Tickets through Amex Travel...earn full MQM?
 

Do tickets booked through Amex's travel booking site earn full MQM or the fractional MQM rules that apply to tickets books through a consolidator?

Sorry, my search abilities are not very good, if this is answered 10 different threads elsewhere.

It kind of is, kind of isn't answered anywhere.

There's a lot of paranoia about buying tickets through any other website (aside from the lovely DL.dumb/worstbookingengineavailable), and for good reason. The rules of what a 'published rate' are seem fairly opaque to the public.

I have done reasonably well with my travel agent through work by ensuring that all of the fares I fly are reconstructable on ITA. This essentially means looking at the detailed fare construction on the ITA website and on my DL.dumb generated receipt. If they fail to match, call and cancel your booking. If they match, I'm happy and I've not had any problems with earning MQM/Miles using this approach.

I'm not familiar with AMEX Travel's cancellation policies, but I agree with timmy83 that the best indicator is the fare basis code that you can usually find on your receipt. You need to watch out for the ones that have a /xxx after the fare basis code, as it seems most of the problems with reduced mileage come from those.

If AMEX Travel gives the same 24 hour risk free cancellation that DL does, then try booking there and verifying your fare code.

The last time I bought tickets through AmEx travel, I specifically asked if they were "published fares," and they were. I was told that that particular agent only purchases published fares.

Granted, they were on AA, so I won't be earning any SkyMiles for them... but, yes, they are published fares and therefore earn full AA miles.

My company uses AMEX travel and I have never had an issue - cannot comment though on regular bookings with amex travel

Booked honeymoon tickets last year from ATL-PPT....full MQMs with AMEX Plat Travel Service.

I have never had issue with company booked travel through Amex, even with corporate negotiated discounts which don't appear on Delta/ITA. Domestic coach and international business.

+1 - but I also think that my company has certain limitations set on the search results that our particular Amex portal delivers so that it's only presenting published fares anyway.

Never had a problem earning miles. And as an added data point, the charges post to my cc: as something like Amex Travel Services dba Delta Airlines (vs. personal tickets booked directly on DL.com just say "Delta Air Lines"). The Amex bookings are still picked up on my DL Amex for 2x miles, and before that they were picked up on my unbranded Amex Plat for the 2x corporate travel MR points.

I've got an interesting new situation. In the past, all of the tickets I've booked via an Amex portal have been simple domestic US trips and the fare is easily replicated on ITA on DL.com, allowing me to book with confidence that I'll receive full MQMs (and I always have).

I now need to book a moderately complex, multi-airline, international ticket. I found the flights I need at an acceptable price on ITA. However, I am unable to replicate the ITA fares by searching for the same flights on the individual airline websites (DL, EK, AI, KL), then adding up the total, even though I'm finding the same flights, marketing codes (i.e., one flight is pulled in by ITA as KL-coded on DL-metal), and fare classes. Booking directly with the airline websites jacks the total price up by almost $3k.

What's interesting is that if I go back to ITA and search for each "chunk" of flights separately, the same way I'm doing it on the individual airline websites, then ITA matches the airline website prices exactly, as usual. Digging further, it appears that the fare differs if the final destination is known due to market pricing.

For example, my outbound is ATL-(DL)-DXB-(EK)-CCU. ITA prices the entire ATL-CCU trip at say $4k, but DL prices ATL-DXB at $3k and then EK prices DXB-CCU at $2k.

However, if I use the Amex consumer portal (travel.americanexpress.com) to book this all at once, I am able to get the exact pricing that ITA shows - the only difference is the $11 Amex booking fee.

Short story, I can get Amex to match ITA, but cannot get DL.com (plus other airline sites) to match Amex or ITA. Does anyone else have a similar experience with this? Booked correctly, this trip will generate around 27k MQM, so I'd very much prefer to be able to book with confidence. And the ITA fare codes are a bit interesting, as it shows the entire ATL-CCU trip on one fare code, when I'm almost certain that DL/EK don't share exact fare codes like that...

I don't suppose I could call in to DL and have them also book me on EK and AI flights, either, right? If that is possible, then there should be no issue as I'm booking directly with DL?

Is there any reason not to try that? If you're subject to the phone booking charge, the fact that you can't get the same airfare on their website might get them to waive it.

International trips can be priced a little differently. One airline can publish a fare to a market it doesn't serve, by including segments operated by other airlines. The other airline segments don't necessarily have to be alliance partners or codeshares, as long as the two airlines have an interline agreement. The fare can even allow for multiple other airlines to operate the same segment.

Without knowing your dates to try to replicate your search I can't tell for sure, but it's possible that you're seeing a DL fare ATL-CCU that includes the DXB-CCU operated by EK. If you tried to price each segment separately, you're getting a sum of other fares, not the ATL-CCU fare. I assume the fare is DL's and not EK's because DL operates the longer segment. Most of my experience with these types of fares are international carriers offering connections to smaller US cities; for example EK could offer PHX-LAX-DXB, with PHX-LAX operated by US.

Tickets through Amex Travel...earn full MQM?
 

Ahh. Pardon my ignorance, I'm simply just not as familiar with multi-airline travel and interline arrangements. Virtually all of my travel since I started paying attention has been domestic US or major intl hubs where it hasn't been a factor.

As it turns out, my company has since decreed that we will fly PE for this trip, which I can now book directly on AF.us, so all should be well.

Thanks all for the offers of assistance! This is truly what makes FT great. ^

I'm bumping this thread to see if anyone has any recent experiences with AMEX Travel (non-corporate) tickets on DL earning full MQM/RDM. I know that it's not the best use of MR points, but I'm considering using some remaining MR points for a cheap one-way ticket.

I've re-read the page from delta.com that describes earning for "exception fares", but the language is too vague for me to determine whether or not AMEX Travel bookings qualify -

https://www.delta.com/content/www/en...ion-fares.html

Any shared recent experiences would be appreciated! Thanks!

I do not like AMEX travel but I use the air department at a specialty travel service/provider in NYC. Their ticketing department has been great with complicated itineraries and they know their stuff. My brother has had amazing luck and uses them for all his international travel.

Yes you will earn it just as if you bought the ticket by paying with your American Express, Visa, or any other card on Amex Travel or Expedia (the engine driving Amex Travel now). You will even earn the MQD on the transaction!

Actually I think it's a pretty good use if you find an inexpensive ticket. If the cpm is low you can really come out ahead. A few years ago Platinum used to have 20% off on points used to book travel, then it was amazing. I booked a mistake fair to CPG on DL with points, cost me 18,500 roughly in MR points, because of status I earned 23,000 Miles on DL roughly, plus the MQM's for status, and hit a bonus DL offered then if I flew so much I would get 50,000 bonus RDM's. I think that was the best use of MR points ever for me.

A lot of changes since then. So what is the best value for MR points?