Has anyone else realized the skymiles are impossible to redeem now?
 

I am trying to book several international flights (business class) - 1 in a few months and 2 about 8 months out. The only available mileage is medium and high tiers.

this entire tier system is totally BS. i am months out and cannot get anything but screw-u tiers that make it cheaper to just purchase the ticket.

They try and con you into buying miles with 50-100% bonuses, but it still doesn't make sense since the miles arent even worth .01 it seems.

i have tried all the partner airlines....and my secretary calls every day. she has annoyed the singapore delta office so much they are starting to ignore her calls.

delta has totally pulled a scam and released this tiered system - releasing so few flights under normal/regular/low miles and most under incredibly higher rates. i know everyone read the recent delta article that stated only 20% of their flights were redeemable for low/regular miles. i'd be curious how the international flights were going because it's been 2 months of calling and nothing is ever available!!!!

i've flown delta for 15 years, but this kinda 'loyalty' program has me wanting to switch.

Try the Malaysian Delta Office via e-mail...I've had better results but I'm getting different numbers from them and agents in Asia...frustrating!!!!

Oh No! :eek: Not another one of these threads! :(

Mooper: Call for you on line 3.

Sky Miles are very easy to redeem for any flight in their system. Just use double the normal amount of miles and you've got your seat. ;-)

Yes, there is widespread frustration here at the Delta forum on this very topic. Look around and you will see hundreds of similar threads...but here is the summary:

The Delta online award calendar is broken in many ways. Delta has admitted it and claims they are working on it to be fixed by end of summer /fall. In the meantime keep calling delta for those 100k business tickets and also see the sticky thread at the top of the forum on how to find LOW tier BE tickets.

Delta computers have done away with the idea of booking far in advance to find low availability...instead the computers release space sporadically depending on how many seats they think they can sell...sometimes they dont release award space until a couple weeks or earlier before departure.


Also what routes are you trying to book? There are people on this forum that may be able to help you find what you are looking for without having to spend 200k+ for a BE ticket..

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8320/4.5.0.81 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

Yes.

Oh that last one was so, so, yesterday... And this one gives so much new information......

Seriously, Mods, can we get a merge on aisle 3?

:eek:^^

I don't bother trying to redeem flights, but figured I would use my miles to book hotel rooms. Has anyone tried using the hotel booking site? No neighborhood function. Bloody useless! What good is returning 5000 results with no way to narrow them down?

Yes - another one - and I'm sorry to say that there will be another and another ad infinitum until something fundamental changes here. Either we are going to have to apply some real pressue on DL to fix this mess or FT will have to ban all negative talk about the value of Skymiles.

Since censorship is probably not part of the FT character I would suggest the former may be in order. Those of you who are tired of these threads might want to consider joining in such an effort if only to bring an end to this unending stream.

I can only hope that someone will rise up and give it it a go. If not I'll probably give it a shot next month after the family vacation I'm taking where I was forced to redeem 'medium' despite having a 2 week window to work with. I don't want to jeopardize that vacation with a DL backlash and/or worry about it when I'm on vacation.

I will say this much to the OP and all starters of such threads - its not enough to complain here on FT - there has been quite a bit of it - I think most readers know that there is concern about the redemption situation. It would be far better if you consider taking some real action against DL.

I love the hotel booking engine.. I type in the brand i want, and those results filter to the top. I have used this many times.

You are joking, aren't you? Do you honestly think Delta would retaliate against you somehow? :rolleyes:

Got any specific suggestions?

David

Difficult, but not impossible. You're trying to book international high season on short notice. Everyone who flies once a year but runs up lots of credit card miles have been booking those flights for the past year, so not much is left.

A week ago I booked a very short notice r/t USA to Italy, Y in one direction and B/E in the other direction for 95k miles. Not lowest pricing, but low enough considering how easily they give out the miles.

Read the sticky at the top of the forum on booking B/E int'l awards.

I've stopped reading DL forum throughly but do skim the board. I cannot believe that I am now reading that people are starting to look at their flying points for hotels. This is almost crazy. The way to get DL to change their attitute is stop flying them. They will listen as they lose market share.

Why give them loyalty when they are not willing to give their loyalty back? Why noit treat the award nonsense like sLUT nonsense years ago. That was DL only not a DL vs NW thing. Isn't the award calendar something that affects EVERYONE?