10+ years ago miles came from flying so the supply was limited..
more recently however airlines developed a practice of selling miles to people and then devaluing them - boom! - instant profit without any actual business

it's probably time for regulators/consumer protection to take a close look at those practices...

My useless pile of AA miles agrees with this sentiment.

The response would be the same. There are alternatives. If they are less palatable then you do a cost/benefit analysis based on your personal parameters and pick one. UA offers a nonstop on SFO-BWI but I choose to connect.

What worries me is that airlines tried to penalty so-called hidden city tickets. Adding DL segment to lower mileage price and drop the segment might sound like the same trick.

The thread should be retitled to 'Same old Delta raised award price for partner airlines without a notice'

It seems as if the lowest tier (5k) may have also increased to 6k or at least they've removed some routes (RDU - NYC in this case specifically) from the 5k list.

Over the past year I can usually find RDU - NYC and v.v. for 5k as long as I'm flexible, indifferent to NYC airport (LGA, EWR, or JFK) and it wasn't a holiday weekend. It's gone up to 6k on all dates I'd been previously tracking but hadn't yet pulled the trigger but C+ has remained the same at 9k.

Still a good value at 6k (AA and UA saver is 7.5k and 10k respectively on this route) but another stealth devaluation nonetheless.

Similarly, SF Bay Area to Seattle coming up at 6k where it was previously 5k. 5,500 for any side of the SFBA, LAX/SAN, LAS triangle.

A SFO-SEA 6K comes up with a fare code of YSMK060, whereas SJC-LAS 5,500 is YSMS055. I'm not entirely sure how this fits into @javabytes's treatise: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...s-dynamic.html

But YSMK isn't on his list, so this may mean they've introduced another (sub-)tier and YSM050 might still be lurking around and just unavailable?

Wow. Even UA kept the mileage levels for Y the same if using a partner airline. Even if the itinerary is completely on partner metal.

Must be it depends on the route. I see the same price range (5,500 miles) for LAX-SFO or LAX-PHX as it used to be prior to most recent devaluation.

The "loophole" which allowed to get partner awards at old (lower) levels when itinerary had domestic connection on DL metal is now closed. It looks like +15K business class pricing goes in effect if main (transatlantic or transpac) section is not DL. Partner connection in Europe or Asia in conjunction with DL flight does not trigger higher price. Examples:

SEA-DL-SFO-KE-ICN = 95K
SEA-DL-NRT-KE-ICN = 80K

And absolutely no heads up....
 

This is the worst when it comes to award pricing in DL. You won't know what you are dealing with until you see the final pricing from the DL website. There's absolutely no transparency whatsoever. Not even a heads-up? Kinda solidify my thought processes to either credit them into DL or use non-ST partners when I fly EU-Asia in July.

SkyPesos management continues the sleazy practices of Slippery Jeff where openness and transparency go against the corporate ethos.

I was looking at booking the 80,000 flight as I figured the taxes on KE made it close in value. Now I don't think so.

Their "partner" KE charges just 62,500...(UR points)+taxes

:confused:

Thank you for pointing that out. '...Solidify my thought process of *not* crediting any ST flights into DL...'

Yep. Same for bookings in Y. For example, SAN-SEA (DL)/ SEA-LHR (VS) is 35K one-way. Not 30K miles. However, doing something like SAN-SEA-AMS (DL)/ AMS-LHR (KL) is still 30K.