highroller4321

Hi everyone,

I have around 500k miles saved up and was planning on saving them to use them for a delta one trip to Australia or similar. My question is should I keep saving the miles up or use them for other fun trips? My main concern is the points getting devalued over time. IE a trip now costs 20k miles but next year the same trip will cost 25k miles. Thoughts??

FlyingUnderTheRadar

My MO is to use miles when I want to travel for leisure and the usage of miles makes sense (~2 cents per mile). I rarely use them for D1 as I can usually find better value in coach.

highroller4321

Are you ever concerned about the miles getting "devalued"?

DesertNomad

I use mine for D1 fares as I would never pay cash for those. If the cash price for a Y fare is cheap enough, I do that over a "free" D1 ticket.

CPMaverick

Delta has devalued the Skymiles program a LOT over the last 5 years or so.

The biggest change, and the one anyone saving miles should be concerned about, is that they no longer publish award rates. That means award pricing can change at any time. It used to be, you could see that an award would cost 100k miles, and save up your miles for it. If they did change prices, it would be announced in advance, giving you at least some time to use what you've earned. Now, there is little incentive to save miles, because you really can't target a specific destination goal.

D1 rates in particular have skyrocketed under this new regime. If I were you, I'd be looking for ways to use my miles, not saving them. I used to be a big miles stockpiler, and I still hold reserves with UA and AA, but I am burning DL anytime I find something I can use. Because DL has made the future use of Skymiles impossible to predict.

guv1976

0.02 cents per mile is terrible value.

On the other hand, 2.0 cents per mile is decent.

FlyingUnderTheRadar

They are continuously being devalued. Thus I use them as I see fit and do not try to save them long term.

Opps, I gotta stop using Delta's calculator ...

indufan

Devalued is the most overused term in FlyerTalk history from its beginning, not in the last five years.

While their have been increases, there have also been decreases. There used to never be any awards for under 25,000 miles.

TheHorta

Gig103

I vote for use them as soon as you can, I wouldn't want to do 17 hours in the back of the bus to Australia so a Skymiles redemption is a good option there for your comfort. Unfortunately for us, Delta know that so their awards are crazy. I did a sample search (LAX-SYD, in Feb 2019) and found 625,000 is the cheapest award flight out there, and it went up to 930,000. The cheapest cash fare was $4486.

Do you have an American Express Skymiles card? if so, you will want (maybe need) to do the "Pay with miles" option where you at least get $0.01/mile. Plus as I understand it, you'll get Medallion qualifying miles/dollars out of the trip that way which is awesome - with the D1 cabin bonus you'll nearly be Silver Medallion from one flight.

CPMaverick

Sorry but I don't care if there have been some decreases in award levels... the program has still been devalued. No rational person could say it is 'equal' to what it was 5,15,15 years ago. The decreases are not offsetting the increases.

indufan

I am not saying there isn't any devaluation. What I am saying that this word has been overused from the beginning of FlyerTalk. They said the same thing more than 15 years ago.

CPMaverick

If it's true, why complain about its use? It isn't like I'm just throwing the word into a random conversation. Someone is asking specifically about whether they should use miles now or save them. It's the right word.

daloosh

Yes, a 20K trip today could cost 25K next year. Or next month, but those fluctuations are small. Real devaluing is when you could take your entire family abroad in business for 150K, but today D1 fares are often over half a million miles. That's insane. So, instead of saving up for years for a trip, use miles when you can get a good value, like 2 cents. Australia is great fun and economy isn't so horrible!

gooselee

But for some people's uses, and arguably most of the people redeeming DL miles, the lower short-haul domestic rates are a massive improvement.

At least once a year, Mrs. Lee and her friends take a girls' trip to somewhere in Florida. The past couple years I've been able to easily find roundtrip tickets for 10k or 12k each (even down to 8k during a flash sale), and happily buy them for anyone who wants. In exchange, they usually pick up most/all of Mrs. Lee's lodging and meal costs. Win-win.

I'd love to see DL's data on this, but my hunch is that a large majority of DL redemptions are for short, domestic, coach trips like this, and the int'l J awards are actually a very small minority in comparison.