thereddevil

Apologies if this is not the righ thread to ask this question. I'm trying to book a flight from JFK-BLR and return that has 2 DL flights and 2 flights operated by AF. If I'm booking the tickets through the KLM site,

1. How do I make sure that I earn DL Skymiles for my travel?
2. How are the Skymiles calculated? Is it still based on MQD or distance based?
3. Once I make the booking, should I follow up with DL or KLM customer care to include my SM# of is it automatic?
4. I'm a Platinum Medallion on Delta, do I still get Sky Priority boarding on the AF flights as well?

Thanks!!

mnredfox

Congrats, I did the identical route (almost) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Is TPE-JFK in their 777? I like it better than the DL 777. Just make sure you ask for bedding as soon as the food service is over.

jiaogulan

Yes, it is their 777. First time on China Airlines and excited! Their cabin looks pretty swanky.

Wish I got it for 80K before it went up, but what can you do.

Thanks for the tip on the bedding.

akcae

My wife and I did CI A350 YVR-TPE last month and enjoyed it. The seats are great, food is good, service decent. The cabin is gorgeous.

maverikbc

I have a question on this tip on the 1st page:
Can somebody tell me how to do this online while placing the agent on hold? I'm trying to book YVR-MEX-HAV on AM metals.

kikap

Hello folks, does anybody know if the partnership with Air Tahiti Nui is no longer in place? I flew award this year and when trying to book for the next year, there are no flights at all according to the agents. Neither revenue nor award.

xliioper

DL does not permit using Skymiles to book a flight to Cuba on partners - only DL metal is permitted.

"Passengers may use miles, Miles + Cash, and use Delta eCertificates, Delta Gift Cards and eGift cards to book travel to Cuba on Delta-operated flights only."

flyerCO

Note DL doesn't charge a booking fee anymore. However as other poster points out, DL will not book tickets to Cuba on other airlines. They won't even do paid. Even with the lifting of sanctions by Obama (now being rolled back by Trump) there's still significant legal restrictions in place on doing business in/with Cuban entities.

r0m8470

Maybe this is a non-news to most, maybe this isn't. I thought I shared my experience redeeming SM today, which is by far the most complex, and aggravating experience of mileage redemption in a while, at least for me.

Context:
Need to book from SIN to either SEA or YVR. If I booked YVR, the plan is just to buy paid tickets from YVR to SEA.

1. Around 1230 pm-ish, check DL.com for SIN to SEA, nothing in saver level
2. Found space on DL.com; several options: CZ (SIN-CAN-YVR, several options too on SIN-CAN segment), MU (SIN-PVG-YVR, 7 hr+ layover at PVG).
3. Attempted to book CZ, DL.com balked after payment page; stating space no longer available.
4. Now it's about 115pm-ish, after trying out several attempts through DL.com.
5. Got on the phone with agent 1. Agent 1 tried to book CZ, can see space, got error message on her end, claiming CZ not releasing seat. Asked supervisor for long sell, put on hold, then disconnected.
6. By this time, it was around 145pm-ish. Search DL.com again, CZ space showing again, and failed again to book online. Called agent 2.
7. Agent 2 unable to book, same issue, only a bit worse. Now she could not see the first segment in J, only coach. Fine, book that mixed itinerary, hoss! Well, no joy. Supervisor attempted long sell. Nothing. Agent 2 and supervisor trying to book Xiamen Air, another Sky Team. KVS showed space, from XMN to YVR, and SIN to XMN, but both claiming that MF never release award space to DL. Weird.
8. HUCA. Called again around 245pm. Agent 3 saw CZ space, tried to book, same issue as before. Then out of curiosity, I asked her to check SIN-TPE-YVR. Agent could see space, booked but only get mixed itinerary (SIN-TPE in coach, TPE-YVR in Business - I believe it is the new A350). All this for 95K SM per pax, and I booked 2 tix. Pretty much blew out all my SM, with maybe 1K to spare for 2 tix. This was finally done around 335pm.

