Asmara

Where do I post this ... "search for low tier business awards," or "delta.com bug reporting??"

Sadly, I don't think it's a bug, probably an "enhancement."

When searching the calendar today for availability ATL-LAX, the flexible dates calendar search option was removed from award searches.

Click "money" and search: all options are there.
Click "miles," and search: all flex dates options disappear!

I hope this is only a temporary glitch, not a sign of further obfuscating redemption value.


Pics:

lbcnu

It still works for me. Once you have put in your desired travel date, just click "find flights" and that will bring up the calendar. Then you can choose flexible days, or 5 weeks.

Asmara

That's true, if you pull up the flexible dates by selecting "money," you can change it to "miles" on the next screen. Hopefully we won't lose the functionality!

HWGeeks

I noticed this as well, when looking for flights that left this week to SDQ and to SJU.

For SDQ it didn't show the flexible dates option for SJU it did.

For SDQ there were no seats available to purchase with miles for the next several weeks but for SJU there was, so it made me wonder if it had to do with that.

davetravels

You can do an award flexible date search from the home page - - Screenshot #1

That gives you to a 7 day search result - Screenshot #2

Then, click on "5 WEEKS" and you get - Screenshot #3

What am I missing?!?

If you want First / Delta One class awards, you hafto change it in step 2

RealHJ

Given Dullta's track record, there is a real possibility that it will be "enhanced" (taken) away. This may be the first step - an unintended early preview given how DL seemingly never does Q&A and just rolls out untested changes live - towards that.

xliioper

There are at least 3 different threads on this bug. Could people please do a search before posting yet another new thread on it again. FYI, even though the button is missing, it still defaults to a "flexible" search for awards. Yes, there are some issues with certain destinations that are only served by partners (although you can still do a day-by-day award search on these by starting with a revenue search).

No more flex date award searches?
Flexible dates not allowed for award tickets?
What happened to flexible date search for miles?

Asmara

Sorry everyone. I searched for Award Calendar but missed those.

bbbacres

I can not seem to find a way to display flexible dates for a muticity trip. I got it for a round trip but for some reason can not seem to activate it for multicity. If Delta does not allow this is there another travel device (eg google flights) that does?

xliioper

No such thing. You could do a one-way calendar search in each direction. However, this won't show roundtrip award fare options if you are looking for an open-jaw booking with Saturday night stay. To get those, you generally want to do a roundtrip calendar search from origin to destination, and then repeat roundtrip with same origin, but with the destination the city you want to return from . Click on the Fare Rules link to see the fare components in each direction and then use multi-city combine the cheapest outbound and return options. Depending on route, and if you are only looking for availability at lowest level, you may not need to do the roundtrip searches and just do one-way's. For example, low-level TATL D1 awards are 80K (CSV800 fares) and do not require a roundtrip purchase. They do, however, have a 90-day advance purchase requirement. Partner awards also do not have a roundtrip purchase requirement. However, the cheapest ones generally have a 60-day advance purchase requirement.

bbbacres

Thanks for the message. I did try searching roundtrips to both destinations and it worked. Sadly the results came out about where I was anyway, so no great savings, but at least I know it is NOT because I am a day or two off in my travel dates. Forgive my not quite understanding, but I was curious about your mention of D1 for 80k per way. When I do my normal searches, it is coming out with first class costing 350,000 and even 450,000 miles. If First cost me 160,000 that would be more, but not tons more, than the 120,000 I'm finding for lowest level coach. Can you explain more about this 80k per way option and where to find it? Sorry about my need for further help.

xliioper

You first mention D1, and then First class. Are you using these synonymously? As I mentioned above, the 80K one-way D1 awards have a 90-day advance purchase requirement. Are you searching at least 90 days out (you won't see anything at that rate for closer-in trips)? 90 days out from now puts you into late April to find availability. And just to be clear, that rate only applies to TATL routes to Europe. Is that what you are looking at? Other international destinations have different rates. There are also 100K each-way D1 awards on a number of European routes which have a 60-day advance purchase requirement (however, they don't seem to be offered on all European routes). But these have a roundtrip purchase with Saturday night stay requirement, so you will not see them with one-way searches or be able to purchase them as a one-way trip. You can, however, build an open-jaw multi-city award with them. It would be helpful to know which routes you are looking at. Some of the more obscure destinations are less likely to see availability than the routes where DL has non-stop service.

bbbacres

Thank you for taking the time to expand your answer and help. I want to fly from MSO (Montana) to AMS (Amsterdam) June 17 (approx) and return from NCE (Nice) to MSO on July 9. So it is more than 90 days out. Yes, I was using D! and First class synonymously. But never mind, is D1 (Delta 1?) that Sounds high enough for me

I'm not seeing anything like 80k miles each way, so I'm wondering if I'm searching the correct way.

With some repositioning I might be able to depart from and return to LAS (Vegas) but that would add additional cost.

xliioper

You'd be better off repositioning to MSP, SEA, PDX, or SLC which have non-stop AMS service. While you meet the 90-day advance purchase requirement, you also need availability in DL's lowest award inventory bucket (V) all the way through to MSO to get the 80K CSV800 awards. Unfortunately, that's very rare for a small station like MSO. You are more likely to find it on non-stop routes where you don't need married segment availability to cities that require a connection. I see availability at 80K on DL164 MSP-AMS on 6/15 and availability at 80K on KL1650,DL259,DL3111 VCE-AMS-BOS-MSP on 7/8. There's also availability on 7/9 at 80K for AZ1468,DL237 VCE-FCO-DTW.

bbbacres

Well, you are clearly a veteran traveler and thank you for sharing this advice with me. I'm returning from NCE rather than VCE, so your 2nd or return example does not apply. But I will see if it is possible. I do have a companion ticket I might have left unused this year. That might be a perfect purpose, repositioning with it. Keeping costs down. But there are two sides to my thinking, of course. Part of me thinks that D1 is not that big of a deal, but the times I have flown it going overseas were a pleasure. I like that side of things two. Plus you arrive in much better shape with less "recovery time" needed.