Last edit by: 3Cforme
2015 award rules:
All award travel booked with Delta miles must be booked online or through Delta reservations - even if all travel is on partner carriers.
As of 2/6/2015, award charts are gone from delta.com.
From ~April 7, 2017, partner awards at lowest level may cost more than DL awards at low level. Including a Delta-operated segment appears to yield DL pricing instead of partner pricing. Remember - awards are one way; you may need a Delta segment in each direction to avoid partner-level pricing.
You can book one-ways but a one-way departing Europe will incur international origin surcharges shown as YQ or YR in the detailed pricing breakdown.
Some of Delta's lowest award redemption levels require round-trip purchases, so searches one-way will not display these fares. Some of the lowest award levels can also have significant advance purchase requirements. These can be 14 or 21-days for domestic awards; as much as 90 days for international. Do Advanced Search on LBJ's posts for 'award, advance purchase'.
To see the lowest award prices/itineraries for a selected date it may be necessary to change the display sort order from Best Match to Price.
Between origin and destination one is allowed a max of three segments on US & Canada itins, and four segments internationally each way. City pairs or routings that require more segments will have a fare break and demand more miles.
Open-jaws are still allowed, for example you can book JFK-BCN, FCO-JFK.
Stopovers (spending more than 24 hours in any city on your international itinerary, or more than 4 hours domestic) are no longer allowed. Origin and destination are not stopovers. See posts #27 and #28 for examples of successful overnight connections on international itineraries.
Married segment logic may be applied to award tickets. Even if AAA-BBB is available in low and BBB-CCC is available in low, AAA-BBB-CCC may not price at the low level.
Multi-city award search may give odd results if you are trying to construct an itinerary segment by segment. Pricing may be additive, as AAA-BBB + BBB-CCC instead of through-pricing AAA-CCC as a single award redemption.
Awards that have segments on two or more award bands may price additively, not just the highest band applied between origin and destination. For example, if TVC-DTW is band 3 and DTW-FLL is band 1, the award TVC-DTW-FLL may price as band 3 + band 1. Because of this, if you are originating in or traveling to an area served by multiple airports you may find significant pricing differences at nearby airports.
Delta.com accepts NYC for LGA/JFK/EWR (but don't forget White Plains HPN, Islip ISP, and Newburgh SWF); WAS for BWI/DCA/IAD; CHI for ORD/MDW; PAR for CDG/ORY; LON for LGW/LHR/LCY; SAO for GRU/VCP/CGH; BUE for EZE/AEP. I'm not aware of single codes for the Bay Area, SoCal, nor SoFlorida.
Not tested with new partner pricing 4/4/17: This is not new but still in effect: mixing award level 2 - 5 DL flights with partner flights results in additive pricing because partner flights always book in the lowest award tier. For example, you travel US-AMS in DL medium level award and you connect AMS-anywhere in Europe on KLM, you will pay US-Europe medium level award cost + low level intra-Europe price.
AF/KL Classic Award flights you see at airfrance.us may not be bookable with DL miles, therefore you should not use airfrance.us to search for AF/KL flights if you want to book with DL miles. With DL miles, AF availability seems to be good at 10-11 months out.
Delta's mobile site - m.delta.com - may yield available partner flights even when delta.com does not. This was observed on ~9/12/17.
List of DL partners that can be booked online:
Aeroflot (first reported 3/25/2015)
Aerolineas Argentina AR (first reported 11 March 15)
Aeromexico (AM is back as of 7 March)
Air France
Alaska Airlines - terminated 4/30/2017
Alitalia
China Airlines (first reported 24 Feb 15)
China Eastern
China Southern
Garuda Indonesia (reported/confirmed 10 March 15)
GOL G3 (first reported 3/4/2015)
Jet Airways 9W, first reported 2/12/2017
KLM
Korean Air
Middle East Airlines, per SkyMilesTeam 1 April 15
Saudia Airlines, per SkyMilesTeam 1 April 15
Shanghai Airlines FM (spotted in late June 2016)
TAROM RO (spotted on 2/14/2016)
Vietnam Airlines
Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Australia
WestJet
Xiamen Airlines MF (spotted on 10/14/16)
Hawaiian HA can be booked online as inter-island, or as multi-city. Delta.com award searches will give an error instead of constructing a connection like ATL-HNL-ITO. If used in conjunction with another carrier to Hawaii mileage will be additive. Example: 22,500 miles SLC-HNL + 7,500 miles HNL-Hilo.
Any travel using any of the other partners must be booked by phone.
