Thank you for the information. Prior award travels included a stopover and a destination and considered one more prior to January 1. But I am more and more inclined to wait until after January 1 and determine the better options to leverage the one way award travels.

Have you asked them to transfer you to the IMR (Int'l Manual Reissue) desk or Global Ticketing?

Those are the wonderful folks who made it work for me earlier this month.

Good luck!

Thanks for the suggestion. The international manual reissue desk might be the same as the IRRRES folks. Either way, since DL is now simply enforcing a rule they have always had, I don't see much ground for me to protest or escalate further.

No stopovers. No open jaw. But one way.

But what are the rules for one way award travel? max segments? max miles? point to point or segment by segment?

JL oneworld awards are a good value. Up to 8 flights with up to 7 stopovers, 1 open jaw, or double open jaw if return to a different city than origin. Can be RTW or RT or anything - simply priced based on total distance flown. Just the YQ surcharges can be high. But, personally I find good value from JL. Best to earn as SPG points (e.g. SPG AmEx) and then transfer to JL when ready to book, given the 2 years mileage expiration (since date earned).

Yes, the two most empowered groups of res agents are IRRRES and IXXRES.

You can also try to call directly to HIBRES (use the direct # for there), where most agents at least will try harder to help you, though their hands are largely tied behind their backs by Dullta and the massive downgrade (dumb-down) in the reservations system.

However, trying to call Chisholm directly won't get you to an elite agent and, moreover, I've been told that they cannot transfer your to an elite agent in Chisholm.

+1. I called in today and spent two hours on the line with a helpful SLCRES agent, but she was unable to ticket anything including a stopover at the correct price (not even including an open jaw!). She called the international ticket issuance desk for assistance and they were unable to get the free stopover in there, either.

It really stinks that Delta lied about the policy change and has instituted it early, despite the notice on their web site saying we have until tomorrow to book tickets under the old rules.

Did you try calling again or escalate?

If you have only one stopover and no open-jaws in your itinerary, I would try calling again. I was able to book my award successfully with the CDG stopover once I dropped the open-jaw.

Got my award with stopover in one phone call (a long one). Kept in simple at five segments total w/o an open jaw.
Ex Europe, dodged YQ with KE flights.

CVGRES booked a ticket to NZ and Australia for me with an open jaw and stopover yesterday. I had the flights all picked out, but it took 30 minutes to get it priced. They came back with the official rule is stopover or open jaw, but I pointed out that I had several itineraries ticketed with both and it finally went through. The agent was great.

BTW, the delta.com award search changes were really helpful - the calendar is actually correct, and I can now search routes such as ZQN-SYD that could not be searched on-line earlier this year.

It also showed the ugly truth of two whole months in which HSV-LAX was not available in FC at a low level on any day. So as usual, domestic legs in coach, TPAC legs in Business. :)

David

Same destinations :-). Might have forced an open jaw too, but intra-NZ flights are cheap enough (plus I very much like ANZ) to let it go.

Called in 3 times but on the final call a very pleasant gentleman worked with me and contacted someone in rates to get my wife and I two biz seats to Asia with an open-jaw and stopover. Cheers to getting in with less than 24 hours to go. All 3 agents were superb but the final one got everything done. Taxes were around $100 a person. Not bad for business for all segments! :p

As others noted, the award calendars is much more accurate than the last time I booked business tickets to Asia in 2012; that time, it was brutal. Also, there seems to be at most 3 seats open in KE A380 business but it was easy finding 2 seats at a time.

I just helped book a friend:
2x 160,000 Skymiles + $370ish taxes/fees per ticket

RDU - LAX DL F (overnight in LAX)
LAX - PPT TN C/J (stopver in Tahiti)
PPT - AKL TN C/J (stopover in Auckland)
AKL - SYD - LAX VA C/J (18 hour layover in LAX)
LAX - JFK - RDU DL F (red-eye LAX - JFK and operated by the premium business class)

It took about 2 hours on the phone and the agent having to work with the rates desk for a LONG time to try and get the destination and stopover.