MikeMpls

You're a Diamond Medallion. Those at the base/Silver/Gold/Platinum levels do not share your experience, and they are much greater in number.

It took 3 years for SaveSkyMiles to win on all of its major points, and look at what Delta has evolved into since. The consensus among those who would organize such an effort seems to be that Delta is largely incorrigible. Nobody really wants to put that much effort into it a second time around.

mom_rules

I like this one-tried booking reward YYZ-BCN economy Sep10 - Coach/Business combo 100000 + $52 tax/fee

straight economy 125000 + $38 tax/fee

interesting....

WBurcham

OK. Great point. I rarely have to look for the expanded availability as only a small portion of these miles are used for ME to actually fly, they are for my better half to travel with me.

mooper

Funny At your service!

Skymiles are very difficult to redeem at the low/saver level (for now, might change later this year) if you are *not* Medallion (i.e., don't hold status with Delta) and/or are trying to redeem for travel anywhere outside of the 48 contiguous states.

Skymiles are very easy to redeem within the 48 contiguous states if you are a Medallion member and you know how to work around the calendar bug, call SMS, or use a third-party tool to find Medallion award inventory.

I just redeemed a record, I kid you not, 8 seats in one shot, using Diamond Medallion inventory. This was an itinerary with two RJ flight with lots of young kids flying, so I didn't care about upgrades. Got about 2 CPM out of this one. Typically, you just need a little flexibility and you can get one or two seats on most routes and dates (again, within the 48 states and using Medallion inventory).

As others have pointed out, Skymiles are amongst the easiest to earn of all airline currencies, so you need to adjust for this when you measure their appeal. With the upcoming Amex double miles promo and a Reserve card, you can spend $60K and get 150,000 Skymiles (180,000 if the threshold bonus is doubled, too... I'm not sure if it is). For most other airlines, $60K CC spend will get you 60K miles. Even if you don't know how/care to/are able to redeem Skymiles at the low/saver level, wouldn't a price of 120K Skymiles be cheaper than a price of 60K miles on another airline if you earn via Reserve spending during a promo? It's typically not that extreme, but a real illustration of the concept.

Exiled in Express

For a different perspective on Skymiles, if it were easy to get what I thought I wanted, I would not have learned the basic inner workings of the calendar and and Skymiles T&Cs. Using this knowledge and tricks picked up here, such as (ab)using the stopover, my limited redemptions are for more valuable exotic bookings that the basic domestic roundtrip.

dickinson

As a Silver, I booked two RT business class award tickets Miami to Barcelona for next spring yesterday at the low (100,000 mile) level. I don't expect every flight or date to be available at the low level. Better availability at low level would be a good idea; and I would welcome this as an improvement to the program, making it more competitive with other programs. I just don't get the posters who feel that it is worth hours to put up hundreds of posts and threads about it, especially the posters who don't even fly on Delta anymore. I also don't like the idea that hostility that is ruining good relations among posters on the board is worth it if the justification is that it punishes DL or teaches it a lesson. Reminds me of little children constantly whining until they get their way. Even the US Airways board consolidates the rants onto one thread!

rtraveler

I have the same problem. I've been trying to book an international award ticket through the calendar and all dates for the next 11 months are med/high.

It's borderline bait-and-switch because they advertise the low rate on the award chart but it is rarely available.

rtraveler

that's my problem exactly. I've been trying to get 4 international award tickets and I've tried various countries on different continents just to be flexible.

pmaddock

Need to add a qualifier that Medallion award inventory is limited to Y class - to my knowledge Medallions get no breaks on inventory for FC.

Orange County Commuter

Just booked one trip ATL to FCO and return to VCE next May Business Class low miles for a "no status" person and the same for me (Platnimum) There were actually several options since I was semi flexible on dates.

Winkdaddy

Status does not open up additional award availability for BE tickets...only for coach.

Mountain Trader

The best "retaliation" against Delta for poor availability and the broken calendar is to take your business elsewhere. The bad rep has to be hurting them, both directly and also through partners like Amex. The savvy bloggers have mostly thrown in the towel on Delta, and I can't see why anyone would favor them unless they had status or were stuck in a Delta hub city.

As for the threads on the poor availability and broken calendar, they'll stop when those problems are fixed. Until then, if you don't want to read about this, then go read something else.

3Cforme

No, they won't, because award inventory is never good enough. Look at any of the airline forums on FT and find a complaint from someone who can't take a family of five on non-stop flights on saver awards to Orlando at Christmas or a ski resort over President's week, or Munich during Oktoberfest.

The OP advanced a poor thesis, one quickly contradicted by facts. SkyMiles can be redeemed. The many reported successes document this. Bullying behavior (if you don't want to read it, then go read something else) in the presence of facts adds nothing to the understanding of the program or the OP's specific problem.

mooper

Travel outside the 48 contiguous states is going to be extremely tough using Skymiles, even if flexible with dates and countries. I'll bet they improve this area markedly later in the year, but for now, you really need to be a Medallion who knows the search tricks and flies within the 48 states to have appealing low/saver redemption options readily at your disposal.

I didn't know this, and frankly can't remember if I tested F specifically, but I am pretty sure than when you do the "calendar trick" while logged in as a Medallion, you see extra inventory for F, too. You might be right though... will need to play with that one to check it out.

StefanNYC

Yes, I've booked a room once.
Ended up "selling" my miles at < 1 cpm (something like 8000 miles instead of $60-65, IIRC), but I was satisfied.