pheuker

Hello,
I am on Skymiles with 101.5k miles and looking to get to the 110k or 120k mark (exactly) to spend my final award BKK-DTW-BKK and close out my account (business one way).

Delta has been stingy with giving me points for partner airlines (even when it is full Y-fares) and it is too much trouble to contact them from where I am living in Bangkok, so I am not going to micromanage their miles anymore.

Options:
1. My wife has 14.3k, but it looks like the cost to transfer 9k miles is $90 + $30 to transfer = 120
2. Purchase miles (10k miles is 350 as there is no bonus offer ATM)
3. I do have an upcoming flight BKK-MEL-LAX, but honestly I would rather fly staralliance as I am gold, and I don't see that delta has a MEL-LAX route.
4. Purchases? Appreciate any creative ideas
5. Credit Card offer - requires 1k spend for 30k, which is no issue, but seems a bit excessive if I plan to anyway cancel.

Appreciate any suggestions

MSPeconomist

A low business class award ticket between BKK and DTW should IIRC be 140,000 or maybe 160,000 miles RT. IIRC coach RT should be 70,000-80,000 at low, so I guess you want a RT with one direction in coach and the other in business class (now called DeltaOne). Have you checked for availability on your desired or possible dates?

Transferring wife's orphan miles could make sense. On this itinerary, the miles should be worth more than about one and a third cents each.

However, miles don't expire and you don't need to close your account. Why not keep any leftover miles since they might be useful someday?

NoStressHere

I recently topped off my wifes account by transferring AMEX miles. Regular AMEX, not Delta version.

huskerchad

I think this is one of those rare times when paying to transfer miles is really your best bet. My next choice would be the credit card, but as you say, you'd just cancel it right away.

Regular amex is another option but again, switching/getting a new card for this is a pretty heavyweight solution.

pheuker

Thanks for the advice everyone - I am on the fence to Transfer her miles but I think this is a rare case when it makes sense. I really want to get the travel in before the rumored Oct 01 reward fares hike.

xliioper

I'm not sure what you mean by "rumored". The changes effective for flights after 10/01 are already in place and have been pretty well documented -- low level one-way J awards going from 70K to 80K in your case for NA to/from Southeast Asia. Not really a rumor at this point.

cardood

Do you have an SPG (Starwood) account? You can use Crossover to transfer at no cost I believe.

c|d