DeltaFFATL

Fine print says not applicable to previously booked reservations. Rebook and cancel, if it makes sense.

lindros2

This is the essence of business. Especially travel points (airlines, hotels, cruise)
100% of the time.

lindros2

my card pays for itself with 2-for-1 companion ticket.
Then again, if I had waited 3-4 weeks to book ATL-ABQ, the price was half, negating my 2023 companion.

Ah well.

Adelphos

I whittled down my Skymiles balance booking economy and upgrading via RUC last year. This change makes doing that even more of a sensible option going forward.

xliioper

Award levels are largely correlated to revenue fares on DL. They accomplish this by having numerous award levels on routes which somewhat replicate the fare filings on the routes (although it is generally not a one-for-one match and there will be gaps in award levels vs fare filings). The awards have fare rules (such as advance purchase, day-of-travel, seasonality, roundtrip booking w/min stay, etc.) which largely replicate what's found in the revenue fare rules, as well as award class levels and a bucket inventory system largely replicating revenue fare classes. The science here is not as simple as Southwest's redemption system, but mostly accomplishes the same thing.

The translation here is you will generally need to redeem in advance to get cheapest award levels (21 days or more domestically, and 60 to 90 days out for international). They can sometimes have award "specials" which don't have quite as lengthy advance purchase requirements in fare rules, but these are pretty rare (they will sometimes pop-up on award specials on website). A week ago, they had close-in coach awards for DTW-HND for 60K miles roundtrip (revenue fares were in the $2400 roundtrip territory).

Aside from having to redeem in advance, availability of cheaper levels during higher demands periods and days of week will tend to be limited via award bucket inventory (just as it is for revenue fares). While bucket availability in award levels doesn't always exactly match what's available for revenue fares, they generally seem to be fairly close.

skislc

From my quick searches on routes I often burn miles on, this does appear to be a legit discount, not a 15% increase that's offset with the CC discount. Checked SLC-LAX, SLC-DEN, and SLC-BOS and the pre-discount prices (for NV awards) don't seem to have increased.

dadgummit

Something that makes this less appealing is that it seems like you have to pay the taxes & fees with your Delta AmEx. I'm used to paying for DL award tickets with a CSP, so that I get the travel protections. My Delta AmEx Platinum has travel protections and I just skimmed the benefits guide. It's not as good as the Chase version, but I think it's sufficient for domestic trip (only place I redeem SkyMiles). Similarly sufficient baggage protection.

happydad100

Same conclusion here. I booked SLC to HNL on 12.25 (watching it before and after I booked) and the mileage hasn't changed. I cancelled and rebooked and saved 15% on 5 tickets. Legit good deal. Thank you Delta. Richard

Duke787

Good is a relative term. As someone who is both a cardholder and loyal traveler (PM for a few years now), I see these moves are very positive for folks who maintain an AMEX and negative for those who are elites. AMEX is pushing to make the loyalty in this case to AMEX not to Delta which ties me to keeping the card (their goal) but has my eye wandering to other airlines as a possible permanent move where I get more value from being an elite without having to maintain an expensive credit card. But for sure as I look to burn my 350k+ mileage stash, I definitely won't decline the extra 15% off.

I keep contrasting with United (because I've been flying them more and more) and their version of this (e.g., which manifests as an extra saver award space bucket) is available to both CC holders and their elites -- I don't have any United co-branded credit cards but I've booked multiple J flights in the past year that had extra saver space available for 66k to Europe.

xliioper

They can't really devalue awards much more or they would be getting down to Pay with Miles level at 1.0 CPM and basically make them pointless (why redeem at less than 1.0 CPM when you can get 1.0 CPM with Pay with Miles?). The pattern they put in place with dynamic award levels is to generally price them in 1.1 - 1.2 CPM range with some exceptions and outliers (at times found with web specials listings or their 48 hour award fare sales).

Adelphos

Right - and with this, now you seem to be at 1.25 cents to 1.35 cents when you hold a Delta Amex card. Over hundreds of thousands of miles, that becomes meaningful.

shoodawg

watch them devalue PWM. Wait for it!

josephstern

I've been on the fence about whether to go for Diamond via the $250K Amex waiver. This new change basically tips the scales to "no." I really didn't want to be buying 250K+ more SkyMiles to get to the waiver, and now I can see that I'll be using even fewer SkyMiles in the next year, so I need to replenish my supplies at some even further date out in the future.

I know I'm in the minority with this situation, but it's strange how this incentivizes me to put even less spend on Amex Delta cards.

MSPeconomist

The fine print at the bottom of the email says "Not combinable with certificates...." If this means we can't apply GUCs/RUCs to such award ticket, they're less valuable. I wonder whether one could call DL and have an agent write the ticket without the 15% discount in miles in order to apply a RUC/GUC.

Also, I assume that the one MQD per 100 RDMs on award ticket travel will use the rice in miles after the 15% discount.

BTW, note in the thread title that the discount only applies to those who hold DL AmEx credit cards, not regular unaffiliated AmEx cards such as the Plat charge card.

sydneyracquelle

I just spent this morning cancelling and rebooking 30+SM flights for the family all the way to December 2023. Saved me almost 50,000 SM. That $500 savings covers 2 years of my $250 annual fee. Might as well. It would have been much easier to change online but the savings only come with canceling and rebooking new.