Chilopoda2

I see why they call them "Sky Pesos" now! I know its been said many times before, but I just can't get over how useless my Delta Skymiles are. I finally decided to cash in some miles and just booked an economy award ticket to Asia for this coming fall 2013. I compared prices (in FF miles) between both Delta and United Airlines for the same route in coach. The disparity between the two programs is mind boggling. Delta was asking for a whopping 215,000 miles and United wanted 65,000 for the exact same destination! Obviously, I was happy to book with United. Not only is Delta's FF program lousy, but their service tends to be the worst as well. I'm surprised that they are able to survive while being so uncompetitive. I will continue to avoid them.

davetravels

Wow! Have you had your first cup of coffee yet?

Often1

Another apples to oranges thread. How many miles/points/kumquats one carrier charges in their program has zippo to do with how much another program charges.

DL hands out miles like candy -- just look at FT for the threads about "what compensation should I demand because I got a crumpled boarding pass" -- so it takes more of them to get from A-B than it does on other carriers.

If miles/points were linked to $ spend only, this would be less of a problem and there would be fewer apples to oranges threads.

currentjer

Try partners, and invest some time in finding the low buckets.

mattsteg

I'm always somewhat surprised at how people seem somewhat more motivated to complain about finding high redemption costs rather than learn how to redeem at a lower cost.

davetravels

Fixed that for ya!

jchan2

There's some pretty heavy SkyPesos inflation out there, but that said, some creative searching should net you a low-bucket award ticket for Asia flights, especially if you're flying in the fall.

When I booked for my winter break, I saw wide open low-bucket availability in both Economy and BusinessElite for dates before/after break, but much more limited availability during the break (seems logical to me). Also, you might need a positioning flight or two to take advantage of what's available.

belfordrocks

Look for China Southern! You could've almost flown 2 people in business class for that price.

misterbean

While I agree with you, DL's award booking system is, to say the least, crappy.
If it was more intuitive, easier to find routings and availability, we would have less of these threads.

You almost need a degree to book a low award, and most travelers don't care to bother with it and therefore their frustrations with DL rise.

While it looks like OP could have done more research and probably have found a better alternative, DL sure isn't making it easy.

CALlegacy

That's for sure. The system doesn't give you THE price; it gives you A price, or prices, often completely disconnected from what is actually available. A rational customer would never imagine such a bizarre system.

The question of whether actual availability amounts to an essentially worthless product is a different discussion. I think over the years I have been happy with my ability to travel on miles but certainly not with what it takes to do it.

That UL offers a better system is beyond dispute. Nice if you aren't a hub captive of DL.

javabytes

This tripe still kills me every time I read it. Every airline hands out miles like candy between credit cards, elite bonuses, compensation, etc.

mattsteg

There's no doubt about that, and DL/skyteam is undoubtedly the most difficult alliance to search/book on. Still, the low prices are published, and knowing that awards are capacity-controlled my first tendency would be to look at what's possible, and then check my dates. If I wasn't getting close to what's possible, I'd like to hope my first inclination would be to ask why (or how to do better) rather than launching into full-on "Delta Sucks" mode. It's not like being able to search and book all partners online is universal at this point - only a handful of programs offer this - notably including UA.

Until FBATR comes along, the program is useful and can be made to work.

exwannabe

Why not fly in Biz for 120K SMs instead? It's not that hard.

misterbean

Because OP didn't think about it. He wanted to fly Y and entered what looks like 1 or 2 dates and probably got high-level pricing, then got mad, gave up, and wrote his rant.

I still maintain the opinion that DL is the root problem of this thread.
Their system should be robust enough to tell OP something like:
"Hey, if you fly 1 day earlier, you can pay XXXXX miles less" or "Hey, you can book in F for just as many miles" or "Hey, have you tried looking for Skyteam partner flights?".
This way, this whole thread gets avoided, and DL maintains positive reputation, or at least prevents negative reputation, deserving or not from breaking out.

bajrbajr

I'm glad I'm not rational!... it seems to help me find the low-awards I am looking for.