Bow Rider

I'm new to Delta/Atlanta area and need some advice. I can fly home base CHA (Chattanooga)-ATL, and vv, all day long for ~$200.

One way JNB-ATL next April is about $1300, which is reasonable. I can take a shuttle home to Chattanooga for $84, fly ATL-CHA for ~$200 on a separate PNR/itinerary, or pay $1100 to connect in ATL.

I understand this kind of wild discrepancy in pricing is normal for Delta, based on an FT thread I found. My question is can I book the ATL-CHA leg as a separate PNR/itinerary, for $200, without violating any rules?

TIA

scongro

You can (and I've done before but usually with JFK) and leaving the country they will usually check your bags through to JNB.

BUT....understand that there are some risks - the most obvious is that you're not covered up on a misconnect. I'm assuming you'd book one RT ticket CHA-ATL and a separate ticket ATL-JNB. So let's say your CHA-ATL flight is delayed for whatever reason (mechanical, weather, etc) and you miss the ATL-JNB flight. DL will treat this the same way as if you lived in Atlanta and got stuck in traffic.

Like I said I've done this a fair bit before. I usually use an AMEX Companion Cert to get to JFK, then have a separate flight from JFK to Europe. I just know that I'm taking a risk by doing it.

Duke787

Just another option, for $1.8k you can do JNB - JFK on Etihad J.

It's not $1.3k but worth considering combined with a short hop JFK - ATL - CHA given the trip length.

NoStressHere

Now that is something worth considering.


But, as to the original question. Sure, no problem. Or even drive to ATL.

BHammy

As scrongo mentioned, the only potential issue is IRROPs that put you outside of the window to make your connection.

I'm CHA based also. Two weeks ago I re-positioned myself out to SAN to visit one of my daughters, then DL shuttled to LAX with another daughter to do a mileage run to Singapore (+KUL, +REP). But I left myself an overnight connection in each case. (on the way out and return)

My wife and yet a different daughter went to TPE on Delta and then on to CKG on a separate PNR (separate airline actually, 36 hours later). An hour out of SEA, they turned back because both Nav computers on the 747 failed. Plane was not fixed that day, so they ended up re-routing thru PDX to get to NRT before getting to TPE nearly 24 hours behind schedule. Luckily, their TPE-CKG flight was still 12 hours from departure so they made it without issue, albeit losing a day in TPE on the way out.

The nice thing about CHA, is that BNA, BHM, TYS and ATL are all within 2 hour reach. Except for BHM, I've made my rounds to each of them for lower fares - usually connecting through ATL - though alot less so in the past couple years.
One note is that I've heard that CHA has the highest concentrations of DM flyers within Delta. I'm not sure if that sets a metric for pricing or availability? But 95% of the time we find it as cheap to fly out of CHA instead of dealing with the drive-park/shuttle to ATL and the traffic of city and busy-ness of the airport (security)

Bow Rider

Very good, thanks. Not being protected in IRROPS bears thinking about. Doing the long leg in J does, too. Thanks for the idea.

Good to get your perspective, BHammy. I had less than 30 minute access to both DCA and IAD for years, I need to adjust my attitude about CHA. I did drive to ATL once, it was pretty miserable.

Qatar promotes stopovers in Dubai, breaking it up into two legs has some attraction.

flyerCO

I think you're confusing Emirates with Qatar. Qatar doesn't connect through Dubai, Emirates does. Qatar connects through Doha.

As for IRROPS, as long as both are DL flights, DL will help you out.

Bow Rider

Right, it's Emirates. But it's a 16 hour flight from any of the three Arabian Gulf hubs, same as JNB-ATL, so the idea of breaking up the long leg fails.

My trip is a pre-retirement splurge, a three week cruise from Ushuaia to Cape Town and two weeks of safari type stuff in SA. I think I'll be pretty tired by the end of it and coming back in J is looking very appealing.

Thanks again for the comments, FT is great.

BR

yaychemistry

Sounds amazing!

Are you going to stop by the Falklands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands? I've always wanted to go.

BHammy

Or even Tristan da Cunha - already on my 3rd daughter's bucket list (she's 14) - as the world's most remote inhabited island

ATOBTTR

Maybe I'm missing something but if CHA is your final destination, why wouldn't you just book JNB-ATL-CHA for $1100?
But if you want JNB-ATL and then ATL-CHA as separate legs, you can book it as a multi-city.

As mentioned above on Qatar it'd be via Doha. But you'd also be flying a long way out of the way to have two flights versus one.
JNB-ATL: 8,439 miles
JNB-DOH-ATL: 11,323 miles, with DOH-ATL being 7,480 miles. You'd be flying nearly 3,000 extra miles to make the long leg 1,000 miles shorter. If you love flying or want to try Qatar, then that may not deter you but if your goal is to make the trip more comfortable, the nonstop JNB-ATL may be the best option.

ETA: saw further down in thread you realized this as well.

Duke787

FWIW, if Y is what you decide to do, the QR option (one-stop via DOH to ATL 787 to 777) is pricing out at $670 (or $2.1k for J). It's not DL but it's also 1/2 the price of DL/ST options.

Looks like QR will ticket you all the way to CHA with the last leg on AA (so JNB - DOH - ORD/DFW - CHA) for ~$750-850. Random April date prices out to $787 on the QR website for Y on the routing of JNB - DOH - DFW - CHA. Unless you are really committed to Delta and Delta miles, that seems like a no-brainer for Y since it puts you in CHA and costs less than Delta to Atlanta though admittedly a much longer way to get home.

EDIT: One last thing. JNB - YYZ on Etihad J is $1.3k and it appears adding on YYZ - CHA would be ~$151 so you would be at about $1.45k for J all the way to YYZ and then Y the last little bit which is even lower than the $1.8k I mentioned above for EY J to NYC but that price isn't available every day. On the random April day I'm looking (April 18th) it shows a 20 hour layover in AUH and then an 8:50am arrival. I *think* EY J gets hotel for a forced AUH layover and then an 8:50am arrival into YYZ lines up for basically any flight back to CHA (DL/AA/UA) without having to spend the night in Toronto

CJKatl

OP, I do this all the time and have never had any issues. Once my international flight time changed. My flight to JFK would not get me there on time. The phone agent moved that flight without charge or penalty even though it was a different PNR.

Over the summer, there was about a $1k difference between flying out of LA and flying out of ATL to Asia. I used a 12k SM ticket to position myself in LA. Earlier this year, JFK was by far the cheapest ticket, so I used SM to fly to JFK and flew out of JFK on another PNR. On the return, I was supposed to fly DTW-JFK to pick up the other PNR back to ATL, but in DTW, an agent voluntarily, without my asking, put me on a flight directly back to ATL.

Pharaoh

Have you checked with the cruise line (or their "recommended" flight company)? They often have quite attractive deals/prices just for such one way flights. And maybe even better with flights to USH, too.

MSPeconomist

However, these could be bulk or consolidator fares, so be careful about calculating miles earned.