Should I keep earning skymiles for family trip to Brazil?
 

I am planning a family trip (2 adults, 3 kids) to Brazil for the summer of 2015. I know award availability is pretty terrible for Delta, but I also know I have a few other options on their travel partners. I am fairly new to award travel so I'm wondering what some of the more seasoned Delta award travelers think about the possibility of doing the following:

Travel DTW to LAX on Delta. Stopover in Los Angeles for about a week to visit family. Travel LAX to GRU (Sao Paulo) on Korean Air direct flight. Then travel GRU to BSB (Brasilia) on Gol to our final destination. The return flight home (DTW) could either be through Korean Air, AeroMexico, Delta, or some combination.

Is there any chance on piecing together 5 low-level economy award tickets for this? I think I could get the DTW-LAX segment on Delta, but I'm not sure how many economy award seats are available on either AeroMexico, Korean Air, or Gol.

If doing this seems implausible, I'm thinking I may want to think about earning award travel through a different airline (United or AA perhaps). Any advice/ideas would be much appreciated.

I would think its an exceedingly low chance of success to get 5 low level tickets like that. You also have to take into account the Korean Air blackout periods. If there is any KE route that is blacked out for a certain time, then DL blacks all of the KE flights out for that period. Mid summer has historically been a blackout for KE in for US-South America. If any one segment doesn't price low, then it breaks the whole thing.

Add to that you're saying summer which is busier travel season, and we have no idea what the Delta award redemption rates or program are going to look like a year from now... doesn't sound good to me.

No.

You'd have a much better chance with Star or OW.

Thanks for the replies. OK, I'm thinking of going with OW instead. I'm assuming I'll probably have better luck with AA award travel to Brazil compared to Delta.

You will not have a good chance of getting the award tickets unless you pay the highest point rate for each award ticket which would be 720,000 points for 5 tickets. if you have 720,000 Skymiles then you have no problem.

You should also check with a consolidator, and possibly buy th 5 tickets for cash. Other aspects of your trip, hotel bookings can get m ore expensive as it gets closer to travel time, so locking in the dates by buying the tickets with a consolidator may save you more money on the lodging costs than if you wait until the last minute, If you do not have the 720,000 skymiles and the seats do not become avialalbe, then you may not be able to get to Brasil and miss out on the vacation.

RC

Remember that DL award tickets are RT, for all practical purposes, and allow one stopover, LAX in your case,and one open jaw. You would need to purchase a domestic flight or use ground transportation within Brazil.

Yes, but isn't Gol a partner airline? Although you can't book Gol on delta.com, you could check for availability and then phone it in, right (in theory)?