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

No one is slamming Delta for offering this option. Kudos for the ingenuity, even if it does look pretty similar to the SuperSize deal from Northwest. More options are better than no options.

But if anything, they're slamming the rates of the cost/mile. Back when it was $20/2000 miles, it was a 1 cent/mile ratio which was reasonable even for FlyerTalkers. Certainly not outstanding, but a reasonable option. But at 2.8 cents/mile, it just isn't reasonable for anyone unless they truly don't know any better.

I don't think you need to bend over backwards to defend Delta on this. This is Flyertalk after all, and you're making an argument that only appeals to the infrequent types who don't know any better. For Flyertalkers, people that do know better, this isn't a deal, and Delta will face criticism for the ratios they offer. Know your audience.

Yes - NWA had 1K/$20 for regular members and a kick to 2K/$20 for Card holders. At the 2k/$20 it was a penny a mile which was OK if you needed a rounder. This rate makes me think "SUCKERS!"

I would do it if it gave out MQMs.

Was talking to an United agent about all the multiple offers for miles that keep getting touted when I check in at the United kiosk. He remarked that he has never seen anyone ever take up on the offer. I dont have much hope for Delta succeeding where United has failed. Maybe United might drop all those prompts since Delta is following them ;)

Expect more clutter from Delta when you check in.

The phrase here is "opportunity cost". If I'm at 24k, hardly ever fly, and could (hypothetically) book a r/t at 25k that might otherwise cost me, say, $300, then $28 to allow me to purchase a $300 ticket for "free" makes sense.

But yeah, for a FF this is somewhere between pointless and nuisance.

AA has this already
 

American Airlines also has the option already to double or triple your RDM miles for a price. I think it's called AA miles multiplier and is offered during check in on a flight (I saw it on a recent AA flight that I took). With AA it's also a bad deal, even buying miles separately is cheaper than going for this option.

It was only a matter of time that Delta followed suit. There are always people who fall for this kind of tricks, so it will no doubt be a money maker for Delta, especially when award tickets are harder to come by than with other airlines.

Better they make some money on a dumb*** instead of me. They probably have a Monday morning meeting at the airlines where they get a good chuckle of all the people who bought this in the last week

Increase SM Balance with Award Builder?
 

Received this email from DL about purchasing additional miles with each r/t DL flight. Seems you can 'earn' up to 3K on each trip but: [1] the cost is .028/mi and [2] these are SM, not MQM.

My question: Why would anyone want to bite on this deal?

https://dmn.delta.com/skymiles/award_builder/

Some people are not as educated as the FT community and will want to get to an award ticket quicker. For some, when they will be short 3,000 from 25,000 it may be worth it for them to get 3,000 miles for $84 so they now have enough miles for a domestic award ticket (Assuming a general member can find a low level award ticket lol). Paying $84 for 3,000 miles for someone without status certainly beats paying $400 RT MSP-LAX to get that amount of miles is probably how they will think of it.

Thanks GYEWorldTraveler, hadn't thought about it like that. Guess I am stuck in FTer thinking but it might make sense for others.

United offers this as well.

So does CO. And CO offers you the option to purchase EQMs as well, but they're expensive as hell, even compared to the already exorbitant 2.8cpm.

NW offered a version of this. The price wasn't bad so I used it occassionally to build miles. DL's program as usual is far too expensive. I won't be taking advantage.

Award Builder from Delta
 

Don't know if this has been posted earlier, Just received this in the mail:

We want to help you make the most out of your upcoming flight by giving you the chance to build your mileage balance even faster when you fly. With Award Builder™, you can easily get more miles on your upcoming round-trip Delta flight to quickly increase your mileage balance.

Get an extra 1,000 to 3,000 miles on your flight for as little as $28 (for 1,000 miles). The choice is yours but don't wait. This is the perfect way to get even more miles when you fly so that you can pack your bags for your next Award vacation even sooner.

Make your Award Builder purchase before the beginning of your upcoming round-trip Delta flight to get more miles.

Bonus Miles
Cost

1,000
$28

2,000
$56

3,000
$84


Here is the link:


https://dmn.delta.com/skymiles/award_builder/

That's silly.

It's priced essentially the same as "buy miles" so there is no real advantage to this program. It's clearly designed just to sell miles to people who would otherwise not consider buying them.

Part of the new up-sell culture I guess.

I just got the same thing. If it were MQMs that would be nice otherwise I don't see the point. Also if you did buy it and didn't take the flight would you get a refund?

The Latest Twist: "Award Builder"
 

Hello dlfan2,

We want to help you make the most out of your upcoming flight by giving you the chance to build your mileage balance even faster when you fly. With Award Builder™, you can easily get more miles on your upcoming round-trip Delta flight to quickly increase your mileage balance.

Get an extra 1,000 to 3,000 miles on your flight for as little as $28 (for 1,000 miles). The choice is yours but don't wait. This is the perfect way to get even more miles when you fly so that you can pack your bags for your next Award vacation even sooner.

Make your Award Builder purchase before the beginning of your upcoming round-trip Delta flight to get more miles.



Any Takers?

Hm-- $28 for 1000 miles. So, some quick math:
For that 375,000 mile ticket to Sydney, that's $10500.

No thanks Delta!!!

I just got this as well. Seems a little pricey to me. I think I'll pass.....

Same as buying miles the regular way except with no processing fee. I can see how it would be useful to the non-frequent flyer if your next flight will put you 1,000 miles away from an award and you want to pay the $28 to get there quickly and redeem the award, but otherwise it is the same overpriced offering.

This is nothing new and has been around for months.

I got a good break on my last TLV-LAS award ticket -- low one way and medium the other. Total cost: 175,000 SkyMiles for Biz Elite.

Assuming that I would be that lucky again the in the future, if I were to buy enough "Award Builder" SkyMiles to pay for the trip, it would cost me $4900.

Guess what? In either M Class (upgrading with SkyMiles) or I Class (no upgrading needed), I can make the Biz Elite trip for a lot less than $4900, not have to worry about availability, and get both MQMs and SkyMiles for the trip.

You do have to check for upgrade availability... and you have to worry about your flight being cancelled, leaving you with a refund of your miles but still holding a pricey M fare and traveling in coach.

If you can get a discounted biz fare, then sure.

TLV-ATL flights are almost never cancelled. At most, they are delayed for a day (and then only when the weather in ATL makes the flight impossible).

These flights go out between 75% to 100% full, and there are only (I believe) four each week, so Delta can not simply take the passengers from one flight and put them on a later one -- there would be no room for them.

I have seen other airlines (CO, AA) offer this. Seems a direct copy. Easy way to raise cash from the financially illiterate.