Edgerfly

I'm just curious how many of you have been searching for an award ticket with flexibility for months and months and been unable to find one "low" award ticket? I'm starting to wonder if "low" even exists. It's downright fraud what DL is doing, and this is just one complaint on top of the hundreds of others we have. The upgrades on award tickets, and the AS upgrades promises are just to name a few.

Is anyone else as p***** off as me?

Continental here I come...

MikeMpls

1) Regarding Delta:

"Low" exists, it's just gotten a LOT harder to find, even on domestic (for international, you can translate "a LOT harder to find" as "almost impossible to find"). Domestic availabiolity (at least for my searches) does seem to have been relaxed a bit the last couple days but it still stinks -- no 25K-itins that will work for me but a lot more 32.5K itins are popping up (if you won't take half a loaf, will 3/4 of a loaf do?). And yet the FA this morning was pushing SkyMiles as "25,000 miles, enough for a free flight".

I don't think Delta is a "downright fraud" but the SkyMiles program has evolved into quite a scam. I think it's more a matter of Delta picturing itself as so important & so big (the "AF/KL Complex", if you will) that the rest of the industry would just naturally follow. That last little tidbit just hasn't happened, and Delta is now getting caught up in its own rhetoric as the chickens come home to roost -- witness recent backsliding in several areas. I think we've barely seen the beginning of the backlash.

2) Regarding CO:

Get your CO credit card now while you can still get the 30K miles, worry about the UA card later (best to wait 6 mos. to next Chase application), but take a look at moving directly to UA instead of switching to CO & then being merged. E+ is a nice backup plan for an upgrade. Mutual CO/UA upgrades are still pending; expect the implementation date to slide.

MikeyZBT

There are plenty of "low" award availability out there... you just, AS ALWAYS, have to be flexible with times and dates. Just read the threads here. It's there, just search.

And be realistic... can you find the exact perfect flights from wherever you live to where you want to go on the exact date in the exact class no matter when you search? Probably not... for low awards, you have to be flexible. This is true on EVERY AIRLINE that uses mileage awards.

socrates

con artist I think it a bit harsh.....very true the FF program isn't close to best in class but I dont think they are misleading anyone into thinking it really is best in class (regardless of what their marketing folks say)

MikeMpls

For UA, CO & WN we can almost always find award trips when we want to go, and we could do that with NW as well. Delta has become the exception to the pattern. It's a large part of why DL miles are worth so much less to us than UA/CO miles or WN RR credits. Booking award trips on DL is an immense and totally unnecessary hassle.

JSFox

We always found 2 or 3 trips a year on NWA @ low. Not a single one on DL. Likely move to CO later this year when status match will be good until 2012.

How flexible do you mean? Like "I want to go anywhere sometime this year."? DL clearly does not have anywhere near the low availability of other airlines. Those of us who've come from other airlines know this and the project discussed last week showed it.

DP-340

Well said!

Blank Sheet

Just because you keep saying this in every thread, doesn't make it true.

Having to spend infinite hours going through every permutation to find a low award combination is not for everyone. Even doing all the leg work, I often come up empty for single day routings.

MisterNice

I found a low level reward was available BWI-SEA in July. Unfortunately it required a 8 hour stop in DTW.

MisterNice

rankourabu

No, for Delta low awards you have to be flexible, and bend over backwards

For Star Alliance availability, you can get pretty much whatever you want, if you know how to find it using the free online tools, there is virtually always something available, worst case scenario you end up on US Airways or EgyptAir
There are still transatlantic summer tickets on Star carriers, none on Delta.

The difference is finding something on Delta is a rarity, NOT finding something on Star is a rarity, especially internationally, where the sheer amount of options works in your favour

Edgerfly, enjoy OnePass. You will be pleasantly surprised on how easy it is to redeem your miles on some of the world's best carriers premium cabins

pbd456

is it really 25000 miles because it is not a layover in dtw anymore, it is a stopover.

Poopdeck90210

It seemed to me when I booked my MSP-LHR award trip for February this year - that I was finding many more "low award" flights on the ole' NWA.com site vs the DELTA.com site. I ended up finding only one seat in the "low award" fares last fall - so I booked my wife into that seat and held out for either another low award seat opening up, or booking the appropriate coach fare to use two of my 2009 UG certs to get into BE. I kept checking every day, and then one day a bunch of "low award" seats were released so I redposited my miles for my wife's original MSP-LHR ticket and got us on a pretty decent PNR going direct MSP-LHR out and one stop LHR-DTW-MSP on the way back.

Then, about 3 weeks before our trip (which was in February of this year)... some low award seats freed up on the direct LHR-MSP flight back home. So I did another redeposit and snagged the direct flights back for us. So in the end, I spend 200K to get direct, BE seats MSP-LHR that would have cost about $16,000 if bought last minute. Sweet!

-A

N231LA

I think the biggest "fraud" going on is Delta's award calendar that shows "low" when in reality those flights are NOT "low". All this marketing ploy does is *iss people off when trying to find a 25k ticket...and, the frustration of having to check all the fake "low" combinations until one finds a real low award.

amps

Where is the line between being flexible and being violated? I'm sure if I drive from MOB to ATL I can find low awards from ATL. I feel bad for those folks who live in heavy demand cities where low awards are never available. I'm not saying that I haven't gotten low awards from MOB, PNS or GPT, just saying I somewhat feel dirty and violated after doing all different kinds of queries and discussing destination options with the significant other. Just seems I have to go where Delta want's me to go rather then where I want to go at a decent mileage requirement.

I do feel though the crap has yet to fully hit the fan with Delta and I'm sure it will. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

pmaddock

Indeed - Low does exist but it has been definitely proven that its extremely hard to find on the delta.com award engine per both a FT based informal study Gbadger did and the Ideaworks survey. While there is certainly some dispute about it being actual availability vs. the tool - the tool is the only thing an FO or gen member can use fee-free and it is DL's presentation to the public.

Gbadgers study can be found at:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...hlight=gbadger