The Definitive "How To Search for Low Tier Business Awards"
Jan 1, 2013, 11:27 pm
#1546
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,762
Great thread -- thank you so much for this. My first award search before this thread yielded a flight for 'only' 385,000 miles! LOL.
I am planning a honeymoon and have DL and AS miles --obviously looking to burn DL ones first since they are so darn hard to burn. Of course we're looking at a late May or June LAX/SAN - CDG/AMS one-ways in Biz/First .
My search actually yielded a few green coded 'low" award dates yet the flights were listed as 100,000 miles one way. I viewed the award chart and the "low' biz/first flights should be 50,000 each way. Is DL.com playing chicken with me or just full of it? Have searched about an hour now and even the low one-way awards all come up as 100,000. So I'm looking at 200,000 RT for a flight then huh?
My main Q is has anyone ever seen one ways at 50,000 when they list as 'low' in the DL.com search?
Me thinks booking a honeymoon on miles could be wishful thinking but I will go down swinging!
I am planning a honeymoon and have DL and AS miles --obviously looking to burn DL ones first since they are so darn hard to burn. Of course we're looking at a late May or June LAX/SAN - CDG/AMS one-ways in Biz/First .
My search actually yielded a few green coded 'low" award dates yet the flights were listed as 100,000 miles one way. I viewed the award chart and the "low' biz/first flights should be 50,000 each way. Is DL.com playing chicken with me or just full of it? Have searched about an hour now and even the low one-way awards all come up as 100,000. So I'm looking at 200,000 RT for a flight then huh?
My main Q is has anyone ever seen one ways at 50,000 when they list as 'low' in the DL.com search?
Me thinks booking a honeymoon on miles could be wishful thinking but I will go down swinging!
Because it is a round trip system, you pay the same whether it is a round trip or a one-way. ONLY a one-way system program would have one-way being 1/2 of a round trip... Or rather, a round trip is priced as 2 One-Ways.
What you are looking at, 100K means there is low-level award on that particular city pair. So you write down the details of the flights that show the 100K. Once you find both the outbound and inbound low level availabilities, you use multi-city search and then pick the SPECIFIC flights that show you the low-level award when you did the city pair search before. Picking the correct flight is vital, as when doing multi-city search, the website would NOT give you any miles required info.
Once you picked the correct flights, when you are done, the whole trip would be priced correctly with the 100K.
Jan 3, 2013, 2:16 pm
#1547
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: TYS, CLT, ORF
Programs: DL FO, DL AmEx Gold
Posts: 6
Advice for Honeymoon Award Tickets
Rather than start a new thread, I figured this may be the best place to post this:
My fiance and I will be taking a 2.5 to 3 week honeymoon to Central Europe in the middle of August. I am a very recent FO and I have the AmEx Gold card. After my flights next week I will have approximately 119,500 miles and will be above 120,000 by the end of the month. Due to the fear of missing the low award availability that currently exists around the exact time of our honeymoon, I am hoping to book the award travel sooner rather than later.
With that said, I would like some advice from those with much more experience booking TATL award tickets. We wanted to fly into TXL or MUC and travel by train to AMS later in the trip, but it appears that with DL the best option for award travel would be to fly direct DTW-AMS. On the award calendar on Delta.dumb it continues to offer 60,000 miles plus fees for a round-trip ticket DTW-AMS.
My questions are:
1) Is this the best deal available from Delta.dumb? [I am not doing an initial OW search for a multi-city as the OP suggests because the Delta.dumb makes the multiple legs like 77,500-95,000 miles]
1a) During the honeymoon we hope to see AMS, TXL or MUC, PRG, VIE, and ZRH or BRN. Would any of these other cities provide a better shot?
1b) If not on DL, would any of those cities in 1a) provide a better shot through a codeshare? CLT is a possible origin and I know there is a daily A346 that does CLT-MUC, for example, that we wouldn't mind doing if it leads to a better deal.
1c) If somehow a layover was needed my fiance has said she wouldn't mind a long, long layover at LHR for a rapid sightseeing day in London - doubt this would work in any redemption scenario.
