mooper

What would be unfair, illogical, or unusual about this? Delta is trying to make a much money as they can, and if the market supports higher prices one direction versus another, why wouldn't they raise them? It's no different than selling tickets in the same direction at different prices. The system may be complex, but it's designed to sell as close to 100% of the plane as possible while maximizing the revenue.

cerealmarketer

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Or use it to your advantage. Book a positioning flight on another airline -- BA has one way awards - even with cash and miles. Then take advantage of ex-EU.

Works if you have 2 trips to plan at a time.

hfly

1. This is the case with every airline in every country and every fare. Others have explained why.

2. The restrictions on the M fares can be very different even though they are both "M" fares, in every possble way, so it is not an apples to apples comparison.

3. The current fares were in many cases set 6 months ago, in that time the Euro and GBP have dived against the dollar, so some fares are 20-40% lower due to this discrepancy, but I am sure with people like you pointing this out and crying foul they'll change them and some of us will get screwed. Thanks.

flying_q

I do this every week for work domestically. NEVER thought about doing it to try to utilize some of my SWUs, thanks for the tips! Now to plan out my EU trips for the next 330 days...

woody125

Wise words. For the most part I live in the US but ALL of my travel originates in SVO or FRA for just this reason. I'm 6 years into this now and it truly has proven to be cheaper and a much better use of money and PMU's/Miles as it relates to upgrades.

avflyer

I guess my issue has less to do with DL trying to maximize revenue as I support that. In this particular case, it is about the SWU provided to PMs and DMs and the ability to use them. Regardless of the exchange rate, ex-EU the "M" fare - and I only quote the M fare - is dramatically lower than the ex-US M fare. Forget Y or B for a moment - when you consider that this is the most basic fare in which to use the PMU instrument (and I will not include close to departure purchases as I recognize that serious revenue can be made here). There should be a) some relief in pricing as is often discussed here on FT and b) some level of balance as an elite ex-EU has the same status as an elite ex-US. Personally, I wouldn't mind if DL instituted a P (for PMU) fare that say was valid until 2 weeks prior to departure and provided use of an SWU but at a fare basis more in line with what folks in the EU are paying.

As for those that have mentioned booking ex-EU trips for just this purpose, that works when you fly frequently into and out of the same destinations.

That said, if I chose to make say AMS a hub and book reverse trips, how tricky would it be to add-on/alter connections after the fact? Never tried.

pbarnette

As others have noted, this is not uncommon with airlines. I would note, for example, that you rarely see wholesale J specials ex-EU like you do with CO during the summer on ex-EU fares. You also don't see the ultra-cheap, $500 fares. On the flipside, the summer fares don't climb as high and M fares tend to be lower.

And this varies from market to market - last year, ex-LHR was coming in at under $1000 for M fares, to or through MSP or DTW. This year, it is CPH. I would note, though, that this is a market that has always had excess Y demand. Op-ups are very common on this route, but they have no choice if they want to capture all of the Y demand. Selling cheap M fares seems like an easy way to capture some incremental revenue for upgrades they will be processing anyway.

I'm sure at some point it will reverse itself, but this ain't the year. Everyone and his brother wants to go from the US to Europe right now and few on the EU side are looking to go to the US.

mdb

Why would this be true?

BTW - NCE-DTW-NCE 2300.00 DTW-NCE-DTW 2900.00

Air Brian

I did this for a couple years while on a long term project in Europe. Its DL's right to price however they want, and our right to game the system to our advantage

pbarnette

Remember the fx rate. Assuming your numbers are in USD, this equates to roughly €1900. At 1 January, €1900 was worth over $2700. In other words, 2/3 of that "savings" merely puts someone in NCE back where they were 6 months ago. And remember that there are expenses beyond your flight. Supposing that you spend $5000 while in the US, you are spending something like an extra €800 for your US vacation than you did 6 months ago. That is a lot of money.

And the difference goes the other way, too. The US traveler that is spending €4000 saves $1000 vs 6 months ago. The shift in the fx rate has been huge.

MisterNice

I do it for Maui and typical savings are up to 30% and more flight options are usually available.

MisterNice

USirritated

I posted the above message on May 25, and no one replied. It is now June 12, precisely FOUR WEEKS from the promotion end date, and I have not been awarded the team miles. I know DL said 6-8 weeks after promotion end date, but I am curious, has anyone actually received their team miles awarded to their actual FF account?

Also, does anyone have any idea why DL has such a large lag time for awarding the team miles when their computers and programming actually give them the ability to award the team miles within a day or two after the end of the promotion?


PS. I just checked the DL Together We Fly promo page, and DL has taken down the sign in, so that team members can no longer access their team history, team messages, team mileage, etc. Any comments?

3Cforme

If your miles haven't posted eight weeks and one day after the end of the promo, you have a right to whine.

Delta set the terms of the promotion. They need not rationalize them for people who don't care to understand.

USirritated

I'm sorry, I did not mean my posting above to come off as a WHINE, I meant it much more as a QUERY, in the hope of learning, which is one of the main reasons that I am a member of FT.

I was wondering whether DL gives all of the participants of the promo their miles on the same day, or whether they update the promo miles to the accounts over a period of time. I was also curious, in general, if anyone knows the answer to this question, why DL does it this way. I meant it not as a complaint or whine, but these are things I like to know about if I can. Is that so bad?

RealHJ

Why? Simple. Let's say you have almost but not quite enough miles to make an award booking that is available today, but may be (likely will not be) no longer open tomorrow. Instead of giving you these bonus miles you've been counting on, DL will do all it can to delay it as much as it possibly can, thus forcing you to either buy miles for the difference, or to buy a revenue ticket vs. book award.

This is like a carrot on a stick that keeps on going out further and further. It's so on purpose. Classic marketing. Gets you thinking "oh, with those xxxxx bonus miles added to my current total I can book an award flight to ____." You start searching, find what you want, the miles are not there, so instead (DL hopes so), you buy miles for the difference, and then later end up not using and perhaps letting expire these bonus miles.

DL has everything to gain by giving you the bonus miles as late as possible.