rucksack

I know there are countless threads about the fact that TATL award fares have gone way up over the last few years. But what I'm seeing now just seems unreasonable. I'm researching a trip to Europe this winter and I'm seeing one way rates of 105,000 miles no matter what dates or destination (within Europe) I choose over the next 90 days. It seems to me that they have a 90-day advanced purchase restriction for any lower level award tickets, because decent award fares suddenly come back exactly 90 days out. In comparison, both United and American have the exact same routes for 30k miles one way with ample low level availability.

Kacee

105k one-way for economy? That's absurd.

3Cforme

LBJ has posted extensively on the topic. Partner awards can be one mechanism to avoid the advance purchase rules for lower priced award redemptions.

If you like AA and UA award availability, accrue their miles. That's how the market is supposed to work.

xliioper

There have been several discussions here on this topic. There are a number of RT awards for less miles that do not have a 90-day advance purchase requirement. You won't see these when doing one-way searches. Advance purchase requirements for each award level can be found by clicking on the "Fare Rules" link for the award.

There are reduced rate coach awards to Europe out of BOS and JFK if you are based out of there or can reposition (can potentially use hidden city on return if based in another hub). The below roundtrip awards have 30-day AP and Sat night stay requirement. In some cases, there are additional levels with lower AP requirements. Here's a few I found.

BOS-LHR 32K RT
BOS-AMS 34K RT
BOS-FRA 38K RT
BOS-DUB 38K RT
BOS-CDG 38K RT
BOS-AGP 40K RT
BOS-FCO 42K RT
JFK-LHR 32K RT
JFK-FRA 32K RT
JFK-MAD 32K RT
JFK-ALC 36K RT
JFK-DUB 46K RT
JFK-BCN 46K RT

rucksack

Yes, for economy.

My point of mentioning that UA and AA have plenty of low level availability is to indicate that Delta's high award fares can't be justified by peak demand. The advance purchase restrictions are purely punitive.

rucksack

I'm seeing RT fares that are less than the $105k OW, but the problem is that I'm continuing on from Europe to another destination. You can't redeposit miles if you cancel the return leg of a RT award fare more than 72 hours before the flight can you?

Gig103

I'm not so sure that I'd say there's "plenty" of AA availability, and the YQ on their TATL tickets are usually hundreds of dollars each way. I'm not saying that 30k+$300 is competitive to $100k though.

I noticed something else doing a test search. I found r/t were 104k (AA would be 60k), so this is more to do with how one-way cash TATL fares cost almost or as much as round trip TATL when leaving the USA. Can you book a round trip with a distant return date and then possibly just do a change of date later?

Edit: Oh, you saw this too. What about a multi-city award?

rucksack

In this case there was no YQ for the AA award... only the $5.60 TSA fee.

I did find a 29,000 mile award in Y with Flying Blue miles. Opted to do J instead for 62,500 miles + YQ on AF's Dreamliner. I haven't flown the 787 yet and want to give it a try.

oyouno

I noticed this too. Pretty ridiculous for delta.
105k 1 way europe.
58k roundtrip europe.....with about 30% availability though.

58k is about the normal price.

ethernal

Delta has intentionally removed most of the flexibility that mile fares used to have. The only remanent of the old days of yore is free refunds for PM and DM. Delta is trying to slowly boil the frog and get 1 SkyMile = 1 cent of fares. This is why they "ban" one ways: one way TATL fares are expensive (for some reason or another). Over time Delta will continue to add more and more restrictions to better match actual fare prices until - for all intents and purposes - they're the same.

Delta has made it clear that they are not interested in making SkyMiles a competitive part of their loyalty program. It is what it is.

CPMaverick

Mixing one-way awards (with different programs) was one of the ways to make use of scant award availability. It's a shame DL is taking that option away (through skyrocketing OW award rates), and I don't really understand why this benefits DL.

RealHJ

This benefits DL by having more and more pax accumulate more and more SlyMiles, that will be worth less and less in the future. Essentially, it's hyper-inflation on the actual redeemable value of the DL SM liability, which means that the liability for DL goes down.

GUWonder

CPMaverick

Raising award levels or restricting availability in general does that. But why target OW awards?

warakorn

Europe - USA return fares range in the EUR 300-500 range, esp. during winter and with 90 day before.
Why would anyone waste miles?