2) With the FO and Gold AmEx benes, what would the free checked luggage limit be for TATL?
3) Is it possible on a TATL award ticket to use the FO and UG the difference between Economy and EC and get the 25% that comes with FO? I.e., it would be really great if I could get us EC for essentially 75% of the difference between Economy and EC.
4) I don't think it would work cost wise to buy a BE award ticket with my miles then purchase a BE ticket with cash and link the PNRs later. But, what would the cost generally be for DTW-AMS BE?
Dates in mind are:
8/12-8/28 or 8/12-9/3
Sorry for the long post and thanks for any help. I usually lurk for all the info I need for my domestic travel, but this is a whole different ball game.
My fiance and I will be taking a 2.5 to 3 week honeymoon to Central Europe in the middle of August. I am a very recent FO and I have the AmEx Gold card. After my flights next week I will have approximately 119,500 miles and will be above 120,000 by the end of the month. Due to the fear of missing the low award availability that currently exists around the exact time of our honeymoon, I am hoping to book the award travel sooner rather than later.
With that said, I would like some advice from those with much more experience booking TATL award tickets. We wanted to fly into TXL or MUC and travel by train to AMS later in the trip, but it appears that with DL the best option for award travel would be to fly direct DTW-AMS. On the award calendar on Delta.dumb it continues to offer 60,000 miles plus fees for a round-trip ticket DTW-AMS.
My questions are:
1) Is this the best deal available from Delta.dumb? [I am not doing an initial OW search for a multi-city as the OP suggests because the Delta.dumb makes the multiple legs like 77,500-95,000 miles]
1a) During the honeymoon we hope to see AMS, TXL or MUC, PRG, VIE, and ZRH or BRN. Would any of these other cities provide a better shot?
1b) If not on DL, would any of those cities in 1a) provide a better shot through a codeshare? CLT is a possible origin and I know there is a daily A346 that does CLT-MUC, for example, that we wouldn't mind doing if it leads to a better deal.
1c) If somehow a layover was needed my fiance has said she wouldn't mind a long, long layover at LHR for a rapid sightseeing day in London - doubt this would work in any redemption scenario.
2) With the FO and Gold AmEx benes, what would the free checked luggage limit be for TATL?
3) Is it possible on a TATL award ticket to use the FO and UG the difference between Economy and EC and get the 25% that comes with FO? I.e., it would be really great if I could get us EC for essentially 75% of the difference between Economy and EC.
4) I don't think it would work cost wise to buy a BE award ticket with my miles then purchase a BE ticket with cash and link the PNRs later. But, what would the cost generally be for DTW-AMS BE?
Dates in mind are:
8/12-8/28 or 8/12-9/3
Sorry for the long post and thanks for any help. I usually lurk for all the info I need for my domestic travel, but this is a whole different ball game.
Jan 3, 2013, 4:44 pm
#1548
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: JFK/LGA/EWR
Posts: 1,296
60k is the best you will get for a RT in economy. What you can do is add some intra European legs since any availability will also be in low since they are partner flights (out of ams they will be KLM). You can add a stopover and an open jaw. It won't cost more in miles but the fees might change slightly (more than slightly if you return from LHR).
For example, you can do DTW-AMS// stopover // AMS-city1// open jaw // city2-DTW
You can travel Europe by train between city1 and city2 and any routing should work. Of course if you can't find low between city2 and DTW then just return to AMS since low is available.
For example, you can do DTW-AMS// stopover // AMS-city1// open jaw // city2-DTW
You can travel Europe by train between city1 and city2 and any routing should work. Of course if you can't find low between city2 and DTW then just return to AMS since low is available.
Last edited by sbjnyc; Jan 3, 2013 at 4:49 pm
Jan 3, 2013, 5:38 pm
#1549
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: TYS, CLT, ORF
Programs: DL FO, DL AmEx Gold
Posts: 6
60k is the best you will get for a RT in economy. What you can do is add some intra European legs since any availability will also be in low since they are partner flights (out of ams they will be KLM). You can add a stopover and an open jaw. It won't cost more in miles but the fees might change slightly (more than slightly if you return from LHR).
