Phlebas

Well isn't searching expertflyer for AF "O" availability still an incredibly useful tool? I mean, ok, sometimes you will find AF O inventory on EF, and then find that Delta.com does not see it. But aren't the odds still quite good?

Also, if O inventory does not show on EF, I'll bet that continues to be a guarantee that Delta can't book it. If EF can't see it, certainly DL can't.

In other words, since this change, keep finding your O inventory on EF first. But now, instead of the flights being available on Delta.com 100% of the time, it will only be some lower percentage of the time.

What would people guess that percentage will be? Anything higher than 50% and I'd still say EF is a wonderful tool for locating bookable AF flights using DL miles!

GrizShel

I've spent many hours trying to get this segment by segment search to work to build trips and I can't do it (would appreciate help). An award trip that use to take me a few minutes every few days for a few weeks to get in ideal form now takes me hours and hours over months and I still can't get even a domestic US RT reserved for next summer. I finally got a BWI-JAC one-way on hold and now am trying to add on the return segments. I've done this a hundred times and every single time I get messages like "One or more of your flights sold-out" (baloney!) when I try to add on the return trip or part of the return trip.

WAKE UP DELTA!!! Your customers that value Award Travel are being driven away from flying Delta!

Additional problems: You seem to have first taken away KLM flight availability results online and now more recently, as far as I can tell, have also removed Air France flights (even on routes that can be booked 100% on Air France.)

I"m deliberately not going to requalify as even a Gold for next year until I see an improvement in the ease of booking awards for a reasonable amount of Skymiles and using a reasonable amount of my time.

SkymilesInsider, when are we going to see an award program and search functionality at least half as good as you had for us with WorldPerks??

S_D_P

If there is anyone out there who might be able to help:

I need a business return from FCO to any US city on any date in July or August 2011. (outbound, I have ORD-FCO on AZ). Outbound is 100K. Delta agent tells me that there is no availability for return on any day, at any time. Is that possible?

Thanks in advance for any help ;-)

Moz

I think I am being dense. When I search for awards on dl.com it only gives me bus/econ drop down. When i look under economy it doesnt tell me what the class of travel is (J,Y etc). I am trying to book BE for ATL-LHR in December. Any tips? Its coming up as 200k miles currently.

AHO

I have same issue.

When I search ARN-AMS on Delta.com, it shows very weird routing such as ARN-ATL-AMS.
When I search CDG - BKK, it shows CDG-MSP-SEA-BKK.

pbd456

when i search hkg - ams, it shows hkg nrt dtw ams. it is beyond strange.

jonecasey

This does not seem to work for me, I don't get any first/business options when searching for coach. am i doing something wrong?

TravellingMan

Wow. I cannot find business class KLM/AF award flights on Delta site anymore. I reckon I got lucky in the Delta SkyPesos roulette. What a relief to have used up the last few 100k miles.

wco81

They were available last year but not this year. Is AF leaving ST or what?

jtrue28

You may or may not need help now, but FCO to ORD on 8/2/11 has multiple flight combinations for 50K, to add to your outbound leg. (This was done with only 1 BE seat)

If you have exact dates that you are wanting and number of seats, let me know and I'll search for you.

Deltspygt

AF J seats are out there.

I just ticketed JFK-CDG-DXB rt in J on AF in December.

I found O inventory using KVS and then did a multi-segment search, by schedule, on dl.com.

This was the only way that I could get the AF flights to come up.

Once I had all my flights, and clicked to ticket the itinerary, an "error" message will pop up. It will give you your PNR, tell you that your flights are on hold, and that you have to call DL within 4 hours.

Considering all the usual award ticket difficulties on dl.com, this was pretty seamless.

gottaluvNW

I need tickets between AMS (or CDG) and DEL for any day in December in business class, returning in mid January. AF and KLM show availability in the lowest mileage bracket on most dates. DL insists there is nothing available.

What can I do to ensure that DL "sees" availability on the partners?

GrizShel

But even if I search segment by segment on delta.com I still can't get the AF or KL flights to show up. E.g., IAD-CDG one-way returns only Delta flights.

Another "improvement" delta has made in their award booking search tool this year.

wco81

Even last year, AF awards would often show up as the lowest mileage option on dl.com. The DL flights were often mid or high awards.

The disappearance of AF awards may explain why low-mileage TATL BE awards have largely disappeared.

GrizShel

Thanks to Deltspygt's post #176 above, I finally figured out the missing link in my protracted quest to get a decently priced international award ticket.

I am somewhat hesitant to post the details because I'm not certain whether Delta is deliberately now moving to further reduce the level of customers booking award tickets on their partners (I've found international awards on Delta metal so sparse at the standard mileage levels that I consider it now highly unllikely I'll ever find anything decent that works for me, so I've had to focus more on all-partner metal award tickets). So if you think I should delete this PM me and tell me why.

1. The segment by segment search no longer works for partner airlines such as AF. The system is programmed to strongly preference display of Delta metal only now, so you'll almost never see AF or KL flights. Search for a segment which a partner flies nonstop and you'll never get anything other than 1 or more stop flights on Delta metal to show up.
2. Ditto for one[-way and roundtrip flight searches for the most part.
3. However, if you put in every single segment individually in MULTI-CITI search mode only and happen to select flights for which partner basic award are being offered, you will then magically see a low-tier mileage award ticket price out (this is why Deltspygt first used ExpertFlyer to in their case find out which flights had Air France O class award availability, so far I haven't seen Delta blocking any of this type of AF award seat). These flights WILL NOT show up and price out by any other way than the multi-citi search right now.
4. As Deltspygt notes, currently you'll then have to call to complete booking on the partner airline.
5. l would recommend spending the time to book any big trips now. Even though SkymilesInsider has indicated Delta is working hard to clean up the award booking mess, he's not indicated whether this will involve improving low-tier mileage availability or getting rid of the insane mileage requirement multiplications that occur on many itineraries (After a year of experience with using the 3-Tier / actually multiple tier Delta system this FF does not want to have anything to do with such an award system anymore.) IME, the trend on award availability continues to deteriorate, with no end in sight as of yet.