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Is Delta moving to additive pricing on intl trips with connections?

Is Delta moving to additive pricing on intl trips with connections?

Old Dec 5, 2017, 7:37 am
  #1  
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Is Delta moving to additive pricing on intl trips with connections?

So ever since the day that US-Europe low J awards went from 70k to 86k (but now are back to 70k), US-India awards have been all over the place. Coach awards are now 50k from 40k and J awards went from 97.5k to 120k (even when one segment is flown by delta - was the old system where 100% partner was 120k). Also if you fly coach US-Europe and then J from Europe too India, they want 120k even though the low coach is 40k and J EU-India is 65k - so cheaper to just have two awards on one ticket (have no idea why delta is mispricing even these awards.- its cheating in my mind - I have had two awards on one ticket many times). Well today, just to make things weirder, US-Inida now price at 135 when low J is available on Delta US-Europe for 70k and the partner award is available from EU-India for 65k (so 70+65=135 and not the previous 97.5 or 120k). I just want to point out that AA still charges 70k and UA 85k w/partners for US-India (also EU-India on both is 42.5k, DL's old rate, and not 65k).

Which leads me to my question, is this a "glitch" or is Delta going to launch additive pricing when you fly international? I actually sent a question to DL last week about the rise form 97.5k to 120k (just asking if it is a glitch or permanent. I have not heard back.

Before I get slammed, I feel DL can charge what ever they want. I just think changing prices every 6 months is just too much and then the roll out is in pieces, some are glitches, some are real. Who knows. Also why is a J ticket US-India 135k while US-DXB 85k or JFK-SIN (80k or 85k - can't remember). There seems to be no logic.
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Old Dec 5, 2017, 7:49 am
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DL employs married segment logic on awards and has for sometime. If there is no award availability on a through itinerary involving a connection, it will price as a broken fare award using multiple fares. It is trivial to check whether or not you are getting a broken fare by simply clicking on the fare rules. The 120K fares are CSM1200's single through fares. Not really clear if that is the new low for India or if they simply don't have inventory in lower through fare buckets at this time. It's not unusual to see the lower award buckets zero'd from time to time on flights to Australia, so the same could be true for India.

It's much easier to get a definitive list of through award fares to Europe by searching month-by-month using various non-stop itins (no non-stop's to India, so you can't employ that technique there). Here are the current European levels for J which is down to 5 (from the previous 6 levels). There's also an 85K level for partner over-water awards.

CSV700 70K
CSL860 86K
CSH1100 110K
CSM1350 135K
CSY2250 225K

Last edited by xliioper; Dec 5, 2017 at 8:12 am
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Old Dec 5, 2017, 8:04 am
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I am aware of married segments. Book a ton of awards. US-India has never had this issue on DL flights to Partner flights when Low was available. Plus its day after day. Even one year out. The only married segment logic I have seen on US-India has been partner to partner where AF and VS do make more availability for US-Inida through pax then just US-EU sometimes. But you could be right in that DL married segments now only it seems the logic is NO onward to India, must price as two awards which to me is the same as pricing additive.
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Old Dec 5, 2017, 8:20 am
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Originally Posted by CaliguyNYC
I am aware of married segments. Book a ton of awards. US-India has never had this issue on DL flights to Partner flights when Low was available. Plus its day after day. Even one year out. The only married segment logic I have seen on US-India has been partner to partner where AF and VS do make more availability for US-Inida through pax then just US-EU sometimes. But you could be right in that DL married segments now only it seems the logic is NO onward to India, must price as two awards which to me is the same as pricing additive.
No, it's not always additive. I'm seeing plenty of CSM1200 single through fare awards to India (checked to BOM and DEL). Again, it's easy to see that this is a single through fare by clicking on the fare rules as there is only one fare listed. If it was a broken fare, there would be multiple award fares listed. It could be the CSM1200 is the new low, or it could be there are lower award fares, but they have just currently zero'd out the fare buckets for those through EOS. Pretty much how the CSV700 fare buckets to Europe all seemed to be zero'd out a few days ago when the lowest award fares showing were CSL860's.
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Old Dec 5, 2017, 11:14 am
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So I am only seeing partner to partner flights meaning VS to 9W or AF to AF as 120k. DL to partner prices at 135k with CSV 700 and CSM 650 (70k+65k for 135k). In all the years I've been Diamond, never seen low to India price like this. Anyway probably something screwed up. Just not clear why US-India would have this glitch and no where else. Intended or a mistake, its just one more thing that makes redeeming miles way too complicated. I would much rather have DL pick a cost of redemptions and just stick to it for 1 year. Have no enhancements and glitches. Its like redeeming GUCs - one agent says one thing the other agent something else. Its exhausting fighting for what DL allowed us to earn. The redemption process is part of Delta's customer service from my perspective. I've shifted some flying and CC spend to United. Redeeming there is relatively painless andI have very low status. Let's see if DL answers my question on what is going on US-India awards.
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Old Dec 5, 2017, 11:23 am
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I haven't really been checking India awards, but broken fare awards have been present in other markets that I have been regularly checking (US, Europe, and Asia) for well over a year (and probably have been there since the new award system was put in place). I make mention of observing broken fare awards in this post from March, 2016. In that case, it was a DTW-SFO-LAX award for 18K with DTW-SFO at 14.5K and SFO-LAX at 3.5K.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/26396166-post6.html

