javabytes

The world is arguably better with this benefit than without it, but at the same time, 15% off an amount that's stupid to begin with is but a small reversion offsetting the better part of a decade of painful devaluation...

ATOBTTR

Probably why a lot of folks were canceling and rebooking rather than changing but I ran into this today. Changed a mileage ticket to a different routing. Original ticket was booked just before this benefit rolled out. My original ticket was a ~30,000 miles but was going to switch it to a different city. When I did a dummy booking for the new ticket, it was showing as ~44,000 miles with the 15% discount. When I then tried to modify my flight, the 15% discount was not applied and was showing an ~21K Skymiles difference rather than the ~14K mile difference. So rather than change, I had to cancel and rebook which wasn't the biggest deal but was interesting nonetheless.

Curious if this would apply to mileage tickets book after the change rolled out and if the 15% difference would show when modifying flights or if you would still need to cancel and rebook because the trigger for the 15% discount isn't applied when "modifying" a flight versus booking a new one.

sydneyracquelle

No. The 15% still works for changes to flights booked with the 15% discount. I had to cancel and rebook all of my flights previously booked. But not the ones booked with the discount.

kjy550

Delta Million miler here. The 15% off program is a slap in the face to those of us who who don't want or need another Amex card but still have a truckload of miles from decades of loyalty. Am noticing the travel bloggers who make money from credit card referrals are staying silent about this big downside to the program.

ATOBTTR

What benefit did DL take away from MMers with this new promo? None. It's not like MMers got discounted Skymiles award tickets before this (at least that I can recall at any point where I've been familiar with the MM program) and then DL took that benefit away and only gave it to Co-branded AmEx card holders.

sydneyracquelle

This is a game-changer. My Amex annual fee for 2+ years was just paid for this wknd rebooking all of my family’s award tickets for the next 11 months at 15% off. With the companion cert, MQD waiver and PWM there is no excuse now not to get a cheap card even if you never use it.

mfFrom35K

Like others posting I was able to rebook expensive Thanksgiving tickets in F with the 15% discount. In my case the mileage fares went down about 15% as well since I first booked a few weeks ago; so this was a nice reduction in total. It even made Delta pricing better than AA for the return that runs the same route as well.

One point that I would like to make is that folks comparing the redemption value seem to typically compare to the lowest posted price on Delta.com but those fares are not refundable. It makes more sense to me to compare the cost to the refundable fare which these days is often only $75 to $200 more each way for domestic flights. I find I am generally getting 1.5+ cents per mile looking at it this way. The refundability has a great deal of value to me and is why I am maintaining platinum status on Delta (although that may not be necessary if refundable mileage tickets are a permanent change but I keep thinking that will revert at some point but who knows?)

sydneyracquelle

DL status has nothing to do with ticket refundability if you pay-up for this option. PM status used to be extremely valuable for redepositing award tickets at no charge (now anyone can do it for flights originating in NA).

hhdl

The mile valuation should be comparing what you'd actually be willing to pay in cash. If the refundability isn't worth much to you, then that also affects the valuation. Also, miles aren't as refundable as cash, because you can't efficiently use the miles to pay for a great many things (in the case of DL, it's probably best to model the miles as a flexible voucher (allows name changes, e.g.) with variable value that doesn't expire... so better than an eCredit from a changes and worse than a cash refund). If you're giving DL enough business that you'll use the miles soon for the same passengers, you could argue that you're likely to use the eCredit before it expires, so there's not much practical difference between a zero-change-fee changeable cash ticket and a refundable miles ticket.

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BigAppleFlyer

DL Reserve Card holder here--paid the small fee using my CSR and still received the 15% discount.

BigAppleFlyer

I'm a DL Reserve Card holder but did not receive the discount when booking award travel out of my child's SM account. I didn't expect to receive it given the child does not have DL Amex, but thought I would add the fact pattern to this thread.

joeyday

I have a few basic economy reward tickets booked. Am I correct that these will incur a penalty if I try to rebook to take advantage of the 15% savings?

ffI

I was going to MRY next month for a weekend - 38k+31k on AA; vs 86k and 55k on DL (with dscount) but to SJC
DL has upgrade space with RUCs to SJC - so almost guaranteed 100% today - but 2 hr drive from SJC after that.
AA has guaranteed extra space seats but upgrade lottery on the day but direct to MRY
We went with AA; but if it was to SJC, I would have taken the DL with the RUCs (AA FC is 150k
- I would rather pay 140k pesos and upgrade on DL than pay 150k on AA miles- I can go to DEL on AA for that cost)
All airlines are treating their miles as 1c - but with 15% off, you get a 0.2c boost with DL and the pesos are plentiful.

ffI

Thanks for the data point - it is working as expected. I try to empty out the kids accounts as fast as I can and keep the main ones going
Any ticket above 66k miles pays the annual fees on a DL Gold Amex - and 66k is likely just enough to get from DC to NY on DL on a good day!

ffI

Likely they increased awards 10% for inflation before giving the 15% discount! - but that is overall changes not specific routes - some win and some lose on the awards

If I had been the Amex team negotiating with DL for this benefit, I would have done a staged rollout -
5% discount with DL Amex Gold, 10% discount with DL Platinum card and 15% discount with the Reserve cards- but I think the IT issues made it harder for them
I suspect a 10% discount looked too little too