travelblond

Hello.

I purchased a whole lot of miles these past few years and I noticed that what used to cost 120,000 miles for business class (Asia to America) or (Asia to EU) now is up to 240,000 miles even when both ways are in the green with LOW.

...? I tried all flights during 2010 and different destinations and what was 120,000 just a few weeks ago in 2009 is now 240,000 if you can find it OR in the 300,000 mileage requirement area.

Was I that stupid to purchase so many miles in 2009?

What is going on with Delta/NW that they would double miles as the award chart has shown no changes...

travelblond

Most of the time if I look at the 3 tier calender it shows green LOW but I still get the same message;
There are no flights available for the day requested. Click Start Over to try another day or to search for different cities.

This new system is not good

grahampros

Purchase as in buy the miles? that's rarely a smart move in the first place. Worst deal out there relative their value generally.

jiburi

As far as I know, there is no change in award pricing, however without specific details of your need, it's difficult to conclude that award requirement had indeed gone up. Availability changes and with current transition and integrations of systems (especially for travel beyond Sep 4, 2010), low level award availability seemed to have been placed to minimum until integration is complete.

There are many people on this site willing to help you find available seats or give guidance here so have your destinations and dates and others are more than willing to assist.

Jiburi

florin

For all we know, DL may have changed mileage requirements. The nice and honest thing to do would be to publish all the award charts, not just for tix that originate in the US. DL has decided to take the :-:best in class:-: approach though.

Have you tried calling though? Several people here have reported better results than what comes up on the website. Some partners, for example, are never listed in online searches.

DLItaly

+1 !!!

pbarnette

Aside from the general issues with the calendar, part of the problem is that the calendar does not display partner options, so it isn't of much use for Asia to EU, for example. I simply don't rely on the calendar and use ExpertFlyer (great for AF availability) and specific searches on DL.com to help piece together possible itineraries. I always book by phone.

jacobio

Call Delta Skymiles, they're actually really quite good at finding low availability. I recently booked award J travel to DUB over the phone--the calendar online was only showing mid/high.

As always, YMMV, but I'd definitely give Delta a call, the SM reps I've talked to have been extremely helpful in the past.

ND76

I've been looking for an RT BE seat to Japan from the DC area, which I understand from the DL website goes for 120,000 miles in the "low" category. However, on every date with "low" inventory available, the lowest number of miles is shown as 240,000.

a4or3s

Looked for award tickets last week MGM to MNL r/t for end of Aug, ret early Sept 2010. Found quite a few choices on nwa.com over the weekend at low availability (120K), including several itineraries with Business seats. Locked up vacation approval Monday morning (yay!), and started looking again, and not only did the number of choices go down, none of the Business seats were showing up. In addition, several itins (on one search, it was 6/7) required an overnight in either ATL or DTW before the TPAC leg. Looking at guaranteed C bookings, the lowest price I found was 277,500 miles!

I called SMS and the agent was legacy NW, and very helpful, but the best she could find for a C seat was 240K miles. The calendar shows low tier availability for outbound, medium on return. Hmmm... 240K miles isn't anywhere near low in my book. Had to smile (ruefully) when she said, "I'm sorry, sir, but it's all Delta now."

Aitchly

You have to look at each segment of the trip. If you are going from a feeder city to a hub then onto the final destination, the feeder flight can be the problem. Although Delta says green, it seems to default to the lowest option for ANY leg of the trip, but when it goes to pricing - it defaults to the highest option for ANY leg of the trip.

You need to 'price' each leg of the trip and make the booking when all legs are 'green' for a successful low redemption.

Or, as suggested above, call DL and ask for assistance.

travelblond

I will call Delta and see what they come up with.

I was looking for NRT-YYZ or NRT-BUF April 26 and return May 10.

Same flight for August 10 and return August 22nd.

----

One more flight was NRT-VIE departing April 26 and return May 10

Will ring and let you know. Maybe the call center is the answer over the website.

peachfront

I sure wouldn't have ever "purchased" miles, because the insanity of Delta's miles inflation has been a topic of discussion for quite a long time now. I'm going to say at least a couple of years...It's one thing to find out that award ticket requirements have soared, when at least you got the miles doing what you'd normally doing anyway, but if you're spending cold hard cash, then it seems silly and impractical to purchase miles that are losing value even more rapidly than the U.S. dollar. I don't want to say "stupid" because that's rather judgmental and we all know that perfeectly intelligent people can do unwise things, but it certainly wasn't a good investment to purchase miles.