Air Europa UX
Air Tahiti Nui TN
Czech OK
Kenya Airways KQ - It's been reported that segments on KQ can only be booked by an agent familiar with the old-school long sell process. Details here: https://onemileatatime.com/long-sell-airline-tickets/
Delta.com now publishes the list of blackout dates for KE Korean Airlines: http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...nditions.html# (click on AWARD TRAVEL AND PAY WITH MILES RULES & CONDITIONS, and then scroll down to "Blackout dates" section).
Useful threads:
Which DL Partners Incur Fuel Surcharges (YQ/YR) when Redeeming DL miles for an Award
2015 Korean Air Blackout dates for DL Skymiles redemptions Fare rules again show blackout dates for KE travel as mentioned by ENFO's post 2 May 15.
Award Ticket Success - Post It Here
Using SkyMiles on SkyTeam & Other Partners Master Thread - Please do not post questions or discussion in this thread. For discussion, use this other thread: Using SkyMiles on SkyTeam & Other Partners: The Discussion Thread
Ongoing issues with booking awards on Kenya Airways
Anyone book a flight on KQ with Skymiles in 2015?
Phantom availability on AZ (and a possible solution)
Earn and redeem on Aerolineas Argentinas
Virgin Atlantic Award Seats Available at Delta.com but not on Phone, How to Book? (with possible solution in post #8)
New SkyMiles Award Pricing For Travel On or After October 1, 2016 New Award Pricing Travel after Oct 2016
All award travel booked with Delta miles must be booked online or through Delta reservations - even if all travel is on partner carriers.
As of 2/6/2015, award charts are gone from delta.com.
From ~April 7, 2017, partner awards at lowest level may cost more than DL awards at low level. Including a Delta-operated segment appears to yield DL pricing instead of partner pricing. Remember - awards are one way; you may need a Delta segment in each direction to avoid partner-level pricing.
You can book one-ways but a one-way departing Europe will incur international origin surcharges shown as YQ or YR in the detailed pricing breakdown.
Some of Delta's lowest award redemption levels require round-trip purchases, so searches one-way will not display these fares. Some of the lowest award levels can also have significant advance purchase requirements. These can be 14 or 21-days for domestic awards; as much as 90 days for international. Do Advanced Search on LBJ's posts for 'award, advance purchase'.
To see the lowest award prices/itineraries for a selected date it may be necessary to change the display sort order from Best Match to Price.
Between origin and destination one is allowed a max of three segments on US & Canada itins, and four segments internationally each way. City pairs or routings that require more segments will have a fare break and demand more miles.
Open-jaws are still allowed, for example you can book JFK-BCN, FCO-JFK.
Stopovers (spending more than 24 hours in any city on your international itinerary, or more than 4 hours domestic) are no longer allowed. Origin and destination are not stopovers. See posts #27 and #28 for examples of successful overnight connections on international itineraries.
Married segment logic may be applied to award tickets. Even if AAA-BBB is available in low and BBB-CCC is available in low, AAA-BBB-CCC may not price at the low level.
Multi-city award search may give odd results if you are trying to construct an itinerary segment by segment. Pricing may be additive, as AAA-BBB + BBB-CCC instead of through-pricing AAA-CCC as a single award redemption.
Awards that have segments on two or more award bands may price additively, not just the highest band applied between origin and destination. For example, if TVC-DTW is band 3 and DTW-FLL is band 1, the award TVC-DTW-FLL may price as band 3 + band 1. Because of this, if you are originating in or traveling to an area served by multiple airports you may find significant pricing differences at nearby airports.
Delta.com accepts NYC for LGA/JFK/EWR (but don't forget White Plains HPN, Islip ISP, and Newburgh SWF); WAS for BWI/DCA/IAD; CHI for ORD/MDW; PAR for CDG/ORY; LON for LGW/LHR/LCY; SAO for GRU/VCP/CGH; BUE for EZE/AEP. I'm not aware of single codes for the Bay Area, SoCal, nor SoFlorida.
Not tested with new partner pricing 4/4/17: This is not new but still in effect: mixing award level 2 - 5 DL flights with partner flights results in additive pricing because partner flights always book in the lowest award tier. For example, you travel US-AMS in DL medium level award and you connect AMS-anywhere in Europe on KLM, you will pay US-Europe medium level award cost + low level intra-Europe price.
AF/KL Classic Award flights you see at airfrance.us may not be bookable with DL miles, therefore you should not use airfrance.us to search for AF/KL flights if you want to book with DL miles. With DL miles, AF availability seems to be good at 10-11 months out.
Delta's mobile site - m.delta.com - may yield available partner flights even when delta.com does not. This was observed on ~9/12/17.
