Ok so I have to fly to Pune (PNQ) but for the sake of this conversation lets just get me to DEL.

I have made this flight twice from DTW and it is so painful, I have to fly either coach or premium economy, and Delta does not have that option which means coach. I would like to find a code sharing partner that can get me to DEL in less then 25 hours that offers PE. I've tried to do Virgin Atlantic but they have a 12 hour layover in london and i'd rather fly coach then add 12 hours to the trip.

Any other options ?

Air France

Perhaps consider the (as yet to begin) KLM/Jet partnership. Depending on your travel dates, consider KLM or DL to AMS, and then continuing on to (and throughout) India on Jet. Beware of possible long connection times, however.

Too bad you couldn't purchase by early February during the sale.
Air France, but not daily. Or depending on your dates, play around on the AF or KL www sites and you might find Business one way, PE the other for about the same price as PE rt. Also, some good prices for Business if you can fly from YYZ.
Note the new mileage earning rules on KL.
Note the new MQD rules on the partner earnings pages. You might earn more MQDs ticketing on AF then KL.

What changed with MQD? I thought anything booked on KLM/AF/VA all booked at full value as if you booked direct with Delta ? I definitely want to get my MQD and MQM out of this trip thats the only reason i'm trying to stay in the Delta family.

MQD on AF/KL used to be based on % of miles flown rather than dollars. Check the earnings pages and you will see a stealth change for KL that actually uses the value of the ticket. My own experience flying Europe to SA with KL and AF was that 25% of the mileage earned more MQDs than a discounted Z fare.
But it works out differently based on the fare. There is a recent thread on this topic.

Hrm when i look at it today it still says it is based on % of miles flown ?
http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...-airlines.html

So the class i'm looking at is 10% so if its 15,000 miles then it counts as 1,500MQD, yes ?

Check the text at the top carefully --

Effective for travel on/after February 1, 2016.
SkyMiles members will earn five (5) miles per USD $1 for travel on all KLM-operated flights part of a transatlantic itinerary plus any applicable elite tier bonus. For more information, please see Delta's Accrual Chart.
Miles earned for base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges, excluding government-imposed taxes and fees.
If the applicable ticket was purchased in a foreign currency, the net revenue will be converted to USD at the time of ticketing based on the IATA Five Day Rate for the prior month.
Effective for travel before February 1, 2016 OR
Effective for travel on any KLM-operated flight not part of a transatlantic itinerary OR
Effective for travel on any KLM-marketed, Air France-operated flight

I booked a flight on 074 ticket stock using the great Canada to Asia fares that AF and KL both marketed last week (may still be available, don't know). The tickets include DL YYZ-JFK, KL JFK-AMS-KIX, AF HND-CDG-AMS, KL AMS-YYZ. Given the various qualifiers I'm not sure what rules will apply. Had I caught this change I'd have booked exactly the same ticket on the AF site. But DL may change the AF rules as well.

Check out this thread -- http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...4-tickets.html

tom

The 5 miles : 1$ has nothing to do with MQM or MQD those are your 'spendable' miles for redemtion.. I dont give 2 hoots about those. MQM and MQD are not tied to $ spend on Delta or KLM.

You will earn on a DL ticket or KL ticket based on $ rather than distance, just as you do when flying Delta now.

Previously, booking a KL ticket earned MQDs/RDMs based on a % of distance but that is no longer accurate. Don't worry, you will still earn but you may earn fewer MQDs or RDMs than you would have previously.

RDMs you are correct it is 5 miles / dollar now. This is true on delta or partner flights.

MQD however has NOT changed even on KLM you still earn as a percentage of the miles flown. Look at the award chart again

Going back to your original question, Air France is pretty much your only choice if you want a true PE option. That means connecting in CDG. And the DTW-CDG flights gets in too late to connect to the one CDG-DEL flight. But you can easily do a DTW-ATL or DTW-JFK then connect to CDG from either. And AF uses a 380 in one of their JFK-CDG flights.

I make the India trip regularly, probably 3 to 4 times a year, but my company allows me to fly Business class. I understand how brutal that flight in economy is.

While the chart only mentions miles as changing on February 1, I can confirm that MQD earning on KL 074 tickets w/KL-coded flights has also changed from mileage-based to spend-based (based on flights taken at the end of February). Not terribly surprising as they would have to know what you paid in order to calculate spend-based miles. I'm MQD exempt based on AMEX spend, so I don't really care.

Note that any 006 DL ticket will earn MQD/miles based on spend regardless of the operator or coding of the flight. This has always been the case. You need to carefully read the footnotes section -- "(1) Partner-marketed flights that are not ticketed by Delta will continue to earn miles based on a percentage of distance flown* as determined by the fare class paid" and "(3) Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs) apply to Medallion qualification. Flights marketed and ticketed by the partner will earn MQDs based on a percentage of distance flown* as determined by the fare class paid." In other words, the KL charts for miles/MQD's do not apply to DL 006 tickets.

DL will let you book either DTW-CDG-DEL or DTW-AMS-DEL. Seeing that you want premium economy, AF has premium economy on everything other than their 744s. KLM's premium economy is similar to Delta's (pretty much just more pitch), and Jet Airways does not offer a premium economy.

A good non-Delta option is to fly LH DTW-FRA-PNQ, as they serve PNQ from FRA. They do have a pretty good premium economy, but it is only available on the DTW-FRA portion of the flight.

Agree on PE offering on AF. However I go to BOM vs. DEL, and then have a car take me to Pune. Much easier to land 2330 from CDG, sleep at airport hotel and then have car take you in the morning. Only a 4-5 hr drive.