Nothing but 280k mile US-EU in biz early December
Oct 19, 2018, 11:07 am
#1
Original Poster
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Nothing but 280k mile US-EU in biz early December
Am I mistaken that pricing for biz fares US-EU is really really high < 30 days out?
Oct 19, 2018, 12:21 pm
#3
FlyerTalk Evangelist
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Covered in a number of other threads. The CSV860 86K one-way awards have a 90-day advance purchase requirement. If you are lucky, you might find a partner award (CSM750) closer in than that as these don't have advance purchase requirements. If you want cheaper award rates less than 90 days out, you will generally need to book a round-trip. For example, CSTR1200's have a 30-day advance requirement and CSQR1600's have a 14-day advance requirement. There's some 80K/90K one-way's to LHR from gateway cities which are valid from Nov 18 - 24. But these have a 30-day advance (the booking window is almost up) and have limited availability.
Oct 19, 2018, 1:26 pm
#4
Join Date: Mar 2017
Programs: Skymiles Gold
Posts: 643
Covered in a number of other threads. The CSV860 86K one-way awards have a 90-day advance purchase requirement. If you are lucky, you might find a partner award (CSM750) closer in than that as these don't have advance purchase requirements. If you want cheaper award rates less than 90 days out, you will generally need to book a round-trip. For example, CSTR1200's have a 30-day advance requirement and CSQR1600's have a 14-day advance requirement. There's some 80K/90K one-way's to LHR from gateway cities which are valid from Nov 18 - 24. But these have a 30-day advance (the booking window is almost up) and have limited availability.
Oct 23, 2018, 10:36 am
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: CHS
Programs: UA GS, Delta PM/2MM, Marriott Ambassador Elite/Lifetime Plat, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 142
Covered in a number of other threads. The CSV860 86K one-way awards have a 90-day advance purchase requirement. If you are lucky, you might find a partner award (CSM750) closer in than that as these don't have advance purchase requirements. If you want cheaper award rates less than 90 days out, you will generally need to book a round-trip. For example, CSTR1200's have a 30-day advance requirement and CSQR1600's have a 14-day advance requirement. There's some 80K/90K one-way's to LHR from gateway cities which are valid from Nov 18 - 24. But these have a 30-day advance (the booking window is almost up) and have limited availability.
Oct 23, 2018, 12:18 pm
#6
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Click on the "Fare Rules" link when you price out an award. This has the advance purchase requirements, min stay, applicability dates for the award, etc. I search from gateway cities (such as JFK, DTW, ATL, etc) for non-stop flights using the 5-week calendar view. Searching only for non-stop's weeds out potential broken fare award combinations. You need to do both one-way and roundtrip searches in order to be able to see both award types. For the roundtrip searches, I select a 7-night (8 day) stay as some awards have Tue/Wed travel requirements (again, found in the fare rules) and it makes it easier to see those.
Oct 23, 2018, 1:49 pm
#7
Join Date: Feb 2017
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Thank goodness Delta got rid of the award chart. I really hated having the ability to consistently know I can get a redemption for 140-160K miles one way in all but the most in-demand routes. They've made things so much better with their extremely fair, common-sense, and obviously demand-based dynamic pricing system.
Oct 23, 2018, 2:05 pm
#8
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Thank goodness Delta got rid of the award chart. I really hated having the ability to consistently know I can get a redemption for 140-160K miles one way in all but the most in-demand routes. They've made things so much better with their extremely fair, common-sense, and obviously demand-based dynamic pricing system.
They've also made it so much easier to figure out how much our miles are worth, so we don't have to play games like "should I buy this or use miles?". Funny how every time I search for a redemption the free ticket comes out to value my miles pretty darn close to $0.014/mile. Easy peasy!!!
Oct 23, 2018, 2:14 pm
#9
Join Date: Feb 2017
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They've also made it so much easier to figure out how much our miles are worth, so we don't have to play games like "should I buy this or use miles?". Funny how every time I search for a redemption the free ticket comes out to value my miles pretty darn close to $0.014/mile. Easy peasy!!!
Plenty of Delta One redemptions cost 560K roundtrip when there are discount fares available for purchase for <$4K (some as low as $3K). This is especially true when you want a nonstop - Delta may offer a 300K fare if you connect in some lower demand city (e.g., CVG, BOS, PDX) but if you want the non-stop they'll make you pay for it. Once you add in taxes and fees on the award ticket I've seen values as low as .5 CPM.
I realize one can pay with miles and that creates a 1 cpm floor, but still, it's a joke.
Oct 23, 2018, 6:29 pm
#10
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Oct 23, 2018, 6:48 pm
#11
Join Date: Feb 2017
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It is ironic because this is exactly the window where Delta has the greatest visibility on when their inventory will go unsold. Delta is charging its frequent flyers extreme prices for seats that won't be sold - even though all evidence shows that J mile redemption and J close-in purchases are not substitute goods (e.g., almost everyone will not purchase paid J because they did not get an award - they will either not fly at all or fly in Economy). It is purely punitive and extractive.
Oct 23, 2018, 6:57 pm
#12
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Delta is charging its frequent flyers extreme prices for seats that won't be sold - even though all evidence shows that J mile redemption and J close-in purchases are not substitute goods (e.g., almost everyone will not purchase paid J because they did not get an award - they will either not fly at all or fly in Economy). It is purely punitive and extractive.
Last edited by 3Cforme; Oct 23, 2018 at 7:05 pm
Oct 24, 2018, 12:58 pm
#13
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How many people do you know use their personal frequent flyer miles to redeem free tickets when they're traveling for business?
A few entrepreneurs or small business owners perhaps? (And many of those probably would never pay for J anyway).
A few entrepreneurs or small business owners perhaps? (And many of those probably would never pay for J anyway).