bad DL management can't show us pax the same respect that most of the front line staff give us.

Oh and Delta, PLEASE let us sign up for flight change notifications as soon as they happen! I have to babysit my all of my trips to check on these problems. My bank notifies me of account changes that I signed up for, why can't you?