Try here

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...es-update.html

Remains to be seen whether "available" equates to "attainable" for the typical member. ;)

At best, Delta is targeting "kettles" who save their Skymiles from their gold card and their infrequent leisure and business flights who have time to plan out their award trips well in advance. At worst, it's a miles grab of their most frequent and loyal flyers who's schedules prevent them from booking a month out for almost all of their flying, including award flights.

Not of money spent but distance flown. Partner MQDs don't look at actual spend.

As far as I know, the only raw data available approaching any sort of scientific rigor and scale any of us have collected is http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...ore-after.html - javabytes' excellent work scraping delta.com immediately before and after the 1/1 rollout of the new program, which I assume is what you're referring to. And yes, that data looks positive at first glance.

But that study focused on segment-by-segment searches between major destinations that don't require connections, and it doesn't take into account the negative aspects of the new program that make it more difficult to redeem in practice: combination problems with partner flights and Tier 2+ DL segments, married segment availability, loss of free stopovers, and 21 day advance purchase minimums.

It's a great start and at the beginning of the year, it did put Delta in a positive light. (I remember breathing a sigh of relief when I saw that thread at first.) But as time has worn on, it doesn't mesh with the consistent feedback in award booking threads since 1/1 that people are having a harder time redeeming for award tickets at the lowest prices for their desired itineraries.

I do have to give credit where credit is due to today's announcement: searching today vs. a week ago, I'm seeing a LOT more generous availability on 21-day advance purchase short haul flights on DL metal - things like SEA-PDX, SEA-LAS, and SFO-LAX that price at the new 10k level. If this holds, it's actually a huge improvement in redemption ability.

But on the flip side, anything booked within 21 days - which is a frequent way I use miles - is way worse than last year. On any of those short haul routes, try an award calendar search starting today scoped to "Delta Only", then switch to "Delta & Partner Airlines". You'll notice a dramatic difference - Delta flight redemptions cost almost twice as much as the equivalent flight on partner metal.

My point is that whether you're a winner or loser in the new program depends on your routes, dates, and booking parameters - but without any published data, we're flying blind. That's why I proposed a site serving as a permanent version of javabytes' study - gathering the full picture would help us have a conversation backed by real data, would help us see trends over time, and - in the FT spirit - would help people choose the frequent flier program that works best for them.

Now now, you do realise that the award calendar is the most effective way for Delta to tell you how many miles they expect you to redeem for any given flight?

what we will see here on the DL FT board will probably be 80-90% "not attainable" ... but as we too often forget, we here on the DL FT board are not exactly representative of the vast majority of the DL customer base

True, but I'm guessing FTers are way more savvy in searching for low-level award availability. So if it's only attrainable 10-20% of the time for us, imagine just how "not attainable" they will be for the masses.

Who will start the thread for posting 10K awards?

Just keeps getting worse
 

Sigh, one of my uses of FF miles is to alleviate the high cost of last minute tickets (I live in PHL, my adult kids in the midwest and elderly parents 1/2 year in AZ). Stuff happens. I guess I will have to pay the man.

Thanks not Delta :td:

While some folks are in the position to run off on a spur-of-the-monent lark, I would suggest that a significant percentage of last-minute award redemptions are for people facing exigent circumstances, such as you allude to.

The airline industry is known for imposing exorbitant charges/penalties for folks in dire circumstances with few alternatives. Va Ave has perfected the art.

I think in the new system you're either a loser or less of a loser. People who buy last minute expensive fares are probably the same ones that like to use their miles to buy last minute trips someplace nice to unwind for a few days. The flyer earning 75K miles on a last minute J fare is probably now paying 360K for his last minute J award ticket.

^:D

Another one for a Wiki :)

It's ollllllllld news. Right now, about 9 hours. ;)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...es-update.html

ATL-NAS is down to 15k