Delta Award Builder - Allows you to pay to earn bonus miles on trips
 

Logged into delta.com today and noticed a new link on the main page that takes you to a new feature called Delta Award Builder (https://dmn.delta.com/skymiles/award_builder/). Seems like something I think United has had that has allowed people to buy up bonus miles on their upcomming itineraries. Overall, it seems fairly lame ($28 for a 1000 mile bonus, I think not) and costs the same if you were to use the exisiting buy miles capability. Doesn't United feature something similar to this?

From the page:
With the Award Builder program, you can increase the number of miles you'll earn on your next round-trip, Delta marketed flight.

Earn up to 3,000 more miles per round-trip flight to help boost your mileage balance and get closer to your next Award Ticket. Plus, you can purchase more than one Award Builder offer at one time, so you can easily increase the number of miles you'll earn on several upcoming round-trip flights.

I see they are following the lead of the other majors.

good thing they aren't MQM but I could see them offering MQM as a bonus offer

Wait till people figure out the miles are basically worthless.

I give up. I tried the link provided. Went to delta.com and found the Award Builder link to see if it differs from that of the OP. No. Same link. It just hangs and hangs and hangs. I've tried several browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and Safari). I've re-booted my router. Still nothing but a never-ending progress bar.

Anyone else having trouble?

Just tried it- worked fine...

Wasn't NWA offering 1000 miles for $20?

Thanks. It's now working. Go figure.

Really. $84 for 3,000 SkyMiles. That's 2.8¢ per mile.

Even if 25K for a domestic round-trip were easy to come by one would be spending $700 for the chance to find availability.

$84 x 8 = $672 = 24,000 SkyMiles
$28 x 1 = $28 = 1,000 SkyMiles
Total: $700 for 25K SkyMiles

This has no attraction whatsoever. I realize that for some a mileage run is not feasible because one has to find the time for a MR. But this offer has zero value IMO.....unless my math is off. Am I missing something about this promotion?

This sounds very similar to the old WorldPerks "SuperSize" offer that NWA used to have. $20/1000 miles on your next flight (or $20/2000 miles if you were a WorldPerks Visa holder).

But these rates are much worse at 2.8 cents/mile.

If anyone is willing to pay for something that is worthless, I have a deed on a bridge that I will let go of for a good price. :rolleyes:

Its cheaper to use the normal buy miles program when they run a 50% or 100% bonus.
If they sell up to 3000 bonus MQM on a flight for that price I might be interested :p

It's not great for those looking for a full 25k ticket. Heck, for most FlyerTalkers, it's not a great deal.

For those that might be a thousand miles or less from a free ticket (and yes, 25k tickets exist - I just grabbed a pair on the exact flights I wanted for my girlfriend and one of her friends to Las Vegas on the exact flights they wanted and I'm not on the PNR...), it's not a bad deal. If I was a once-a-year flyer and just short of a threshold, I'd consider paying $30 to grab those extra miles to get to 25k.

This is just another case of something that's positive to some people, but of little consequence to FlyerTalk - definitely not worth slamming Delta over because there are plenty of people out there that will find benefit in this.

For the uninformed, yes they will find benefit. Or for someone who started a thread recently (can't remember if it was here or another forum) about whether to use 25K miles or pay $288 for a ticket. Seems to me that is obvious. But I can see someone paying $84 for 3,000 SkyMiles. Then doing that 8 times and saying, "Wow, I have enough miles now for a 'free' ticket."

It is to idiots like this who Delta is marketing to.

(from above):
$84 x 8 = $672 = 24,000 SkyMiles
$28 x 1 = $28 = 1,000 SkyMiles
Total: $700 for 25K SkyMiles

the webpage seems to be inoperable

Hey !!! I resemble that remark