ATL-SYD
 

How do I find an award trip in BE for 160k miles? I am searching as far out as possible and the lowest fare I can find is 242k. I am trying to plan a trip next year. Any help will be great.

You won't find anything that low out of ATL (or even LAX, for that matter) on DL metal. Delta has little-no saver availability in/out of SYD to any airport. Your best bet is to look at awards on Virgin Australia out of LAX. You'd have to position out there from ATL, but it would be well-worth the savings to do so. AA often has deals for their ATL-LAX flight.

You can also find availability on China Southern (you'd have to connect in China). Obviously not ideal, but there are tradeoffs when trying to spend the fewest number of miles possible.

How do I use calculate my miles from DL for fares on VA or CS and not DL?

Delta.com will return search results for both Virgin Australia and China Southern.

How many passengers are you searching for? There is plenty of availability if you are searching 1 passenger, but much less if you are searching for 2 passengers. If you can travel on separate flights, this may save you a bundle.

2 people want to be on same flights

Not quite sure when you want to depart or the duration of your trip, but a 15-day LAX-SYD trip shows plenty of availability for 2 on dl.dumb:

Departures on

Oct 24
Nov 4
Jan 15
Mar 8
mar 29
Apr 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28


If you have flexbility on trip length, search O/W awards and you'll find even more inventory

Yeah, not going to happen

With smart planning, you can book a pair of 160's out of LAX and then have to pay for the Atl -lax

VA biz class for two for 320,000 + $800 or less all in for two ATl-lax is still a HUGE winner by any stretch. iMHO

VA biz class was a very nice friendly experience. The seats are lie flat , in the old 2-3-2 config, even the pilot came out and was very friendly and chatty talking about the flight . it was the friendly service that won me over, the food was okay - not memorable. this was syd to lax. avod was only adequate
by comparison, the seats on delta on the outbound were more private in the 1-2-1 config , the food was better, but the service was impersonal. deltas avod was excellent.
give VA a try, you will enjoy it.

Sorry, but I consider 2-3-2 unacceptable for business class, regardless of whether the FAs are friendly or not.

Unacceptable as in you refuse to fly it? Because VA is reasonably the only option for the OP if they want 160k business class tickets.

I see 2-3-2 as a downgrade, but hardly unacceptable... That's a lot of hyperbole IMO.

United's 2-4-2 with rear facing seats is unacceptable. While modern J should always be 1x1 or 2x2, I don't have a problem with VA's configuration.

I flew VA BIZ lax-Syd last December

Was the best J experience I have had

Share the sentiments posted above , food was not memorable and AVOD was sub par BUT having the bed made with mattress pad and the great PJs, I slept for 9 hours of the flight.

FA's were awesome, attractive (if that matters), younger and all smiles with a great attitude

FWIW, I was a hair bummed because at that time they had announce new biz seats coming soon, think the completion date may be EOY?

FWIW 2- I wouldn't sit in the 3 of a 2-3-2 , however traveling with Mrs Rhinolicious, the 2 outside aisle config is not that big a deal

DL 's 777s do provide good privacy on the singles, better than the 763/764's, but I tend to sleep better on the odd number singles on the 763/764's than the 777s

YMMV

I flew on VA Biz last march, and it was better than any experience I have had on Delta for International Biz.

Let's be honest, Delta food is not memorable either.

There's plenty of low if you're willing to go lax-pvg-syd and the same routing return. It normally books Delta LAX to Shanghai then China Eastern to Sydney. The return is Sydney to Shanghai on China Eastern and Shanghai to LAX on either China Eastern or China Southern. Of course Delta for domestic segments. Once I find the LAX - SYD flights I'd call up and get help with adding the domestic flights.

I've booked a number of co-workers 160k tickets who wanted to take family for vacation using their miles. So far no problems unless they insist on the nonstop for lax-syd. Then the price always goes up since there's only two (one on Delta and one on VA) flights nonstop and both are usually full and leave within 10 minutes of each other.

PS
I see 160k departing as soon as August 19th. Good luck.

Whatever did you do....three years ago? Flying must have been so horrible for you. International F only?