For example, you can do DTW-AMS// stopover // AMS-city1// open jaw // city2-DTW
You can travel Europe by train between city1 and city2 and any routing should work. Of course if you can't find low between city2 and DTW then just return to AMS since low is available.
For example, you can do DTW-AMS// stopover // AMS-city1// open jaw // city2-DTW
You can travel Europe by train between city1 and city2 and any routing should work. Of course if you can't find low between city2 and DTW then just return to AMS since low is available.
ETA: Just found a great way to do ATL-STR then AMS-ATL for 60k but started over and retried again and now the lowest is 77.5k. UGH.
Last edited by FleetwoodMacPenguin; Jan 3, 2013 at 5:55 pm Reason: Delta.dumb
Jan 3, 2013, 9:13 pm
#1550
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,762
Trouble is, KL has been very unreliable in releasing its seats. Even DL site shows availability, and agent sees availability, too often the request of seats is being denied. There is no known reason on why. Just that KL seems to deny DL access to available seats even DL system does show such availability.
May I suggest you to get a good idea on DL's route map so you can do City Pair search more effectively? There is really no substitute for doing a painstakingly city pair search to find seats especially you have multiple options.
Another point to bear in mind is, to use partner for intra-Europe flights you would need to use the hubs, such as AMS, CDG, FCO, in order to fly between European cities.
Use AMS as your stopover and then onto City 1, do an Open Jaw on your return from City 2 as someone suggested above might be your best bet.
You can always put an award on hold when you find one that is possible solution. So you would at least have something in place while you keep searching for better solutions.
Jan 4, 2013, 1:10 am
#1551
FlyerTalk Evangelist & Ambassador: China
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: DEN
Programs: DL DM/MM, UA 1K, AA Exp, HH Dia, WOH Glob, IHG Plat, Marriott Gold, NA EE, Hertz PC
Posts: 17,423
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...er-thread.html
Jan 4, 2013, 12:51 pm
#1552
Join Date: Dec 2011
Programs: Delta Skymiles, Hilton HHonors
Posts: 9
PDX - SYD Nov/Dec '13 Business Class for 3
My family (including a 3 y/o daughter) would like to take a cruise from Sydney and we have identified 3 possible departure dates ranging from early November to early December. We would like to travel in business class.
We are now in range to book for the first of the departure options and the outbound leg of the second option. It is not looking good. I can only find at most one available seat at the low mileage level for business class on any date in November. I think we can book my husband's ticket separately to get the low mileage level, but my daughter and I will have to book our tickets together since she is a minor. The next lowest I can find is 260K per ticket, and we don't have enough miles to get two tickets at this level. We can pay this much for one ticket at most.
I actually would welcome a stopover in Hawaii but I called and had the agent check on those seats, and not a single one was available on Hawaiian Air.
Are there any other tricks I can try? Is there any chance Delta would ever release two or more business class seats at the low mileage level at the same time?
We are now in range to book for the first of the departure options and the outbound leg of the second option. It is not looking good. I can only find at most one available seat at the low mileage level for business class on any date in November. I think we can book my husband's ticket separately to get the low mileage level, but my daughter and I will have to book our tickets together since she is a minor. The next lowest I can find is 260K per ticket, and we don't have enough miles to get two tickets at this level. We can pay this much for one ticket at most.
I actually would welcome a stopover in Hawaii but I called and had the agent check on those seats, and not a single one was available on Hawaiian Air.
Are there any other tricks I can try? Is there any chance Delta would ever release two or more business class seats at the low mileage level at the same time?
Jan 4, 2013, 12:56 pm
#1553
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Melbourne, Florida, USA
Posts: 2,983
My family (including a 3 y/o daughter) would like to take a cruise from Sydney and we have identified 3 possible departure dates ranging from early November to early December. We would like to travel in business class.