Some observations:
1. DL phone agent quality is so inconsistent. Agent 1 knew long sell, knew to search the longest segment first, but she always defaulted to reading the most expensive Delta redemption first. Agent 2 never wanted to search segment by segment. For whatever reason, all my coaxing her to do that got nowhere. Agent 3 is the most cooperative, but needing the most hand holding.
2. All agents said that redemption with MF is next to impossible. Is it? I was actually tempted to try SIN-CAN-XMN (with CZ), then continue with XMN-YVR (with MF), but I was too beat to try this, maybe tomorrow (I know, glutton for punishment).
3. How is DL.com supposed to function for redemption booking exactly, and how does the engine work? I searched SIN-YVR, I found CZ and MU at the saver level. I searched XMN-YVR, I found saver level too. But the CZ option ended up not bookable, both online and over the phone. Agent could not even see XMN-YVR space, even though KVS and DL.com showed space.
4. For .... and giggles, I checked SIN-DTW on DL.com, and lo-and-behold, I got saver level of SIN-AMS (on GA), and AMS-DTW (on DL); for a measly 80K SM! Really? It that even bookable?

I did not attempt booking on MU bc I read about MU smoky flights. Is that only anecdotal, or is it true? I read OMAAT review of MU flight, and I was frankly terrified.

Never had so much issues booking using miles. Just this same morning, I booked SEA-SIN using AS miles for a mixed itin with AS and CX, and within 30 min I was done. The agent knew exactly what I was going for, found options from YVR, LAX, and SFO. The space that she saw even matched what BA.com reported. Night and day comparing to DL. But hey, it's done. Now I just need to check if business seats will open on the SIN-TPE segment.

RealHJ

This is typical DL. As a rule of thumb, it takes about the same amount of time (hours, or 10s of hours) to book the flights, and then deal with the likely reticketing later due to flight schedule changes, etc. (that may need 3 or more DL agents and multiple levels of escalations "to Atlanta" just to do a routine even reissue of a ticket due to schedule change; what other airlines do in 60 seconds, DL can hardly do in 60 minutes), than is the flying time.

So if you can book 10h flights by taking up less than 10 hours of your time, count yourself lucky.

I've spent some 7-8 hours on the phone (over several weeks) just for some 3 hour long flights recently...only then to have one flight drop from the PNR (as the operating carrier had no record of the ticket), and to start all over again and spend some 3 hours more pushing DL to fix it and get me a valid ticket AND PNR at both the operating carriers.

gooselee

Weird, just a few weeks ago I booked 9 award tickets across three different PNRs (different departure schedules for different pax) in less than 20 minutes total.

Last year I had a trip to AU/NZ involving DL & MU, double-open jaw. Booked in a few minutes online, positioning flights were quick adds later using Amex cert. After a schedule change a couple months later, it took a 15 min call (most of which was listening to the agent type) to get the return rebooked to a different day AND different city. (PS - No smoke on my MU flight.)

All that said, I did suffer the DL booking monster once when booking ATL-JFK-FCO-CMN//PMI-MAD-AMS-ATL or something on a combination of DL/AZ/UX/KL metal. It took the first agent 30 mins to piece it all together online, and then a few emails over the next couple weeks to get PMI-MAD opened up in business class. In retrospect, probably wasn't worth the trouble for that 45 min flight, but it's not like it took that long to write the emails.

I guess I'm just lucky.

maverikbc

thanks a lot for clarifying. I was hoping to fly to Cuba with non us carriers for a few reasons.

If somebody could add an update on booking fee situation on p.1, that'd be great!

MileageManager

I know about using 30K Flying Blue miles on DL metal R/T between L48 and Hawaii, but apparently there's a slightly better price point:

https://redwasthere.wordpress.com/20...to-hawaii-yes/

Thoughts?

Zorak

The linked blog post (interesting that the blogger is based on OMA too...) is about using 25k KE Skypass miles to book flights on DL. That won't people who hold DL currency in the form of Skypesos, which is what this thread is about.

guam17

Hi, not sure if this is the right place to post this, don't post here much but read all the time.

I was trying to book an open jaw award ticket from SEA-ZAG/PRG for next summer for the old honeymoon, despite availability showing when I called the PM line and online (mobile and through dl.com), it kept giving an error along the lines of "oops this fare just sold out", the inbound and outbound were both DL metal SEA-CDG across the Atlantic, then AF the rest of the way. The PM line agent said she could see availability, but couldn't book it, and suggested I just book the SEA-CDG roundtrip and try to change it later. Should I just HUCA or do what she suggested? Looking on Flying Blue it shows tons of availability on both CDG-ZAG and PRG-CDG on or around the dates I selected. I could certainly just pay cash for the other two segments, but it seems kind of stupid to if there is actually availability.