woogallymoogally

Allright, all you expert flyers... I'm hoping to pick your brains. Long story short - I'm starting to research a bucket-list trip for next year, and I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the info I'm coming across. Hoping you all can help!

The challenge: Get myself and my spouse to Europe somewhere around August 2019, via a comfy-cozy seat class to minimize how much the transit sucks. We can fly out of MCO or TPA.

The resources: We have two buckets of SkyMiles we can pull from: one has about 175k available; the other has 146k currently.

Our current assumptions:

• Attempting to get awards tickets in DeltaOne class seems to be optimal (?)
• Those are going to be super spendy, but we might barely have enough awards tickets if we can find a way to bump up my spouse's pool over the next few months, and we try to pull the trigger as soon as seats open up for the timeframe we're looking to go on

Our questions:

• is flying Delta, and trying to sit in DeltaOne, the way to go, as we assume? Or might we be happier and/or make better use of miles by flying a partner airline or trying a different class of seat we aren't familiar with (Based on our available # of miles)?
• My spouse is being told they aren't elligible for any cards with a bonus via DeltaAmexCardsDotCom (ok, FT doesn't like me posting links!) . Are there any other good ways to pick up some bonus miles to "pad" their pool of SkyMiles to ensure we have enough for a cozy trip?
• Are our assumptions above correct re: needing to be ready to book award seats as soon as they open up, 1 year in advance of when we'd be looking to travel?
• Are there any tricks / issues we should be aware of re: trying to book two flights under two different SkyMiles numbers?
• What's the best way to search for well-priced awards seats like this? So far I've just been playing with the Delta fare search and plotting random destinations (b/c we're flexible and could go in/out of a number of cities), but I wonder if there's some sort of "dream map" feature buried on delta/elsewhere that will let us essentially search for the good reward seat deals?
  

Thanks in advance for any and all thoughts. I've honestly spent a few hours reading online already, and I'm just overwhelmed with what I'm running through!

SDQBound

DeltaOne is not First Class, it's Business Class. Only Air France offers First Class over the Atlantic (Skyteam partner) and these seats cannot be booked using Delta Miles.

Depending on the route, Air France could also be a good choice provided that they have the new Business Class Seats, it also could be cheaper than DL. Also look for VS.
You can book 330 days in advance, but it doesn't guarantee that there will be seats available to book with miles in advance.
The best way to find well-priced award seats is delta.com. There's a thread about this with some tips, although it is a bit old.

Jaimito Cartero

As Chris Rock said, “There is no sex in the champagne room”. Or Delta first class awards to Europe, or Asia...

Mr. Tickets

Booking as soon as the flights are opened up for sale is not necessarily going to find the best award or upgrade availability. There is no rule that says they have
to have awards in the lowest mileage redemption. Sometimes that only happens closer to departure after Delta finds they maybe cannot get the maximum they
were hoping for. Also, Delta has lots of "history" and they have a pretty good idea of what type of redemption values they can get. August is still in the peak
European travel time period. Delta One is a nice product, no doubt about it. But it will cost you in the summer season.

3Cforme

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

Do you have a destination airport in mind? People here can suggest routings and partner carriers. Most - but not all - partner carriers can be searched for awards on delta.com.

ChinaShrek

Is Alitalia still bookable on Delta? They have a great business class seat.

ron187

Delta One is nice, but I would argue that KLM, Virgin Atlantic, or Air France (except a380) business class can often just as good of a product, if not better because Delta flies so many 767s with poor seat configurations in J to Europe. It might be worth looking for something on a partner unless you are dead set on DL.

The good news is that you're looking for space a long time out, so you have some time to watch award availability, BUT the summer can be quite tricky to find any space at all.

ATOBTTR

Welcome to FT.
First, know that a Business Class (Delta One) ticket to Europe is going to run a minimum of 140K r/t (70K each way), barring mileage redemption sales, and that finding that space is going to be difficult, especially for summer flights (even if you start looking way in advance for August of next year). DL now also used "dynamic" pricing as well (which means it's supposed to be reflective of the revenue price of the ticket) so you may seem some wild and crazy redemptions, such as 200K+ one-way for one person for Business Class. Partner redemptions will book at a flat rate and will book at the "low" rate plus a premium (so 85K to Europe). Note: Sometime you will see a flight where the long leg is on a partner where the flight is more than this because of the available award space is on a connecting domestic flight. For example, JFK-LHR may be 85K on Virgin Atlantic but adding in a domestic flight to get to JFK drives it up to 105K. The pricing is then becoming additive because "low" space is not available on the DL domestic segment. Something to keep in mind.

If you could find the space, Virgin Atlantic does MCO-LGW and it would run 85K miles each way (170K r/t).

DL is 331 days in advance (so roughly 11 months). Sometimes this is the best time for award tickets. Sometimes it isn't. The trick is getting an itinerary you're happy enough with when you see it.

One risk is you book one ticket, then go to book the next one, and the flight is no longer available or is more miles. That's the biggest risk. You should be protected by the 24 hour rule so you could cancel the first one. You can also call have an agent book the flight from different accounts. After that, there should be no noticeable differences except that you'll have separate reservation numbers and may not automatically be rebooked together in the event of schedule changes or IROPs.