We are now in range to book for the first of the departure options and the outbound leg of the second option. It is not looking good. I can only find at most one available seat at the low mileage level for business class on any date in November. I think we can book my husband's ticket separately to get the low mileage level, but my daughter and I will have to book our tickets together since she is a minor. The next lowest I can find is 260K per ticket, and we don't have enough miles to get two tickets at this level. We can pay this much for one ticket at most.
I actually would welcome a stopover in Hawaii but I called and had the agent check on those seats, and not a single one was available on Hawaiian Air.
Are there any other tricks I can try? Is there any chance Delta would ever release two or more business class seats at the low mileage level at the same time?
We are now in range to book for the first of the departure options and the outbound leg of the second option. It is not looking good. I can only find at most one available seat at the low mileage level for business class on any date in November. I think we can book my husband's ticket separately to get the low mileage level, but my daughter and I will have to book our tickets together since she is a minor. The next lowest I can find is 260K per ticket, and we don't have enough miles to get two tickets at this level. We can pay this much for one ticket at most.
I actually would welcome a stopover in Hawaii but I called and had the agent check on those seats, and not a single one was available on Hawaiian Air.
Are there any other tricks I can try? Is there any chance Delta would ever release two or more business class seats at the low mileage level at the same time?
Jan 4, 2013, 1:23 pm
#1554
Join Date: Dec 2011
Programs: Delta Skymiles, Hilton HHonors
Posts: 9
Brilliant! Yes, when I took PDX out of it, it showed me itineraries with extra stops in BNE or MEL. I guess it defaults to not showing them. And there are 3 tickets available for 150K miles right around our cruise dates. TY!! ^
Jan 4, 2013, 2:02 pm
#1555
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Melbourne, Florida, USA
Posts: 2,983
I forgot to mention that, since you are searching for partner award space, you should search by schedule and not by price. But it seems you already got it. Glad I was able to help.
Jan 4, 2013, 2:53 pm
#1556
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: San Jose, CA
Programs: DL DM, HH Gold, SPG Gold, Hyatt Plat
Posts: 2,874
Also make sure to search PDX-LAX in economy, since you can mix and match cabins. It would still price as if you were in F, but it's not a long flight and might be the best option if that's what is available. You can also look into splitting up the reservation if there are only 1-2 seats available in F/Y. So you could book yourself and child in Y, and then a separate booking with the spouse in F.
Also note that on international itineraries, you can have a layover for up to 24 hours. So you could potentially fly PDX-LAX and then stay overnight in LAX before flying out the next day.
Jan 4, 2013, 3:36 pm
#1557
Join Date: Dec 2011
Programs: Delta Skymiles, Hilton HHonors
Posts: 9
This the key, and the point of the original post #1 in this thread. It's important to search segment by segment, and not by origin-destination. If one leg is pricing at medium (i.e. PDX-LAX), it will cause the entire direction to price at medium, even though LAX-SYD is at low. You usually want to start out looking for the TATL, or in your case the TPAC segment to find dates that are in low, then go back and search for the domestic segment(s) on the available dates to see if you can find those in low. But since LAX-SYD has such good availability currently, I would start out searching for one-way PDX-LAX flights, looking for one way prices at 25k miles. Then on the dates where you can get PDX-LAX in low, see if you can get LAX-SYD in low. You can manually piece it together by searching multi-city and choosing the flights that you already know are low level.
Also make sure to search PDX-LAX in economy, since you can mix and match cabins. It would still price as if you were in F, but it's not a long flight and might be the best option if that's what is available. You can also look into splitting up the reservation if there are only 1-2 seats available in F/Y. So you could book yourself and child in Y, and then a separate booking with the spouse in F.
Also note that on international itineraries, you can have a layover for up to 24 hours. So you could potentially fly PDX-LAX and then stay overnight in LAX before flying out the next day.
Also make sure to search PDX-LAX in economy, since you can mix and match cabins. It would still price as if you were in F, but it's not a long flight and might be the best option if that's what is available. You can also look into splitting up the reservation if there are only 1-2 seats available in F/Y. So you could book yourself and child in Y, and then a separate booking with the spouse in F.
Also note that on international itineraries, you can have a layover for up to 24 hours. So you could potentially fly PDX-LAX and then stay overnight in LAX before flying out the next day.
