Awards worth less than nothing (instance specific)
 

Each year I book a trip to the Caribbean for the family (6 passengers) for an early Christmas vacation. In the past I have been able to book everyone in 1st class using just sky miles (last year I had to pay $800.00 out of pocket - and I have enjoyed being able to do this for the family as it makes all of my travel seem to have some benefit for my family).

This year Delta wants 110,000 miles per first class round trip ticket. I only have 400,000 in miles in my account currently so I have to pay the difference out of pocket. This year's total came to 360,000 miles plus $7000.00 for the tickets. I can buy first class tickets on American (with no miles or status) for $6000.00.

I am good enough at math to realize that $6k for first class tickets on American is a much better deal than $7000.00 on Delta plus 360,000 sky pesos. This essentially means that my miles on Delta are worth less than zero in this instance. I realize that this is not always the case, but it is making me question my loyalty to Delta when my Skymiles have a much reduced value.

Any suggestion on how to work the system to improve the cost so that I can justify staying on Delta's metal?

Might help (or not) if you try to combine it with buying elcheapo tickets and using your certificates or buy upgradable fares and upgrade with miles, be flexible with dates and destinations.

if you are an AmEx cardholder, partial Pay-With-Miles can be a workable option

I know comparing June to Christmas time is not a fair comparison, but my wife and I just flew ATL-MBJ using my RUCs (only because it's my last chance to use them before they expired), and on our return flight there were Eleven empty seats in F. Yes, that's right, Eleven. Would have taken a picture, but I didn't feel like asking the others in F if they would be ok with that.

Thanks for the suggestion - that improves the situation slightly. Unfortunately the El Cheapo's on Delta are almost exactly the price of first on American. The cost to upgrade on Delta is over 800 per ticket. The sky pesos price drops to 75000 per ticket (450,000) for 6 tickets and $4800 to upgrade. FCM Obviously does not make it to these flights.

Already doing that - Pay with miles is 110,000 per ticket. Using the awards calendar is 125,000 miles per ticket - Thanks Delta for making the awards more expensive the standard pay with miles :)

If that holds true then the tickets will get cheaper as the date approaches. Since I am the only diamond in the family and the wife is Gold I would have to hope for FCM (which might be my best bet) to kick in and make the upgrades cheap. The problem is that the first 2-4 tickets might have cheaper FCM prices, but by the time I get to ticket #6 I am driving my own prices up thanks to demand.

I ran the calendar and the cheapest dates were in September, prices went up in the July / August time frame and jumped up again in November / December. In September I can get tickets for 95,000 using pay with miles instead of 110,000 which actually drops my out of pocket to $3800.00 plus the cost of one additional ticket that I do not have the miles for at $1700.00 - So I would spend $5500 plus 475000 miles for Delta or $6K on American for first.

It sounds you are using Miles+Cash for your numbers which is a different beast altogether from Pay With Miles. Pay With Miles is almost always going to be a better deal than Miles+Cash which is aimed more at kettles who don't fly often with small mileage balances. Basically, someone who is 10K -15K short, little hope of earning the miles in the near future, and is looking to redeem for a single award ticket. It's also open to anyone while Pay With Miles requires a DL Amex card.

Unless I missed it somewhere, have you tried checking the cost in miles of booking one ticket at a time? Supposedly, if, all 6 tix aren't available at the lowest level, it'll bump the mileage requirement to the lowest level that has 6 seats available.

I am definitely using pay with mile. The core of the problem is that Delta is charging $1794.00 for the same departure and destination that American has listed for $976.00 (both first class). Even the departure and arrival times are very similar.

"The core of the problem."

Yes.

On any route, at any time, some airlines are substantially cheaper than others. That is reality.

If you want specific help on the issue, you could of course post details. Since you chose not to, can I presume this is a rant and not an ask for advice?

BTW. pay with miles is most often a poor deal. Miles can be used at a much higher value. If a particular route (such as this) does not work, do not use miles at all.

[QUOTE=exwannabe;25001965]"The core of the problem."

Bait not taken - thank you for playing.

There good ways to redeem your miles and there are poor ways.;)

With delta there are poorer ways and more poorer ways only.

Why try and stay on DL? AA F is better anyway.