Calboy9903

I booked and tried to cancel online. The system tried to charge a fee so I called and the fee was waived. The voucher will come after manual processing and should be usable on any delta vacation. The rep told me that travel must be booked through delta vacation within a year and multiple vouchers can be applied. When I get the voucher, I can paste the terms here.

exwannabe

Are you reading the quote page correct? Note that on the page that lists flight choices, the $ amount is the amount over the cheapest fare. Select one and look at the price top right.

bgriff

Yeah seeing this on the website. I'm not sure if Delta Vacations would even have an answer to the question though?

For example:


I'm assuming these VS flights (which correspond to other VS flights on the outbound) earn at the normal 200% RDM/150% MQM/40% MQD rates for a VS-marketed Z fare, but I don't know if there's a way to be certain of that up front.

bgriff

Yeah. Whole package price is around $4400 as shown on hotel page. Then flights are +$0 on both flight selection pages (or + very little, like +$3.60 for some KE options).

There are unsurprisingly even cheaper options originating from YYZ -- I see US$3500 for some YYZ-JNB packages although I haven't come across any that have partner-coded flights on the return, only KL-coded outbound and DL-coded return.

uitailgater

Last year I bought a vacation package through Expedia with KL-marketed DL-operated flights (Z fare). It was definitely a non-published fare based on the price. I earned the fully expected MQDs/MQMs/RDMs from the partner earnings table shown for KLM. I realize it was Expedia and not Delta Vacations, but I would hope that wouldn't matter.

I'm also looking into these JFK-JNB VS-marketed flights, but in V class which should still earn 25% MQD / 125% MQM / 125% RDM. The miles I would earn with DM bonus nearly offsets all the miles that the trip would cost - and I would earn most of the MQDs that I still need to keep DM. I have one of these on hold now and it's showing up in My Trips on the Delta web site as "Economy Delight (V)". SFO-JNB or LAX-JNB are even better, and the miles earned more than covers the cost of the trip, other than the cost of the positioning flight.

dominick

I've seen some $1500/2 ppl examples in E+ YYZ-various places in Europe. $2200/2 ppl to S Africa. These are with the cheapest hotels, which you can throw-away. For 37.5k, and 55.5k "redemptions" for a paid ticket respectively- it's not a bad way to go!

bgriff

Thanks for the previous data point, that's very good to know. Personally I don't think I could make that trip in coach but good luck!


Honestly, if you're not too fussed about a super fancy hotel or earning hotel elite qualifying nights, you could also just make use of the included hotel. Yeah, you may lose out on free breakfast elite benefits but paying for a hotel when you already have one will cost more than paying for breakfast.


My latest findings: JFK-MEL, with some creative routings, for around $5400. That's moving out of mileage run territory, but if you were looking at an Australia trip anyway, 270K SkyMiles roundtrip is probably not much more than "saver" award pricing would be these days (if it even still exists, which is unclear). I don't see any options that are 100% VA-marketed, but it appears you can get VA flight numbers on the long leg over the water anyway. That is clearly an unpublished fare -- for the JNB and BKK routings you can find similar $4K-ish fares on ITA Matrix, but for the same Australia flights public fares are $10K+.

Adam1222

When I called to book my package, the agent explicitly (unsolicited) told me it was a published (i.e., not exception) fare. I imagine that any agent can see that info

WScottsdaleInsider

Same issue, wasn't working for me at check out either when I tried to redeem miles, the entire purchase price showed up.

xychromosome

I found the same thing when making my booking, however I figured out that you have to select the miles option on the checkout page and once again enter the miles you wish to use. I think the previous miles input is just a guide for you to determine what type of credit you will receive, however you have to confirm this on the checkout page.

xychromosome

Ended up choosing the Hilton Buena Vista Palace and saved 10k miles in the process. Albeit, the Hilton has a resort fee, but it also has the disney perks that my wife and son want.
75k miles for 3 flights, 6 nights at a Disney-affiliated hotel and a rental car sounds like a good deal to me!

WScottsdaleInsider

Thank you! That worked

bgriff

Just booked JFK-MEL for around New Years (as a vacation more so than a mileage run) for 2 people for a total of 450K miles, $1300, and a $500 off coupon that was available through my company's corporate travel program with Delta. Managed to find dates with the direct JFK-LAX-MEL flights in both directions, with all flights VA-marketed and the overwater flights operated by VA.

Booked the cheapest hotel which I plan to throw away; there were some hotels for not much more that sounded not bad, like the Intercontinental, but after looking more closely at their website I decided they did not look so great after all and weren't worth the incremental amount they were asking vs. just booking the cheapest hotel as a throwaway.

The best part: JFK-MEL as a SkyMiles award ticket the same dates costs 930K miles roundtrip in business class. Per. Person.

dlflyer00

cnn

Please update the terms when you receive the voucher. Thanks.