List of DL partners that can be booked online:
Aeroflot (first reported 3/25/2015)
Aerolineas Argentina AR (first reported 11 March 15)
Aeromexico (AM is back as of 7 March)
Air France
Alaska Airlines - terminated 4/30/2017
Alitalia
China Airlines (first reported 24 Feb 15)
China Eastern
China Southern
Garuda Indonesia (reported/confirmed 10 March 15)
GOL G3 (first reported 3/4/2015)
Jet Airways 9W, first reported 2/12/2017
KLM
Korean Air
Middle East Airlines, per SkyMilesTeam 1 April 15
Saudia Airlines, per SkyMilesTeam 1 April 15
Shanghai Airlines FM (spotted in late June 2016)
TAROM RO (spotted on 2/14/2016)
Vietnam Airlines
Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Australia
WestJet
Xiamen Airlines MF (spotted on 10/14/16)
Hawaiian HA can be booked online as inter-island, or as multi-city. Delta.com award searches will give an error instead of constructing a connection like ATL-HNL-ITO. If used in conjunction with another carrier to Hawaii mileage will be additive. Example: 22,500 miles SLC-HNL + 7,500 miles HNL-Hilo.
Any travel using any of the other partners must be booked by phone.
Air Europa UX
Air Tahiti Nui TN
Czech OK
Kenya Airways KQ - It's been reported that segments on KQ can only be booked by an agent familiar with the old-school long sell process. Details here: https://onemileatatime.com/long-sell-airline-tickets/
Delta.com now publishes the list of blackout dates for KE Korean Airlines: http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...nditions.html# (click on AWARD TRAVEL AND PAY WITH MILES RULES & CONDITIONS, and then scroll down to "Blackout dates" section).
Useful threads:
Which DL Partners Incur Fuel Surcharges (YQ/YR) when Redeeming DL miles for an Award
2015 Korean Air Blackout dates for DL Skymiles redemptions Fare rules again show blackout dates for KE travel as mentioned by ENFO's post 2 May 15.
Award Ticket Success - Post It Here
Using SkyMiles on SkyTeam & Other Partners Master Thread - Please do not post questions or discussion in this thread. For discussion, use this other thread: Using SkyMiles on SkyTeam & Other Partners: The Discussion Thread
Ongoing issues with booking awards on Kenya Airways
Anyone book a flight on KQ with Skymiles in 2015?
Phantom availability on AZ (and a possible solution)
Earn and redeem on Aerolineas Argentinas
Virgin Atlantic Award Seats Available at Delta.com but not on Phone, How to Book? (with possible solution in post #8)
New SkyMiles Award Pricing For Travel On or After October 1, 2016 New Award Pricing Travel after Oct 2016
Booking Delta Award Tickets, 2015 on
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Melbourne, Florida, USA
Posts: 2,983
Booking Delta Award Tickets, 2015 on
This is meant to be a replacement on the "The Definitive How to Search for Low Level..." thread that now contains outdated information.
I will add all of the info I know to the wiki to start.
I will add all of the info I know to the wiki to start.
#4
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: KUL/TPA/OTP
Programs: UA1k, DL
Posts: 3,138
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12B436 Safari/600.1.4)
Thanks for doing this!
Originally Posted by michael_v
This is meant to be a replacement on the "The Definitive How to Search for Low Level..." thread that now contains outdated information.
I will add all of the info I know to the wiki to start.
I will add all of the info I know to the wiki to start.
#5
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Minneapolis: DL DM charter 2.3MM
Programs: A3*Gold, SPG Plat, HyattDiamond, MarriottPP, LHW exAccess, ICI, Raffles Amb, NW PE MM, TWA Gold MM
Posts: 100,368
If you first book a one way award ticket, can you add to it later to make it into a RT or OJ without cancelling and finding award inventory in both directions at the time of ticketing? If not, this would ba a way to force some people to get two one way tickets and hence pay the foreign origination fuel surcharges.
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2001
Programs: DL 1 million, AA 1 mil, HH lapsed Diamond, Marriott Plat
Posts: 28,190
Good effort, michael_v.
You might be more specific here: Multi-city award search on delta.com is broken.
Multi-city award search can work fine. Try, for example:
DTW-FLL destination
FLL-MSP destination
MSP-DTW destination
It can yield the sum of award mileage by the three segments, just as it should under present rules.
One thing that doesn't work with multi-city is segment-by-segment searching AAA-BBB + BBB-CCC where one anticipates the resulting fare will be award mileage per the charts for AAA-CCC. The pricing engine doesn't do that reliably, even with a valid routing, carriers, and connection times.
You might be more specific here: Multi-city award search on delta.com is broken.
Multi-city award search can work fine. Try, for example:
DTW-FLL destination
FLL-MSP destination
MSP-DTW destination
It can yield the sum of award mileage by the three segments, just as it should under present rules.
