JetOutTonight

When booking JFK-CDG does a Skymiles reward ticket priced at 35,000 miles in economy earn more MQDs on a DL or AF ticketed flight?

xliioper

Normally, reward tickets don't earn any MQD. For flights flown through the end of 2021, you can earn MQD if you book your Skymiles reward on a DL operated flight due to Status Accelerator program (they will also earn MQM and MQS). Booking a Skymiles reward on an AF flight will earn no MQD/MQM/MQS. If you are booking a reward for 2022 travel, it won't matter as neither flight will earn MQD/MQM/MQS.

Note that DL has different award levels depending on whether you book DL metal or partner metal. 35K sounds like a partner-metal 60-day advance economy award. You will see different award amounts for DL metal awards and the cheapest ones require a roundtrip redemption and are not available as one-way awards. The cheapest award levels on JFK-CDG on DL metal in economy are 41K one-way or 25K each way when booked as a roundtrip.

flyerCO

You normally don't earn MQD on award tickets. However till end of year DL operated flights do earn some MQD.

Ticketing doesn't matter for Skymiles earning, the marketing of flight does. Awards are always booked as operating carrier marketed (this means the two letter code before flight number).

JetOutTonight

Thank you.

This article and chart is why I asked the question:

https://www.delta.com/us/en/skymiles...rline-partners
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thepoin...-partners/amp/

xliioper

Those are for revenue tickets, not reward flights. You can often earn more MQD on revenue tickets on partner marketed flights due to using mileage based MQD. But generally that's only true for premium cabin tickets. For economy tickets, it is often a wash and very much depends on how much you are paying for the flights. JFK-CDG is not that far and won't earn much MQD for economy fares on partner marketed flights (roughly 182 MQD each way for deepest discount economy fares on non-stop flights).

Adelphos

This is not true - award tickets booked on Delta metal for 2022 travel continue to earn MQD/MQM/MQS. This was part of the status extension announcement. However, they will earn at a "normal" rate, not an accelerated rate.

SuperG1955

This is correct. The details can be found at extending-skymiles-benefits

xliioper

Ah, guess I forgot about that part.

OP, there are some fairly heavily discounted seasonal one-way awards on JFK-MAD for 16K miles in main cabin. I'm seeing some broken fare combination awards for JFK-MAD-CDG for 26K where the MAD-CDG leg is 10K. Or you could just book JFK-MAD award standalone (which has better availability) and do MAD-CDG leg on your own on separate fare/award. One way JFK-MAD revenue fares are available from $201 in BE and $276 in main cabin.