ExpertFlyer Voice

If someone could email us a specific example showing the differences in availability between AF.us/.fr and what they see in EF then we can do some research into the matter, thanks.

3Cforme

You may not be describing the same thing. Flying Blue has recently expanded segmentation of award inventory. The AF classes 'for elites', L economy and C business, are not available for SkyMiles redemption. We're still stuck with X economy and O business. If you can find X or O inventory that DL claims they can't see (and you can't book online when searching by schedule), then maybe you have uncovered another point of sale problem.

3Cforme

There you go guys - saddle up. Duke2013, mnredfox, trupper999 - you have all recently posted about AF/KL award inventory Delta reps say they can't find. Please come back and cite:

date
carrier
flight number
class of service
on what site you found award inventory
number of passengers

Maybe ExpertFlyer can investigate specific circumstances and offer an explanation, leading to more effective award searches and redemptions.

roknroll

What about trying to find an intra-Europe segment for IST-MAD? I'm assuming you are going to IST, and MAD is not meant to be a destination, just a departure point. If you don't mind connecting, it shouldn't be too hard to find a seat on UX, AZ, AF, or KL and then keep your same flight home MAD-JFK. Often the intra-Europe awards are only available in business, which would cause the entire one way portion of the award to price in business. If you are already in business, then no big deal and you can book either econ or bus.

In that case, you could do have LAS-JFK-IST(destination)-XXX-MAD-JFK. Similarly you could keep an eye out for a CDG-JFK or AMS-JFK and probably get a direct flight from IST to the European departure city

broncob

You are correct, the award inventory I was looking at was C (for FB elites only). No O inventory was showing on the flights I checked (no A-premium Econ is showing either). Does anyone know if AF is hard and fast with the C inventory? Do they let those seat go to O closer to departure date?

3Cforme

Set up an ExpertFlyer flight alert and see if it flips to O.

Is there coach inventory on the segment you need, such that you could take a voluntary downgrade and ticket now, then claim the segment in Business?

broncob

3Cforme, that is what I have done. I was able to ticket an award in coach and have an EF seat alert for business. The Biz Class inventory on AF is tight, so I set some alerts for TN as well and for both airlines over several days in either direction of my ideal departure date. I have not flown with either airline (on an award) so I just don't know how they handle award inventory (ie-do they release seats closer to the date).

mnredfox

I will do so next time. I was seeing AF1906 CDG-DUS showing both X and O availability, but AF.us was not showing as available. This was a few days ago, but next time I'll PM you.

ABG

Can someone explain this to me

AF 347 P6 F6 J9 C9 D9 I9 Z9 O9W9 S9+YULCDG1955 0835
AF 349 J9 C9 D9 I9 Z9 O9 W9 S9 A9 Y9+YULCDG2300 1135

Delta.com and the call center says nothing available

roknroll

Does airfrance.us show it available for 50k miles at low level?

MilesTalk

I'm actually flying into IST and plan to wind up in ATH. I'd then fly ATH-MAD and spend a few days there before heading home.

I can't originate in LAS as it's in January that I need LAS-JFK to complete an outbound I added to a prior European trip . IST is next month.

And I also don't think any SkyTeam carriers go direct ATH-MAD (not worth the time to connect) so I'm thinking just keeping it as is has to be the plan...

Thanks for the options though - all good ideas.

worldex

I am looking for award tickets next April-May (need to be in Florence on April 30), and I am fine landing elsewhere in Europe making my way to Italy. What are the most economic BE flights into Europe on Delta? I now Zurick, Paris, Frankfurt are destinations, but I am not sure if any are great deals versus the difficult fares into Rome.

I am happy to drive or travel by train to get to Italy and can be there several days before April 30 to make it.


On a side note, if you book award tickets, can you have an infant in arms? Will Delta charge the standard 10% based on the ticket price at that time?

roknroll

Do you only want to be on DL metal? What about on AF (Air France), KL (KLM), or AZ (Alitalia)? Where are you flying from? You shouldn't have any issue finding a flight that gets you in to FLR, either with 1 or 2 layovers. DL tends to have decent availability to LHR and BRU, however you're probably going to end up with a layover en route to FLR from your European landing point. AF will obviously go to CDG, KL to AMS, and AZ to FCO then all 3 would have non-stops onward to FLR.

As to what the most economical flight into Europe is... it doesn't really matter on awards as you shouldn't have any issue finding multiple routings for 100k skymiles with fees being the same across the board. Best chances of getting good routing and dates is on a partner airline such as AF or KL.

You'll pay 10% of the fare for the infant in arms. After taxes/fees, our infant in arms for a BE seat on AF to BCN (using DL miles) was about $450 I think.

If you want to spend some time visiting Europe remember you can have both a stopover and an open jaw on your trip. If you are willing to drive around, as you mentioned, you might get a lot of mileage out of planning those into the trip.

SDQBound

Trying to book SDQ-CDG on AF, ORY-MAD-SDQ on UX. EF shows Z availability for the UX flights, airfrance.us also shows Classic Business Award availability, yet, a DL Agent and a supervisor cannot see it.

worldex

Thanks, Roknroll. I am out of ATL, which might be part of the problem. It seems to me that ATL based flyers pay a mystery premium for booking award tickets. I do plan to do an open jaw, and that is why I was interested in the cities that do not get slammed with award tickets like Rome. I have looked for tickets the week before and after April 30, shifting a few days in each direction and have not gotten below 150k other than into Madrid (which I love, but might be too far from Florence this trip). Several of the flights into Germany and Italy are 150-200 AND it does not appear to have lie-flat beds. It may be BE, but the old seats up front on Delta are not that comfortable, and adding a child in will not make it better.

In particular, the AF flights seem to be the most expensive. The awards calendar showed a low priced award for both dates, and when I selected it, it came back at 200k. I re-entered it twice to makes sure (I think this falls under the Terms and Conditions that allow charges for miles above those described in the awards chart.)