fly747first

You can change the ticket and pay the difference in miles if award space in business class becomes available, though AM tends to be stingy releasing long-haul business class awards to DL

nomiiiii

Two Questions:

1) When making a skymiles award partner flight change - does the entire new flight need to be available on miles or just the segments you're changing? Specific example:

If I'm booking OSL - CDG - SEA (all segments operated by Air France, booked with skymiles), and I want to change it to ZRH - CDG - SEA (again all segments operated by air france, with the second segment the exact same flight I'm already booked on), does the award availability for CDG - SEA need to exist to process the change? Or the fact that I already have a seat on that flight means I can only change the first segment without touching/needing-new-space in the second one?

2) If I'm booked on a roundtrip skymiles and need to drop the return segment under the covid waiver rules (before starting outbound travel), will I be able to do that and get half my miles back without a full cancel/redeposit-rebook oneway? Specific example:

Booked SEA - CDG - SEA on skymiles (75000 each way for 150000 total) - will I be able to just drop/cancel the return segment and get half my miles back, and some taxes back? Without a full need for award space in first segment etc.

RealHJ

Yes, there needs to be current availability. DL effectively removed ability to actually change awards a few years ago, as part of the continual downgrades of the reservations system and the work towards EOS (end of skymiles). Now the only option is to redeposit and book a new one. Even if you do it as a "change," behind the scenes it first prices and puts together a new award, then redeposits old ticket and applies its value towards the new ticket. So the seat that you have available you cannot use yourself, it may go to the inventory for someone else. Or you can try your chances to cancel, see if it goes back into inventory, and then rebook. Another option is to try to call and get through to a Global Ticket Support or some more empowered agent whose access to the more powerful and less buggy reservations system isn't blocked, who can do it as a change for you (i.e. keep existing flight(s) you are keeping and only add new ones, where only newly added ones need inventory) - this works for non-DL flights, but not DL ones, but it may be an exercise in futility getting to someone who is both able and wiling to help you, given how extremely anti-customer Dullta is and how its employees who help customers in such instances are disciplined and may lose their job (so it's a moral conundrum as well).

No. The flights that you keep will be repriced at the then-current availability and pricing. Your entire ticket will be refunded/redeposited, and then the flights you are keeping rebooked at the current price and availability.

flyerCO

This is partially incorrect on first part. If there's any DL segments then yes, need new availability for all. However if it is wholly partner flights, then no new availability is required. OP indicates wholly AF flights, thus no new availability is required.

RealHJ

Are you sure? AFAIK it doesn't matter what airline flights, any attempt to "change" online is two parts in the background: validate and price the new flights (including any flights remaining the same availability anew), and then when executed redeposit the old and book the new. It's the same by phone also 99.9% of time when res agents use the GUI dumbed down reservations system, that everyone is forced to use (save for manual reissue, manual price calculation and such cases).

Haven't had to change any award flights in about a year though, so admittedly my memory is getting a bit rusty here. Do you have first hand experience that you can make a change even when a flight being kept is no longer available, either online or by phone? I recall very specifically not being able to make such a change either way, more than once (and yes, no DL flights involved), over the last few years, the specific reason being that the flight I was keeping was no longer available (and never mind that it was being kept and didn't need to booked anew). I would venture as far as to guess as if you could make such a change, you got the rare agent with access to the "old" reservations system that allows you to make a change without having to rebook the flights that are being kept.

flyerCO

I have done it via phone agent. I actually had expected it to need new availability but learned on here that it doesn't if there's no DL flights in the reservation. (One more reason to not include DL metal when booking awards) I called in after learning that and confirmed it was true. I had held off changing an award cause I knew there was no O available on flight I was already confirmed in O on.

RealHJ

That's great! Hopefully it's the rule and not the exception.

I still suspect it was a helpful, seasoned agent who bypassed the res. system they are supposed to use and did it "the old way."

Either way, at least it is still possible...though one's luck may vary and I suspect HUACA may be necessary, depending on whom one gets on the phone.

Agreed 100% that it's best to book DL/006 tickets with no DL flights within, for better flexibility and more fair and transparent pricing. (DL award flights are much better booked using other FFPs anyway. DL miles are really for SkyTeam flights.)

flyerCO

Agree that using other miles are better for DL. Only issue is the limited availability to partners for booking DL metal.

I was told by agent it comes down do fact partner flights are confirmed and managed by the partner. (Awards are booked using the operating carrier flight number) They said it's the DL reservation system (which handles DL coded flight numbers) that requires they have new availability.

RealHJ

Exactly! There is no new availability required in reality, it's just a "feature" of the DL res system to require it given how it first books new and then cancels old ticket and has no ability to make a change to an existing ticket anymore. IMO clearly so by design.

flyertalker28120

Quick question:

I was trying to redeem Skymiles for a o/w on AF, short-haul itinerary with two legs. DL web site shows availibility in Business (O) for 25k SM and 50€ in fees.

I can select my desired flights but in the last step (confirmation of booking) it fails with an error message that the flights/the award is no longer available.

It's been a few hours and the flights I want to book still show up in DL's book with miles search. How often is that info refreshed? Btw, the call center agent also wasn't able to book this, either.

Any predictions on how this is gonna play out? Maybe there's a chance to at least book this for 50k SM or something in a little bit...

flyerCO

Partner awards can only be booked at the "low" level. Its either 25k or nothing is available.

nomiiiii

I've had the same issue with Air France business class booking using skymiles for about 1 week now - I keep trying off and on. Availability is clearly there as I see it at low-level on airfrance.com also, but Delta cannot seem to confirm it.

Since you have the same datapoint maybe there's a bug with delta unless we have reports of people successfully being able to book airfrance business class in the last few days.

flyerCO

Availability on the AF website has nothing to do with DL being able to book. Airlines can block partners from booking even if the normal space is available.

sxpsxpsxp

A quick search of the forum didn't bring up any relevant discussion, so I thought I'd post here.

I'm considering booking a trans-Atlantic VS (Virgin Atlantic) flight with Skymiles and trying to figure out how to get into VS's Economy Delight seats when traveling on a DL award? The award seems to only book into Economy Classic, and seat selection map (at least pre-ticketing) shows all of the Delight seats as blocked. Is this even possible? If so, how?

PHXflier

Question: One used to be able to book on the Delta site Delta awards to Canada that involved destinations served by Westjet but not Delta (e.g., YYT, YFC); they used to be very reasonable (12.5K miles each way from/to the US). However, I cannot book those anymore for next summer. Is that a consequence of COVID or has something changed in the Delta/Westjet partnership?