Not sure what else you would like us to say. We're all having trouble using miles if we have only 120K of them -- I'm in that situation myself right now. As others say, you can try to call and see if you get help and if the help in question is worth the fee.

bostonbali

Two things have driven me away from DL in the year:
* The new low/medium/high award chart, with low awards being a rarity,
* Charging plats for making changes to award bookings (after 2 per year, geez - thanks DL)

No question about it, the new DL is NOT very customer friendly when it comes to redeeming miles for award tickets.

RealHJ

The drop of NW/012 and change of all NW flights to DL/006 is the beginning of the end (of low business award availability). An the end is nigh. September 5th and on shows what it will be soon like accross the board, and it's not pretty.

Using a sample route of HNL-NRT that has three daily flights and usually (with NW) plenty of availability.

Up to September 5th, lots of low award availability both on nwa.com and delta.com for HNL-NRT (not just in calendar, but really so). September 6th and on: none whatsoever. "No available flights were found for the dates selected." on nwa.com. On Delta.com only mid and high awards. And no, it's not just the award calendar, searching date by date (with Sept 3 low award NWA departure) not a single low award seat now in DL. Sept 6 to Dec 10 (last date available for booking), not a single day has a low award BE seat HNL-NRT. AND, often only one of the three daily flights is listed for award flights, the other two flights not even available (DL seems to be playing it really dirty and only listing some flights for award availability, other flights are not available at all for award reservations, not even at the highest levels -- "up to the last seat on every flight available for award bookings".. NOT, as many flights are not even available for award bookings at any level apparently).

So this is it. Now truly no more low award availability. None at all. Not just award calendar, checking one by one through 90+ days, just as the NW flights end, so does low award availability -- on both NW and DL sites. Sept 6 to Dec 10 to have not a single low BE seat on the three daily HNL-NRT flights either way is absurd. Up to Sept 5 there is always plenty of availability, while not every day, many/most days in most months.

In fact, a good 2/3s+ of these flights (on some days 2 out of 3, on others all 3) are not even available for award booking at all!

I challenge any Deltaholic / Delta apologist who reads this to find a single low mileage level BE availability HNL-NRT after September 6th and to explain why is Delta going directly against it's "policy" (clearly exposed as a lie) of "Customers will have access to last-seat Award availability and will be able to combine Economy, First, Business and BusinessElite® cabins and dates at various mileage levels." (as per: http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_...ates/index.jsp), as clearly customers do not have access to even award book the very first seat on many flights when they goes into schedules, and delta.com, unlike nwa.com, does not allow to mix-and-match BE and Economy seats to optimize the mile usage.

The three daily HNL-NRT flights are available for revenue booking - all three, I've checked, on many dates after Sept 6th (only on nwa.com as DL flights, not available on delta.com -- apparently even with Deltamatic the nwa.com booking engine works with it better than the 1990's era disaster and big embarassment that delta.com is ). So, one can not make the argument that DL is just sloppy and hasn't loaded these flights into the schedules yet. They are there. Available, 98%+ of seats available -- ONLY for revenue booking. Not a single seat in either class is available, however, for award booking for a good vast majority of them.

Is this also true for other NW-now-DL flights: as they became DL flights they were removed from award availability entirely?

This is, at the very least, a clearly deceptive marketing practice: saying one thing and then clearly not living up to it. Class action lawsuit anyone? That is the only thing that may make Delta actually live up to its promises.. end even that, not likely.

Seriously though, this is just... beyound words, having flights not available for award booking at all at any mileage level (not even SkyHigh), while they are perfectly fine available for revenue booking.

If I am going to fly HNL-NRT I want to fly on one of the three daily direct flights (6-7 hours). I am not going to fly via ATL (24+ hours) at 400,000+ miles (vs. 70,000 miles as was always available for various dates with NWA), Delta: no thank you.