broston

A friend and I were looking for a mileage flight between NYC and MSP. On my laptop the r/t flight was shown repeatedly as 35K miles. On hers - concurrently with mine - it was shown as 65K miles. Same dates, same times, same flights. Does Delta discriminate based on who's asking? Or is this something else?

flyerwma

Delta awards miles ("ordinary" miles, not Medallion Qualification Miles, which are used to determine status) based on the price paid for the ticket. There is also a multiplier to that amount based on the status of the passenger. So someone who pays more earns more miles. And someone with status that pays the same amount as a non-status person earns more miles, and that amount differs based on the person's status.

xliioper

What dates and what flights? You say R/T "flight", but an award roundtrip is going to have more than one flight. Did you select both outgoing and return flights? Also, if you specify "NYC" in one search, and a specific New York airport in another, it's will likely show different mileage RT amounts (for the same outbound flights), as the return flight options will be restricted to a particular airport in the second search. Without further details on the search or screenshots, there's little to conclude here. DL price listings for RT revenue/award bookings are unusual in that they show a "lowest" total RT price on the outbound flight listings while other airlines only show a one-way price. In order to see what that "lowest" fare is based on, you have to actually select an outbound flight and see which return flights are being used to produce that fare. There is currently an issue with D1 fare listing in that the "lowest" fare being shown on the outbound flight listings is often incorrect (it seems to exclude many Z fares). However, when you actually select one of the outbound flight options, it recalculates fare amounts and actually will select lower priced Z fare options if they are available for the flight.

xliioper

OP looks to be looking at award redemptions, not mileage earning.

kop84

My guess is there was some small difference as was already pointed out, NYC vs JFK or LGA, will give you different options, one of you could have selected direct fights only, and the return granting the lower miles rate was actually a connection. There are a ton of variables that could account for the discrepancy.

Some here will claim proof of price differences between being logged in or not, but it's never really been verified to be the case.

Screenshots would help get to the bottom of it

flyerwma

Missed that. Thanks.

Could it be as simple as 1 seat available at that level, which goes to OP. Then friend searches and gets next higher level.

MSPeconomist

In the past, elites were supposed to see enhanced availability for (coach) award tickets.

There were studies claiming that the type of computer/device (apple or not) matters as well as the browser can matter for pricing algorithms.