Jan 4, 2013, 3:50 pm
#1558
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: San Jose, CA
Programs: DL DM, HH Gold, SPG Gold, Hyatt Plat
Posts: 2,874
Sometimes DL will "accidentally" leave out partner options that would price at low. Search the outbound as a multi-city. Plug in PDX-LAX for 11/20/13, and then LAX-SYD for 11/20/13, choose to do it by schedule and check non-stop only. You should see all available options there (when searching by schedule), and piecing it together will give a 150k one way which indicates that it is low.
I'm not sure what flights you are looking at, as I did a search on that date and see a PDX-LAX flight getting into LAX at 7:19 on AS562. And if you are looking at the VA flight going through BNE, you should build that into the multi-city one way search. Or you can uncheck the non-stop only option.
Ultimately you can build a round trip multi-city this way, even though you aren't really doing a multi-city.. If it errors out when you try to add the return, you can just do the outbound, put it on hold, then call DL to have them add the return (and they won't charge a phone fee).
I'm not sure what flights you are looking at, as I did a search on that date and see a PDX-LAX flight getting into LAX at 7:19 on AS562. And if you are looking at the VA flight going through BNE, you should build that into the multi-city one way search. Or you can uncheck the non-stop only option.
Ultimately you can build a round trip multi-city this way, even though you aren't really doing a multi-city.. If it errors out when you try to add the return, you can just do the outbound, put it on hold, then call DL to have them add the return (and they won't charge a phone fee).
Jan 4, 2013, 4:38 pm
#1559
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: SAN
Programs: DL SM, Marriot PLT, Tall guy in need of legroom
Posts: 1,478
Since you have looked at DL award chart, you do realize that DL is a Round Trip system, right?
Because it is a round trip system, you pay the same whether it is a round trip or a one-way. ONLY a one-way system program would have one-way being 1/2 of a round trip... Or rather, a round trip is priced as 2 One-Ways.
What you are looking at, 100K means there is low-level award on that particular city pair. So you write down the details of the flights that show the 100K. Once you find both the outbound and inbound low level availabilities, you use multi-city search and then pick the SPECIFIC flights that show you the low-level award when you did the city pair search before. Picking the correct flight is vital, as when doing multi-city search, the website would NOT give you any miles required info.
Once you picked the correct flights, when you are done, the whole trip would be priced correctly with the 100K.
Because it is a round trip system, you pay the same whether it is a round trip or a one-way. ONLY a one-way system program would have one-way being 1/2 of a round trip... Or rather, a round trip is priced as 2 One-Ways.
What you are looking at, 100K means there is low-level award on that particular city pair. So you write down the details of the flights that show the 100K. Once you find both the outbound and inbound low level availabilities, you use multi-city search and then pick the SPECIFIC flights that show you the low-level award when you did the city pair search before. Picking the correct flight is vital, as when doing multi-city search, the website would NOT give you any miles required info.
Once you picked the correct flights, when you are done, the whole trip would be priced correctly with the 100K.
Bingo --I am so used to United, that I didn't realize that! Ok, so I am actually pretty stoked that I was able to locate a few 100,000 mile across the pond options in June 2013. I'm trying to go to/from ATH or anywhere close, so I would think an AMS/CDG-ATH award in business should be a bit easier. Heck, I'd be fine to fly that leg in coach even.
Time to start digging around some more then!
Jan 4, 2013, 6:58 pm
#1560
Suspended
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Bay Area
Programs: DL SM, UA MP.
Posts: 12,729
Has the situation for BE awards on AF/KLM TATL flights improved?
Has whatever impasse there might have been between DL and AF/KLM been resolved?
There's been speculation on FT forums but I couldn't find anything anywhere else, not even bloggers talking about the disappearing availability of ST partner awards for TATL on AFKLM.
Has whatever impasse there might have been between DL and AF/KLM been resolved?
There's been speculation on FT forums but I couldn't find anything anywhere else, not even bloggers talking about the disappearing availability of ST partner awards for TATL on AFKLM.