Last edited by xliioper; Dec 5, 2017 at 11:30 am
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Old Dec 6, 2017, 10:33 am
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So I heard back from Delta. They are saying there is no glitch on US-India awards. So it looks like if you fly only partners it will be one award at 120k. If you fly a mix with a DL flight and a partner flight, it will price additive (meaning two separate awards) at 135K. Really unbelievable and sad (why are 100% partner flights cheaper than Delta + Partner). But they can do what they want to do. At least they made the change in December so I can decide what I will do in 2018. Do I status match or not. And Kudos to DL for responding to me honestly. I appreciate that,
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Old Dec 6, 2017, 10:49 am
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Originally Posted by CaliguyNYC
So I heard back from Delta. They are saying there is no glitch on US-India awards. So it looks like if you fly only partners it will be one award at 120k. If you fly a mix with a DL flight and a partner flight, it will price additive (meaning two separate awards) at 135K. Really unbelievable and sad (why are 100% partner flights cheaper than Delta + Partner). But they can do what they want to do. At least they made the change in December so I can decide what I will do in 2018. Do I status match or not. And Kudos to DL for responding to me honestly. I appreciate that,
How did you contact them? I'm curious if you messaged SkyMiles Team on here, called the Medallion Line, called Customer Service, etc. Thanks.
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Old Dec 6, 2017, 11:18 am
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Delta.com seems to be bombing out when searching for roundtrip revenue tickets to India right now. One-way works okay, but roundtrip always seems to fail no matter what the origin and destination. Booking on third party sites seems to be okay, it's just delta.com that's broke. It's possible the award ticketing issues might be related to the current revenue ticketing problems.

Hmm, ITA Matrix and Google Flights are also having issues (but I think Delta licenses Matrix/Google Flights for it's fare search engine, so I suppose that makes sense).

Last edited by xliioper; Dec 6, 2017 at 11:24 am
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Old Dec 6, 2017, 11:23 am
  #10  
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Misunderstood.
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Old Dec 6, 2017, 1:57 pm
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Originally Posted by btonkid12345
How did you contact them? I'm curious if you messaged SkyMiles Team on here, called the Medallion Line, called Customer Service, etc. Thanks.
I used the website. Basically said I just wanted to know if there was a glitch and if the 120k was the correct new pricing. They said there was no glitch (did not mention that 120k was new pricing, but I didn't expect them to confirm any pricing given the have no award chart). The 135k pricing as additive awards when DL and partner mixed only started after I sent in the message. So that is not confirmed if it is a mistake or true. I will say this - if the India pricing holds, I cannot see US-Middle east and Asia staying where they are. It would make no sense.
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Old Dec 6, 2017, 2:58 pm
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Believe something similar is also happening with US-EU awards. It used to be if the longhaul Delta segment and shorthaul KL/AF segment were combined, it would price at 70K for a low J award. Now, it is pricing at 95K miles.
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Old Dec 6, 2017, 3:36 pm
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Originally Posted by CaliguyNYC
So I heard back from Delta. They are saying there is no glitch on US-India awards. So it looks like if you fly only partners it will be one award at 120k. If you fly a mix with a DL flight and a partner flight, it will price additive (meaning two separate awards) at 135K. Really unbelievable and sad (why are 100% partner flights cheaper than Delta + Partner). But they can do what they want to do. At least they made the change in December so I can decide what I will do in 2018. Do I status match or not. And Kudos to DL for responding to me honestly. I appreciate that,
That is likely so if you are getting a DL flight at one of the SkyHigh vs. at the normal award price. At the normal price it should price at through fare, but it will be additive if the DL flight is anything but the normal award price.
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Old Dec 6, 2017, 7:20 pm
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In the past, it was cheaper to fly IAD-CDG-BUD than it was IAD-CDG. Pricing a trip over the President's holiday in February, IAD-CDG-BUD was $677 RT, while ending the trip at CDG was just $574.
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Old Dec 6, 2017, 8:48 pm
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Originally Posted by Barbella7
Believe something similar is also happening with US-EU awards. It used to be if the longhaul Delta segment and shorthaul KL/AF segment were combined, it would price at 70K for a low J award. Now, it is pricing at 95K miles.
Yup I played around and a DL flight US-EU at the low 70K that connects to a partner for internal EU flights now prices as additive - 70k+15K=95K and not Low plus low which should give 70k. To me this is a huge change in Skymiles. Especially with metal neutral JV's. You can have flights change from DL to Partner but the redemption price will change dramatically. I fail to see why a partner flight US-EU connect to a EU partner flight prices at 70k but a delta plus a partner flight in EU prices at 95k (meaning additive). Seems they are saying a DL award cannot be mixed with a partner award. They will be additive. So seems like a bigger change than just india (although India redemptions are totally crazy compared to the rest of the world).

Btw in Asia a partner flight SEA-ICN-HKG prices at 95K but DL SEA-ICN to KE OCN-HKG prices at 80k. Makes no sense. The opposite is happening US-EU. Nothing makes any sense
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