tom_MN

Haven’t flown Delta much but recently had 2 round trip flights, MSP>>SNA on a Delta ticket for which I got 2790 “base” miles and the point calculation method quoted is “R = Mileage earned based on ticket price.” Then I flew Delta & Air France MSP>>MRS on a KLM ticket (074____) for which I received 2698 base miles, system quoted is “D = Mileage earned based on distance flown.”

So I get more “base miles” for the much shorter flights? The SNA trip did cost more than the MRS trip.

Is the D designation for the MRS trip correct? If the round trip is 9558 miles how can it earn only 2698 base miles if calculated on distance flown? Delta seems to have calculated the Delta MSP>>AMS segments at 25% of miles flown, and the Air France segments at 50% of miles flown, unless I have that wrong. Is all this in a table somewhere? The Delta website is of little help and there’s a lot of medallion talk which I don’t need and confuses things. I'll never be medallion anything. Seems like I should get 100% of the miles flown on Delta deposited in my Skymiles account. Is there a penalty for buying Delta tickets from the KLM website when flying Delta? Or am I penalized for having a very cheap ticket.

I thought Delta was going to a Southwest type points system based on $$, their system is much easier to understand.

FlyerWx

What were the fare classes and the marketing carriers for each flight (on your KLM ticketed) itinerary?

xliioper

Partner earnings are listed here:

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_.../airlines.html

For the lower AF/KL fare classes, mileage earning can be as low 25% of actual miles for redeemable miles. The 100% mileage earning only applies to MQM's for Medallion status.

If you had purchased a DL 006 ticket, mileage earning would have been based on spend (5 miles/dollar for general member) regardless of carrier or flight coding. Also, a flight that is DL coded will earn based on spend. This is why your SNA trip earned based on spend.

Also, an 074 TATL ticket with all DL/KL segments now earns based on price instead of mileage. The inclusion of the AF segment is what caused DL to use mileage based earning.

C W

Delta has extremely clear earnings charts for all partners here. They are one of the best airlines in terms of ease of partner earning calculations.

If you need to know the distance between two airports, use gcmap.com

bj27

Delta is very good at showing the number of points you earn, but horrible at showing you how many points it costs to spend your hard earned points.

tom_MN

Unfortunately the fare classes for the MRS segments were not on the e-ticket and it's too late to look them up, but certainly could have been V, price was $340 plus taxes.

I guess what I missed was that flying on Delta may be calculated as a "partner" flight for Skymiles reasons if the ticket does not start 006. I guess I thought buying from AirFrance.com or KLM.com or Alitalia.com or delta.com would all be treated the same way.

I suppose I could have purchased on delta.com for $800 more for the same flights and got more Skymiles....

MSPeconomist

It you only paid $340 for the ticket, perhaps about $300 was the actual fare. If it had been ticketed on DL 006- stock for this price, the flight would have earned 300 MQDs (that you don't care about), about 5000 MQMs one way (that you also don't care about) and only $300 X 5 = 1,500 redeemable miles. So you actually did much better with the distanced based method because you had an extremely cheap ticket.

tom_MN

The actual ticket was $455, $340 was the base before taxes and customs fees.

TTT

Was your Delta flight Delta or KLM marketed?

MSPeconomist

OK, so it's $340 X 5 = 1,700 RDMs. My point still stands that the distanced based earning method benefitted you, even though you earned less than 100% of the distance flown.

C W

I'm confused as to what the problem is. You got more miles than you would have had you bought the ($340 basefare) ticket through Delta, and it was cheaper. So...?

Most of us would love 100% miles flown for everything, but those days are long gone and not coming back.

tom_MN

It just never occurred to me that flying on Delta could be considered a partner flight by Delta's own miles program.

Actually, delta.com was charging about $1200 for the MRS tickets, so subtract $115 for taxes and fees leaves $1085 base fare x 5 = 5425 miles for a 006 ticket. But that means spending $745 more to get 2727 more miles, probably a poor financial decision.

I'm not following the "marketed" questions, don't know what that means.

C W

Indeed. Sounds like you got the best possible outcome.

TTT

it refers to to whether the flight was sold as a DL flight or a KL flight.

So when you bought it was it sold as DL1234 MSP-AMS or KL5678 MSP-AMS?

tom_MN

I see, what matters is that I bought KLM flight # designations. So it doesn't really matter that the ticket number was 074_____, but that the ticket had KL XXXX operated by Delta (or Air France) on it?