Yep - extensive amounts of playing with DL.com. Since DL's pricing for mileage awards is supposed to be "dynamic" you'll see cases where maybe MCO-ATL-Europe is available for 70K while just ATL-Europe is significantly more. On the other hand, partner space is often for a specific segment. So maybe check ATL-LHR or JFK-LHR or JFK-CDG or other cities that Air France/KLM/Virgin Atlantic serve to see if award space is available on the partners, and then consider booking a a cheap flight (the "positioning flight") to that city a little while later (leaving sufficient "layover"/connection time). ProTip: Book this positioning flight through DL. You'll have better protection in IROPs and DL will check your bags through across separate tickets on many partners, including Air France, KLM, and Virgin Atlantic. Booking another carriers offers no protection in IROPs. Say you book JetBlue for MCO-JFK and then the JetBlue flight is delayed/canceled and you miss the JFK-Europe flight booked through DL. DL is under no obligation to assist you as it wasn't their fault you no-showed.

ijgordon

Well, outside of Christmas and Thanksgiving week, August is probably the LOWEST season for business class travel to Europe. There is no business in Europe happening in August! So this is often when you find the best discount-fares. Used to be $2k r/t from East Coast but I think in the last few years prices have moved up to the $2.4k range, although sometimes you'll find a deal. (Coach on the other hand, is in very high demand and very expensive.)

I'm not entirely sure this translates into additional award availability with partners, or lower mileage requirements on Delta metal, but it probably does. (Though your other comments about the timing I certainly agree with).

Of course spending 150k miles for a r/t ticket that you could buy for $2.4k isn't the best use of miles, but obviously everyone has their own thresholds and their own bank accounts.

dmac7273

Keep an eye out for Delta flash sales. Last year the wife and I both booked Delta One awards from ATL to MAD for 110k miles each. The "normal" price for this route is 140k miles and up.

J.M. Hoffman

In spite of what DSQBound (correctly) says, Delta's "Delta One" is what you probably have in mind when you ask about "first class," even though it's technically business class. And yes, it's a great way to fly to Europe.

Your best bet, sadly, is to call Delta. They can often find routings and award options that aren't displayed on-line. Plan on a long call.

In terms of getting more Delta miles, your best bet is Amex signup bonuses. No reason you shouldn't be eligible for some of them.

woogallymoogally

This is super helpful, thank you!! Where would one be notified of these flash sales? I've not come across this tip (or noticed any myself); super helpful!

Awesome, thank you! I was definitely googling the difference - looks like D1 is what I was thinking of / hoping for.


Errrr... can't figure out how to delete now... I totally failed at replying properly, oops.

This is super helpful, thanks! Fingers crossed it works out this way; we can also be flexible and go more like July/Sept/Oct if Aug sucks for travel, but if Aug works, then awesome. I see your point re: paying directly. I was seeing prices like 10k/seat on Delta's site, but perhaps that's for peak time. We also don't have 5k floating around to actually pay out of pocket (that needs to go to the trip), but we do have these miles. So I'm OK if the cost/benefit isn't there since it's still a net minimal cost to us... but point definitely taken!

This is suuuuuuper helpful, thanks for all the insight, especially re: the idea of a "positioning flight" on Delta. I'll be sure to check out some of those other airlines too, which I'm assuming based on your comment will also take SkyMiles. Really insightful re: the rates of redemption on Delta vs. others; will definitely be digging into this. Thank you!

Good question! We don't at the moment. Best guess right now is Amsterdam, Berlin, or possibly somewhere in Scandinavia - honestly we were looking at flights first then going to see what sounded interesting. Which I realize is a super weird way to plan a trip, but there are more places we want to see than we have time to do, so we're maximizing travelling comfortably in a way we can afford with SkyMiles. Which may be weird, but that's where we're at!

Interesting question, I've not heard of them, I'll poke around!

Good to know, thanks. I'm curious whether, if I book and the price later drops, I'm able to re-book at the lower cost? Mostly rhetorical but I'll definitely look into it. I'd hate to risk not having a seat at all, but point taken about it ending up being more expensive by pulling the trigger too soon.

DARN IT, that was on my bucket list too (Ok, I kid...)

Thanks for the tips, super helpful. Will definitely look into Air France. Not sure what VS is, though?

All in all, wall of text aside... thank you all so much for fast replies and good insight so far! Y'all rock.

ElmhurstNick

Welcome to FT!

Going through London and splitting tickets will incur a ton of taxes when leaving London in a premium class.

Looking at DL for this August for a random destination in the center of things, there are still combinations at 156k for D1 MCO-ATL-MXP or MCO-ATL-MUC. It looks like Friday returns are the easiest - there were 5 seats coming back from MXP-ATL and 4 from AMS-MCO on the return day I picked. I used Sat 8/11 to Fri 8/24 as the search after I did a week-long search and narrowed it down.

So booking early is fine, but I certainly wouldn't book anything more expensive than 156k per person unless there was a immovable constraint on travel dates.

CarmenOM

woogallymoogally

That's really helpful, thank you! I keep seeing these flights at, say, 225k points and thinking "woooow that's insane", so nice to have a gut-check that yes, that's really pretty high, and it's not just that my barometer is off. Good call on checking MUC or MXP too, hadn't poked around those, but will definitely do so. MXP hadn't even crossed our radar, but now that you mention it, could be super fun, so I'll definitely check that out.

Not sure if it was intentional, but in one reply you just managed to clue me in on about 4 different acronyms I hadn't been able to figure out so far! Thanks for that, and the ideas re: those other fare options. I'll definitely check those out; we're not tied to DeltaOne; it's more that Comfort Plus didn't look that comfy for a long haul so we assumed it was the only way to go. Now I just have to figure out the next step of pricing all these other options and how to ultimately book them.

Seriously - you all are great. Thanks for the continued insight and quick replies! You're making me feel much less overwhelmed than I have been.