VandyBDL

This is quite optimistic. Usually the DL agents can't do anything on the phone. Called today to book 2 additional seats on an Alitalia award itin I had already booked, and the agent told me they hadn't released award inventory, when I told him I had already booked 2 seats, he hung up (I was on a land line...no chance the call was lost). Bad award calender, bad agents...I hate United, but every time I want to go somewhere Star Alliance seems to have the low level inventory I want, DL needs to step it up, it's been way too bad for far too long.

sharri42

I don't know how to follow the instructions given. The opening statement by Denoloyd, "Search for USA - AMS / CDG ONE WAY in Y by Mileage" doesn't work for me. When I go to to Book A Flight and put in that I want to book a Skymiles ticket, the option to choose fare class disappears. What am I doing wrong.

trek87

That portion of the instructions is recommending that you search for awards in economy (coach), which is a cabin often referred to as the "Y" cabin on this forum. Your choices for cabin in award searches are "First/Business" and "Economy."

cotter77

after reading the OP, I am not understanding how these instructions help with searches at all. am I missing something. on the website, itineraries come up either coach or first/biz searches, and one can refer to the calendar to adj dates to low or high mile award fares. how would one find other fare/itineraries not listed using the OP instructions?

BTW, it is absurd that DL has the audacity to show itineraries with 22 hr layovers in ATL.....how does one get around that?

wco81

I know, some of the routings are well over 30 hours for TATL trips.

If what they display are only the optimal routes, I'd hate to see the unoptimal ones.

beofotch

Hello Team,

After reading this thread, and a couple other relevant threads, I have a high-level vision of a DL Award Ticket I would like to boo in the near future for Summer/Fall 2011 travel. Here is the vision:
With this in mind, I would like to reach out to the Delta Mavens to toss out some ideas of exciting and insightful routing suggestions to include the elements of my vision with excellent business class product, fun secondary trip, and good use of 240,000 miles.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some of my current thoughts (assuming i can find the inventory):

• CLT - ATL - DXB // 23 hour connection // DXB - BOM/DEL // stopover // BOM/DEL - PVG // destination // PVG/HKG/PEK - ICN/NRT/DTW/SEA - ATL - CLT
• CLT - DTW - PVG // Destination // PVG/PEK/HKG - KUL // Stopover // KUL/SIN - NRT/ICN/DTW/SEA - ATL - CLT
• CLT - DTW - PVG - URC // Destination // URC - PVG // Stopover // PVG/HKG/PEK - ICN/NRT/SEA/DTW - ATL - CLT

Anyone care to share some ideas? @:-)

kb1992

I have a tough time to find one saver J award to China.

You want 2? Forget about it....

KyRoamer

Delta and partners your only choice? We used Delta to get to the west coast and then bought low cost C seats from there. We could have gone for around $3,000 from LAS or SFO but were not familiar with the airlines. For $200 more Air canada had a $3,200 flight from LAX or SFO via Vancouver. If originating in Vancouver the cost was over $2,000 more!!!!

Recently we have had great success using aeroplan (AMEX points). Delta always seems to have inventory at 350,000 miles and sometimes at as little as 200,000. If you just have 240,000 miles you may have to combine one free ticket and one paid. If so, give the gf the free ticket so that you earn miles with the paid.

Good luck.

luv2ctheworld

I hate to burst your bubble, but with DL miles, it will be tougher than nails getting a biz class seat, much less two, particularly when partner airlines are involved since you absolutely have no way of knowing except calling in. The KVS/Expertflyer tools and airline websites will not reflect DL's access to the award inventory for the partner airlines.

I would highly recommend a less complex itinerary to begin with first. If I am reading it correctly, you will be doing either a combo of 24 hour layovers and stopovers, with DL and partner metal.

It's not impossible, assuming you are within the guidelines (i.e. no round the world itinerary like your first example). Your bigger issue will be trying to play match up between DL and partner flights within the timeframe/dates you need.

Another thing I'd recommend is to figure out which cities you can transfer from on partner airlines that are their main routes (i.e. CI=TPE, MU=KUL MH=PVG). Trying to get to those cities on DL seem harder because you have to connect via NRT and still have availability to those cities.