One thing that doesn't work with multi-city is segment-by-segment searching AAA-BBB + BBB-CCC where one anticipates the resulting fare will be award mileage per the charts for AAA-CCC. The pricing engine doesn't do that reliably, even with a valid routing, carriers, and connection times.
#7
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Melbourne, Florida, USA
Posts: 2,983
Good effort, michael_v.
You might be more specific here: Multi-city award search on delta.com is broken.
Multi-city award search can work fine. Try, for example:
DTW-FLL destination
FLL-MSP destination
MSP-DTW destination
It can yield the sum of award mileage by the three segments, just as it should under present rules.
One thing that doesn't work with multi-city is segment-by-segment searching AAA-BBB + BBB-CCC where one anticipates the resulting fare will be award mileage per the charts for AAA-CCC. The pricing engine doesn't do that reliably, even with a valid routing, carriers, and connection times.
You might be more specific here: Multi-city award search on delta.com is broken.
Multi-city award search can work fine. Try, for example:
DTW-FLL destination
FLL-MSP destination
MSP-DTW destination
It can yield the sum of award mileage by the three segments, just as it should under present rules.
One thing that doesn't work with multi-city is segment-by-segment searching AAA-BBB + BBB-CCC where one anticipates the resulting fare will be award mileage per the charts for AAA-CCC. The pricing engine doesn't do that reliably, even with a valid routing, carriers, and connection times.
#8
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Cut Off, LA,
Programs: -- DL DM, MR Lifetime TE, HH Diamond, National Something???
Posts: 618
I have been looking for BE award flights MSY-ATL-JNB and GIG-ATL-MSY for November 22nd outbound and December 12th return. I could never get miles under 320,000 per passenger until yesterday when I changed the return to a December 13th return and miles per passenger dropped to 200,000 to cover the flights. I jumped on that bad boy before the Delta computers realized it was me and would bump the miles back up.
So, I was able to save 240,000 miles by staying an additional day in Rio De Janeiro
So, I was able to save 240,000 miles by staying an additional day in Rio De Janeiro
#9
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: MN
Programs: Lots of programs, dirt on all of them!
Posts: 11,938
I have been looking for BE award flights MSY-ATL-JNB and GIG-ATL-MSY for November 22nd outbound and December 12th return. I could never get miles under 320,000 per passenger until yesterday when I changed the return to a December 13th return and miles per passenger dropped to 200,000 to cover the flights. I jumped on that bad boy before the Delta computers realized it was me and would bump the miles back up.
So, I was able to save 240,000 miles by staying an additional day in Rio De Janeiro
So, I was able to save 240,000 miles by staying an additional day in Rio De Janeiro
#11
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 34
I'm having a lot of trouble booking SEA-UIO for this December... Searching OW by O&D SEA-UIO i get first(SEA-ATL)/coach(ATL-UIO). It's charging me 90k for that routing (even though the intl segment is coach, go figure).
My problem is, SEA-ATL is available in coach and ATL-UIO is available in coach. I understand married segment logic prevents the entire O&D ticket from being priced lower than any of the segments, but is it really possible that even though there are coach awards (L5) available independently they won't let me use it as a connection??
Really frustrated with this "OW award" and "no blackout dates" 2015 SM program....
My problem is, SEA-ATL is available in coach and ATL-UIO is available in coach. I understand married segment logic prevents the entire O&D ticket from being priced lower than any of the segments, but is it really possible that even though there are coach awards (L5) available independently they won't let me use it as a connection??
Really frustrated with this "OW award" and "no blackout dates" 2015 SM program....
#12
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Melbourne, Florida, USA
Posts: 2,983
Delta Points blogger reports the old way of searching segment-by-segment in low and feeding flights to an agent still works if you HUCA:
http://deltapoints.boardingarea.com/...ork-just-fine/
http://deltapoints.boardingarea.com/...ork-just-fine/
#15
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Melbourne, Florida, USA
Posts: 2,983
I am being told by 3 agents with different levels of confidence that, in case of schedule changes, they cannot re-book you on anything other than DL, KL and AF, even if award space exists on the partner airline (RO in my case). Has anyone else heard the same?
Edit to add: the last agent was able to add the RO flight to my itinerary and I saw that on dl.com, but was unable to proceed further, which makes me think that what I am asking is really not possible. But what if you go somewhere in Asia where there is no DL, KL or AF?
Edit to add: the last agent was able to add the RO flight to my itinerary and I saw that on dl.com, but was unable to proceed further, which makes me think that what I am asking is really not possible. But what if you go somewhere in Asia where there is no DL, KL or AF?