Denolloyd

Curious if anyone has had any success booking KE US-ICN-MEL. I'm pondering a trip to MEL during the late fall / winter, and would like to route via ICN if possible.

Thanks

CatJo

New to the game and have spent a lot of time reading/searching. Trying to book my first award ticket for a trip for 3 from BDL-SFO/SJC (or JFK/EWR/LGA, even BOS) and having no luck finding low tier space. Dates are somewhat flexible, leaving ~ Aug 16 and back ~ Aug 21 (give/take 2 days either way, ideally want to spend 3-4 nights there).

I came across Delta's BusinessElite service on the JFK-SFO non-stop and thought that would be a cool option too.

I'm finding nothing using Delta.com or ExpertFlyer (though the latter doesn't show coach Award availability). Any tips or guidance would be appreciated, please help a newbie find his way!

Thanks.

mtkeller

I've redeemed for KE on ICN-MEL, but I'm doing LHR-ICN as my initial segment. I'd guess if you can find the TPAC segment, you'll be good to go. Note that ICN-MEL is not daily and is on an A330 with the Prestige Plus angled-lie flat seats and not the Prestige Sleeper full flat bed seats.

kuhlguy

Relatively new to this site.

Anyway quick question. I've been looking at LAX-MUC for sometime and anyway was going to buy today leaving Dec 2 returning the 12th. It was priced at 100,000 in first. Then when I went to buy it went up to 150,000 miles. I have the miles, just really don't want to spend that much. Is there any chance of a med priced award ticket going down? Or once they go yellow will they not go back down to low price?

Sorry for the newb question. Any help would be apprecaited.

mtkeller

It definitely happens, particularly with DL flights. If you're PM or DM, you can get it repriced at 100K if it drops. If not, it will cost you $150 to get the 50K back. I'd say it's probably worth it to keep an eye on things dropping. Of course, no guarantee it will happen, but it's definitely not outside the realm of possibility.

kuhlguy

Thanks for the reply. Just a GM here so I guess I wouldn't be able to get the miles back for free if it did drop.

So the general advice would be to wait to see if it drops?

I've been looking thru this thread for tips on how to get the lowest but it's a huge thread ... any tips on what pages to focus on this thread?

wco81

At least flying out of SFO, it doesn't seem like there are 100k BE TATL awards on any DL metal.

If you get it at all, it involves AF flights, code-shared as DL flights but really AF metal.

All the DL flights, which usually involves a connection at JFK or ATL from the West Coast, are ridiculously expensive awards.

Even though the AF flights are better.

dpspindler

I've been PM for about a year and through a few trips to Asia I now have >400,000 miles and THEORETICALLY enough miles to take the family to Europe BE. That is until I started looking on the reservations page. I'm finding that I can find a ticket to certain European destinations for 150,000-200,00/each but nothing for the 100,000 listed on the Delta.com website.

So my question is, are there any destinations in Europe that cost somewhat lower than CDG, FRA, AMS etc.? We really don't care where we go so that's not a big deal. Once we get to Europe, we can see a lot within 300-500 miles of driving. I'm trying to get the most bang for the buck and btw, I tried to methodology from the OP which is almost 2 years old. It is not possible to look up an economy class award ticket and then look up some subset of BE within those choices.

Unless I'm just a total dunce and can't understand what's in front of me, that's a non-starter now apparently. Also, called the Delta.com help desk which apparently is in a Tiki hut in New Guinea communicating via telegraph I was disonnected twice mid sentence and they were no help (no kidding huh?) I finally asked for a supervisor on my third call and she actually gave some decent advice about using the website.

Anyway, could use some advice on the aforementioned. All responses appreciated.

jspira

I just booked a business-class trip for early August (this was 2 weeks ago) flying JFK AMS and then continuing to STR. My return is BRE to AMS. Outbound flight is KLM; return TATL is Delta.

Total cost: 100.000 Miles.

What destinations did you try to book?

dpspindler

I looked at several, FRA, AMS, ZUR, BRU...didn't see anything for June '12 for less than 150,000 miles RT.

jspira

I guess I could never make plans that far in advance so my short term experience might not really be helpful.

mtkeller

330 days out is not working very well. To get to Europe, you might have better luck searching using the Flying Blue engine. Search for pretty much any of my posts that contain "airfrance.us", as I'm not in the mood for typing out the instructions again.

ademarco

Here is a suggestion to find some decent routes. I would search one ways for low tier and then piece them together for a multi-city.

Here is something I have on hold for 105k + $220.10

5/15/12 DXB to FCO KLM O
5/22/12 FCO to CDG AF O
5/26/12 CDG to BCN AF O
5/30/12 BCN to AMS KLM O
6/5/12 AMS to DXB AF O

I never knew you could piece together the segments like this until I read these forums and am glad that I will be able to see the majority of the highlights of Europe while on 1 award ticket all in Biz. Good luck to everyone. I am still not sure if I should save the miles for a TATL award from Delta to NA or use the miles and move on.

mtkeller

It looks like that's pricing as DXB-FCO//AMS-DXB for 60K plus FCO-CDG(stop)-BCN-AMS for 45K. Since intra-European business class is really just coach with the middle seat blocked, you could save 20K miles (and maybe some taxes) if there's availability for a coach award on your FCO-CDG-BCN-AMS segments.

ademarco

I might have to try that. Booking this on kayak or orbitz came out to around $3k for just econ and around $5k for biz so that is around . 051 redemption, which is a lot better than the .028 that they sell miles for.

Thanks for the heads up regarding business class intra-european being a similar economy comfort/economy plus product.