knuteski

Kind of a rewards question.
Do to US Airways deciding to change my flight times and a significant delay in the posting of my refunded FlexPerks Points. I have to now make a decision between converting Amex Points into AirTran Rewards or Delta Skymiles and then booking reward flights for my trip to Punta Cana in May.

Net-Net, the opportunity cost between booking the trip via AirTran or Delta is only about $100 more for AirTran. But, the AirTran trip will be business class. So, it sounds like it's worth it to go with AirTran.

However, I have absolutely no experience with AirTran whereas I have a lot of experience (and confidence) with Delta. What are the chances a flight gets cancelled with AirTran? We've got a 3 hour layover going to PUJ and and 1 3/4 hour layover coming back so delays should not be an issue.

PA42

What are the chances a flight gets cancelled with AirTran?

That is why the DOT forces us now to show those statistics right on the booking page. However no one can predict the future. That being said your chances of getting cancelled on an international itinerary are slimmer than say a high frequency city where there is reprotection via another nonstop or connection.

mlancaster8

In many cases, Airtran COACH is better than Delta coach.

Advantages of Airtran coach over Delta coach:
1. If you get on a heavily traveled business route, more than half the plane has some sort of Delta status. If you don't yet have it, you get stuck in the back with screaming kids.
2. Delta is disorganized with baggage because they dont have logical zone based boarding due to location on the plane - they do it by status. Therefore, you have someone in 14C putting their luggage up and holding up all the people that need to get by them. Then, you have people that are 3 rows away from their luggage and that makes exiting longer.
3. Believe it or not, Delta has more older planes in their fleet. Airtran came from ValueJet. ValueJet had a horrible crash in the mid 90's and replaced their fleet with 717's and 737's that are relatively new.
4. Free flights faster - most of the time 25000 miles on Delta doesn't even get you a one-way anymore. People getting Delta's credit card have upped the ante (sp?). 8 one ways lead to a free one way - that's it!!!

If Business class is not full 24 hours before your flight you can buy the upgrade for much cheaper. Plus, 4 one ways = business class upgrade.

Plus, if you fly Airtran enough, your status will carry over to Southwest in some form - probably a better boarding number.

mlancaster8

Airtran and Delta are pretty equal on cancelled flights - they hardly ever cancel. I fly out of WI and there is a lot of bad weather here. The only ones that consistently cancel at the drop of a hat are the Star Alliance ones - US Airways, United and Continental

In fact, I haven't been canceled out of here going to many destinations on Frontier, Airtran or Delta yet. And, last week was a ferocious wind storm that grounded my coleague's United flight and caused him to have to call and re-route his flight.

My Airtran flight left the gate early. Delta's were all on time that day, too.

knuteski

THANKS!

You all rock! That makes the decision pretty easy. AirTran.
Also, my run-on email may have been a bit confusing but unless I want to pay out of pocket a ton, there were no AirTran Coach Seats. Just Airtran Business Class seats at 64 Rewards points for my wife and myself so the difference between the "cost" on Delta and Airtran is only about $100 more for Airtran.

And, if AirTran Coach > Delta Coach than Airtran Business Class >>> Delta Coach.

Thanks again...

travelingfool23

FL coach:
- Wi-fi
- No TV, no movies, no XM radio
- No food for sale
- Cloth seats on most flights

DL coach:
- Wi-fi
- TV, movies on some flights
- Food for sale
- Leather seats

westau

FL Business:
-Wi-fi
-more legroom
-wide leather seats
-free booze
-free premium snacks

mattolo

Do I understand this correctly - you are going to transfer 96,000 Amex MR points into 64 A+ credits in order to get two RT business class seats to Punta Cana? Have you looked into transferring them to BA Avios and then booking the flight via AA? Depending on where you are flying out of it might be a better use of miles, although you just missed the 30% bonus for transfers to BA.

traveller001

Just noticed this in an A+ mailing March 1st deadline... but of course before transferring check award availability once again.

"Thank you for being a valuable A+ Member and for your active participation in A+ Rewards.

This is a final reminder that our point transfer relationship with the Membership RewardsŪ program from American Express is ending on March 15, 2012.

This is your final chance to transfer Membership Rewards points.† It only takes 1,500 Membership Rewards points to earn one A+ Rewards credit. Transfer 24,000 Membership Rewards points—the equivalent of 16 A+ credits—to earn a roundtrip coach ticket.

Starting March 1, you won't be able to transfer
Membership Rewards points. If you'd like to transfer
Membership Rewards points to A+ Rewards, click here."

mlancaster8

is their new process of bidding up the Sky Miles. Now it takes at least 40000 miles to go East to West, unless you want to connect at some awful time. That's just ONE WAY. I would challenge anyone to find a roundtrip ticket for 25,000 miles on Delta, even 5 months from now. It is impossible.

40,000 miles = 20 coast to coast flights - that's bad...

Plus, the people with the upper statuses take their pick first.

Airtran is pretty simple - 8 flights = one-way
16 flights = round trip
Yes, they will run out if you get close to the date, but this is available on every flight to start.

United - 30,000 pretty much gets you a roundtrip still

Southwest - phenomenal miles program

Delta has turned their miles into Monopoly money. If I could go the other way and turn Delta miles into EQUAL Marriott points. I would in a second without thought. Marriott Rewards gets you something for your time, at least.

This is even a bigger problem than the luggage problem on Delta, which is, in itself, a real problem when returning back from business trips late and wanting to exit quickly.

plagwate

I appreciate your feedback to the OP but feel compelled to clarify some misinformation in your response.

Then call me the SkyMiles Ninja. I just found several options for round-trip ATL-LAX, some of which were nonstop, for 25,000 miles. And these were just random dates in April. My point is, I didn't have to try very hard. Also, Delta's one-way rewards are charged at the same rate as round-trips. While most of us think this policy is ridiculous, it's disingenuous to imply a round-trip would cost 80,000 miles (40,000 x 2).

This makes no sense. Status has nothing to do with award priority. Are you saying that award availability is slowly released by status tier? Ridiculous. Award seats are made available to all levels simultaneously. Whoever books first secures their award ticket.

Again, you are mistaken. AirTran never starts out with every date, every flight available. You can search as far ahead as November 2, 2012 (the furthest date one can currently book) and you will find plenty of flights with only Business Class award availability (32 credits for a round-trip).

Not if you ask these people. Take your pick of the many threads complaining about the devaluation caused by RR 2.0 (start searching around this time last year).

I will agree with you on this IF you're flying with no status and one of the last 10 passengers to board a full flight. But even Delta's lowest tier (Silver Medallions) or non-status customers with a Delta-branded American Express get Zone 2 boarding. There are plenty of ways to easily reach Silver (you even requested a status match which I presume you successfully received) or obtain the DL AMEX.

The risk of boarding last and and having to check carry-on luggage has become problematic on nearly all carriers. This isn't unique to Delta (though I'm sure plenty of my WN friends will chime in that their "Bags Fly Free" policy has virtually eliminated this problem on their planes).