bennos

Sure, and in DL terms 82k of your award currency has an exchange rate value of US$820, which is still a great deal relative to the price DL charges for these seats.

I'm not defending DL's lack of price transparency on award tickets and other sketchy practices, but we've been down this road a thousand times before. If redeemable miles (especially in premium cabins) are your FFP goal then SkyMiles is not the right program for you.

Marq

Thanks for the information in this thread; I booked outbound a few weeks ago for 70K and started looking today for return and found either 82K or 280K. I knew I could find the explanation on FlyerTalk.

Again, thanks for the explanations.

Marc

RealHJ

82K is the new 70K.

Just like 42.5K was the new 35K, and then it quickly became that 60K is the new 35K. And so on..

xliioper

Not sure if you are aware of this already, but you'll also get stuck with carrier-imposed surcharges on a one-way award redemption from the EU. Roundtrip awards with a US origin are not subject to these (as long as you are flying DL/KL/AF/VS).

Marq

I am now; really no way around this. I booked at midnight 331 days out for outbound and glad to get 70K awards. Return is a couple months later; only option will be to see what it costs for round trip at that time and see if it is worth the fee to redeposit the miles for the outbound; doesn't sound like that will be worthwhile.

thanks,

Marc

ATLawyer

There is absolutely a way around it. Call and have Delta remove the EU-origination surcharge, since it's not an EU origination ticket. I've done this several times when booking in this manner (two separate one way tickets to/from EU that complete the RT). You will have to call to book the ticket, but they will waive any fees since there is no way to get it to price correctly on the web.

javabytes

DL is winning the war against y'all if you've already accepted the worst-case PWM rate as the new, normal value of SkyPesos.

flyerCO

They may have done it, but it was a courtesy, not policy. Also how does 2 separate OW TO EU make a RT?

RealHJ

I am very surprised they do so, as this really could be easily "abused." Someone can book US-EU and EU-US, get the fees removed. Then cancel US-EU. But it's two separate tickets, so the EU-US is not going to get repriced of course.

ATLawyer

It is absolutely a policy. The fee is for EU origin tickets. If your ticket isn't EU origin (i.e. you live in the U.S., are transiting to/from your U.S. base on Delta both ways) they CAN NOT charge you the fee. It's just not an automated process to have the fee removed. I've done it 5-6 times, never an issue. This was discussed at length in the old "how to book award ticket" thread.

In my cases, the tickets were obviously RT (1-2 weeks apart). Having the return multiple months apart may be more difficult. But still, you should be able to have them "re-calculate" the taxes/fees as a RT fare. In the past when they have done this for me and no low miles availability was currently available, they had to "force" the availability of the originally booked segment and re-issue as a RT. With the change in the amount of low miles required, this may pose additional problems.

ATLawyer

In my experience when doing this, they simply re-issue the tickets as a RT, and force availability of the prior booked segment in the mileage amount originally booked in the event the price has changed. Just ask for the international reissue desk, this is routine for them, but many front line agents have no clue about the EU-origin fee.

KingBraden

Just another data point I have done it 3 or 4 times and it always worked this way.

RealHJ

To reissue as RT makes sense, yes.

That is prone to difficulties though, given the lack of transparency in pricing, so not only the original outbound fare class (pricing) not being available anymore, even if yes it may price out as more RT...only a few who can do it - to both override the mileage and "tax" calculation, and if changing two OWs to RT can't really do it as an even exchange reissue either (int'l manual reissue). Possible, just not easy. Really depends on the agent you get and how much they advocate for you, and then to whom do they get through I'd expect.

This is VERY good to know and will surely help many here. Many thanks for posting and sharing! ^

flyerCO

When was the last time you did this? The Wiki in the thread you point to even says that you'll be charged the EU origination fee. Can you point to something specific that says this is policy? I ask because what you state flies in the face of what every post in this forum says. The fee is based on the origin of the ticket. Living in the US has zero to do with it.

sdix

Delta miles are like Sushi. They do not get better with age! If I see something reasonable i'll book it as it probably won't be there later.