I was once successful in getting LAX-NRT(stopover)-ICN(layover)-SGN(open jaw)/HKG-NRT-LAX... for 120K miles... back when NWA was around. I couldn't replicate that routing for my life on DL without seeing 200K+.

beofotch

Okay Everyone - thanks for your responses. Here is where I am at as of 4:30PM EST Today.

I just spent 1.5 hours on the phone with Delta and pieced out everything in "low" - however it is coming up as 160,000 miles instead of 120,000 because shanghai is not a "natural" stopover on this routing but we definitely want to stop in Shanghai for the main part of the trip. I need to get this down to 120,000 AND include Shanghai.
The agent said that I am close - but because of the way the routing from LGK - CLT (PVG) is showing up as a 3rd one way and not a stopover which is increasing the mileage. If only Delta had available their PVG - DTW the computer would allow it for 120,000 as it would be LGK - KUL - PVG (stop) - DTW - CLT.

Does anyone have any insight on what else to look at? We looked at KE but they are blacked out Sept 10 - Sept 14 and on Sept 9 they have nothing.

Best regards,

Beofotch

beofotch

Update 2


Aug 27
CLT - MSP - LAX - TPE - KUL - LGK (Destination) on Delta and Malaysian

Sept 2
LGK - KUL - PVG (Stopover) on Malaysian (with an overnight in KUL)

Sept 9
PVG - JFK - ATL - CLT on China Eastern and Delta (JFK - CLT in coach; overnight in JFK).

Just got off another 1 hour call with Delta and was able to finalize it for 120,000 each!!! However, taxes and fees are $528 PER PERSON!!!. The agent said that $438 of it was a YQ Fuel Surcharge from one of the airlines, but she wasn't sure which one! I still have until midnight tonight to ticket this - but can anyone think of a way to avoid this fuel surcharge? I suspect it is China Eastern on the PVG - JFK. Anyone have any insight? Could I maybe route PVG - SVO - JFK or PVG - CDG - JFK and possibly avoid a fuel surcharge (and ride on the A380)?

TravellingMan

Surcharge is from Malaysian

luv2ctheworld

Nice job getting bounced around for 120K. You're desire to go via SVO is not possible because you'd be going round the world.

From what I understand, routes to Asia from US will be via the Pacific; so I don't think you'd be able to route via Europe/Russia in the first place.

That fuel surcharge does sting a bit... not sure if you can avoid it if it's on MH and that's the only way for you to get there. I think CI flies to KUL from TPE, but I think there's some silly restriction about CI routing (I don't recall whether it's an issue or not). If CI is possible, perhaps the surcharge can be lowered if the MH leg is just from KUL to LGK; or get to KUL via CI and buy a ticket from KUL to LGK. They are fairly cheap, like $100 rt per skyscanner.

For PVG, is MU possible from KUL to PVG?

beofotch

Update 3


Aug 27
CLT - MSP - LAX - TPE - KUL (Destination) on Delta and Malaysian

Sept 2
KUL - PVG (Stopover) on Malaysian (with an overnight in KUL)

Sept 9
PVG - JFK - ATL - CLT on China Eastern and Delta (JFK - ATL in coach; overnight in JFK).

They would not let me fly all the way to LGK without charging me for 2 awards because they said LGK was not a "Published Delta Destination" and consequently I would have to start a 2nd award for 40,000 in J if I wanted LGK as a final destination. This got escalated to many agents and even customer service but they wouldn't budge. So finally I was able to score the above itinerary. I will work out LGK (or any other destination) in another ticket. Total taxes down to $436.40.

Fare Details: CLT DL X/MSP DL X/LAX MH KUL M0.00CSM600/FT240 MH SHA MU X/NYC
DL X/ATL DL CLT M0.00CSM600/FT240 NUC0.00END ROE0

the scribbler

Not sure if this is in the thread already, but noticed this morning that AF flights US-CDG only show up as options if both parts of a round trip are available in the low catagory (100K).

In other words, searching JFK-FCO-JFK would hide available AF flights if both directions were not available in low. In other words, assuming that AF was available FCO-CDG-JFK, but not JFK-CDG-FCO, then FCO-CDG-JFK will not turn up as an option and instead you will get 200K+ options on DL metal when in reality one leg is available at 50K.