AndyTLe

Low award is 22,500 each way for a roundtrip of 45,000 miles. On my first try, I was able to find multiple flights for the upcoming months. February - May is wide open. Less inventory but still is available, June - August. Limited availablity but still available September - December.

Again, IT IS POSSIBLE. Based on my search, it reflects Delta's approach to award tickets and sales. Inventory is released on a rolling basis. The further you look out, the more "expensive."

I just spent less than 15 minutes on Delta.com and was able to find multiple, tickets in BusinessElite roundtrip between SFO & JFK roundtrip for the LOW award of 45,000 SkyMiles.

DukieDrew

Andy, you are missing the point. OP is asking about N/S flights SFO-JFK.

Just for kicks, I logged in, pulled up the award searcher, and searched for 1 ways SFO-JFK. I did not click "I am traveling on this", not that PM status matters for first/business bookings. I searched for February 1st and pulled up the map, which was all green for the month of Feb. I clicked on February 1st to look at flights. I then cycled through dates by changing the date on the bottom of this search page (and unchecking "Include More Dates". Anyway, that's my method...who knows if it is more bug prone than searching from the main page...

Results:
Feb 1 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 2 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 3 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 4 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 5 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 6 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 7 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 8 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 9 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 10 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 11 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 12 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 13 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 14 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 15 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 16 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 17 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 19 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 20 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 21 - No low availability
Feb 22 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 23 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 24 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 25 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 26 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 27 - Only connecting flights at low
Feb 28 - Only connecting flights at low

So, granted the award calendar is buggy and availability is not static, I did not find a single non stop flights for February for SFO-JFK in Business for low mileage.

Personally, as someone who does not redeem SFO-JFK but would be interested in redeeming SFO-JFK-Europe/Africa/MiddleEast, this is HUGE. Judging by the availability I pulled up for February, if I want to make a trip through JFK and pay only low and be in Business, then I will either have to take a connection with a redeye of some sorts and arrive early in the morning, or no connection with redeye and arrive late in the evening, after all the international flights have left. In other words, I have an unintended long layover/stopover now in NYC. So now, as a west coast flyer, besides the shoddy availability already for international BusinessElite, now I have to deal with the same crap on a connecting flight if I want to depart from an ex-JFK destination.

The Mileage Millionaire

Bottom line, DL low award inventory is now the worst it has ever been BY FAR. We have always been able to find low awards in Biz/First (we don't voluntarily fly in Y), but now it seems that they basically don't exist.

This is pretty much the last straw for us. We are sitting on about 1.5 million DL miles and unless something changes with the ripoff award levels, we won't be buying any more tickets on Delta.

It really saddens me to see my once favorite airline reaming their best customers.

GUWonder

Welcome to Delta Airlines, where management thinks of SkyMiles customers as being the enemy or sheep to be fleeced.

Last minute award travel availability for 25k DL miles domestically (i coach) was a lot better a couple of years ago than it is today. DL has changed things since then to substantially devalue the miles and it's going to get even uglier in the months and the year ahead for DL SkyMiles customers.

AA is much better for last minute travel availability on miles than DL has been last year or is today.

3Cforme

You rush to false judgment. Delta - and other U.S. airlines - use married segment availability. As an example, the airline can offer I fares SFO-JFK-CDG without I being available for sale either SFK-JFK or JFK-CDG.

Second, the use of aircraft with BusinessElite seats restricted capacity (16 instead of 24/26) and may have increased demand.

Finally, it's common for people to pay for a premium service, be it premium of non-stop vs. connection, time of day convenience, a more convenient local airport, etc. Your study noted flight availability on 27 days of 28 at low award levels. If somebody insists on the non-stop, Delta's award levels make it available to him - unlike old NW's still-capacity-restricted RuleBuster/PerkChoice offering going back more than ten years.

gatechange

ok so someone PLEASE tell me why on DL.com I do an airmile ticket search using the calander and it shows low and medium available on the dates i want and when I go the next step it comes back NO available seats at ALL.
I am sooo sick already of the screwy things Dl does to make it soo hard to do a simple search task. If no seats are available show it on the search calander too.. duhhhhh!

DukieDrew

As far as I understand, Delta does not do married segments for award tickets. That's often why it is easier to search multi-city, and piece together your award tix when the automatic system fails.

While they might have more demand, yes, the route had many 16 seat 737s in addition to the 757s flying this before they went to the BE seating.

It isn't just insisting on a non-stop, it is insisting on a decent connection time, too. Almost all the "low" connection flights either arrived late at night [you start in SFO early in the morning, connect somewhere and wait a couple hours, then finally fly to JFK], or early in the morning [you start in SFO in the evening, and take a nonstop redeye to JFK]. Again, as a West Coast flyer, it can be tough enough waiting for BE-availability to open up on ex-ATL/JFK flights to destinations I want. Now I have to wait for that *and*, if JFK, wait for that availability too. If you want anything less than a hellish layover, then yeah you gotta fork over the extra miles or coach. But don't forget, now it is part of an international itinerary, so you aren't going from 22,500 miles to 40,000 miles each way. Now you're going from 50,000 to 100,000 [europe] or 115000 [middle east].

thaitraveller

Below is exactly the issue!! It is impossible to connect. Also, while Delta does sometimes have unusual through availability, it is the exception rather than the rule. If there are not SFO/JFK nonstops in Biz Class, there are also none for connections. We are also not talking about a few days of nonavailability - it is MONTHS of nonavailability. It basically means that your miles are worthless for biz class seats if you live on the west coast. That is really sad as I switched to Delta from UA years ago and convinced myself that connecting in JFK or ATL was fine. It is such a disappointment!

thaitraveller

I am not sure this is the case. if it is, is there any way to use this to help find seats? I had it come up once where there were seats from Nice to Orlando through ATL, but not Nice to ATL (by itself) as it was a married segment. But only time this has happended in 8 years.

mnredfox

And this is why I don't buy the "just be patient, it's the integration" crap. I am starting to really believe it's an international act of fleecing. And guess what, customers are leaving...

AndyTLe

Why must you have Business Class seats and not First Class seats? Just to clarify. Other than the BusinessElite routes SFO/LAX-JFK and flights with international flight numbers, all other premium cabin domestic flights are FIRST Class not Business.

SkyBuck

If you are connecting to an international flight, why insist on going through JFK? Are there any destinations served from JFK that can't also be reached from SFO with a single connection through ATL, AMS, or CDG? Have you checked availability on those routings?

Carolinian

An ff program is supposed to exist to create an incentive. DL's SM as it is run by Jeff Robertson & Co. certainly does create an incentive . . . to fly any other airlines except DL!

jfulcher

That's odd. I just booked 2 J awards ATL-MUC-ATL - non-stop flights in LOW for Oktoberfest opening weekend - easily one of the busiest times for those flights. I guess they still exist for me.

GUWonder

As long as there are not enough customers leaving SkyMiles, DL management will "stay the course" of treating its customers as the enemy or sheep to be fleeced. Speaking of customers who care about getting the value from the miles -- as close as possible to that which was originally marketed by DL and DL's bed buddies -- they should expect even worse things from DL SkyMiles over the course of the next two years. DL management has it in its plans to knock down the value that SkyMiles customers get out of the miles. Stories of people getting "low" priced standard awards won't change that, nor will those stories erase the increasing difficulty of getting award tickets at the same kind of pricing categories as the 25k miles for a domestic roundtrip coach ticket.