bladerunner6

Objectively speaking we are pretty good IHG point whores. We buy points on sale, have both credit cards, take advantage of the occasional promo, use the anniversary nights, etc.

We have the Delta Platinum card and we use the free bags and companion ticket, plus we used the sign-up bonus points. But we are new to this game and I am sure we have much to learn.

What strategies do we need to apply to earn the most miles and get the best value, please?

Thanks.

VFR

SkyMiles redemptions are generally linked to cash, so it can be tough to find a "sweet spot". I believe short-haul basic economy tends to be a sweet spot (e.g. 14,000 miles RT for BOS-LGA, or 11800 with a Delta Amex card). Foreign carriers in markets that Delta does not operate in (e.g. KE HND-GMP) tend to be good value for your miles.

The baggage service guarantee that your bags will be at the baggage claim in 20 minutes or you will get 2500 miles is also a way to get a decent number of miles – essentially making that BOS-LGA roundtrip cost 6800 SkyMiles.

Jaimito Cartero

It’s hard to get good value out of DL miles. I’ve been sitting on a bit over 80k in my account for over 4 years. Perhaps I’ll find a domestic flight or two that’s a good value. 80k used to be a US-Asia RT award.

AntimonyER

Be very flexible with departure and arrival airports when booking (driving a couple hours extra could cut your price by 60-70%), and stick to domestic only. Since almost all awards are tied to cash price now, use google flights to search for cheap delta (skyteam) fares to/from your desired regions of travel, and those should correspond to the cheapest miles cost flights as well.

I managed to book East coast - Hawaii flights for 36k per ticket RT this year, pretty happy with that redemption (especially since I then applied RUCs and was able to confirm Delta One both directions).

zebranz

Short haul on Westjet flights where you have little/no option like YYC-PSP.

KRUXED

I find good value on delta partner routes originating outside of the states. Just a few examples:

Air France to and from Male, Maldives out of CDG; 35,000 each way economy or 65,000 for business. This is also seen on their routes to Mauritius

Garuda Indonesia to and from Bali from ICN for 17,500 each way

KLM to and from Kilimanjaro, Tanzania out of AMS for 35,000

etc….

these can all be booked on delta site or app

GagaPilot

My spouse and I don’t have a lot of flexibility when it comes to travel dates, so it’s not too often we come across a stellar deal using miles. Our strategy has been that we shift as much of our spend as possible to our DL Amex cards and rack up miles so that every couple of years we each have enough for a RT D1 Award to Asia or Europe. In the meantime we refrain from redeeming the miles unless there’s a good deal too good to pass up.

Edited to add: I see several posts where people are suggesting good deals on partners using DL miles for travel outside the US. By all means if it’s a good deal, go for it, but be aware of the risk involved with using DL miles on a Partner Operated flight. If the flight is far in the future, there is a strong possibility of a schedule change and the “new” flight on the partner would require award inventory with a higher amount of miles than you initially purchased with. If this was a DL Metal flight, DL could force open award inventory at the original rate and keep things as an even exchange. With a partner, there’s no guarantee they would do this. For that reason, I never redeem skymiles on non-DL operated/marketed flights.

Georgia Peach

We accrue SkyMiles by charging everything we can on our Delta Amex card, and buy gift cards at Kroger, which post as double miles. Most of the places we fly as a family are smaller markets, and we choose early morning flights when possible because they require less miles.

jananth1

- Try to originate or end your flight out of the USA/Canada. MEX is a popular spot for this.
- Get a delta credit card and book domestic flights. Recently booked JFK->SEA domestic first for 45,000 points - cash fares were $679

bladerunner6

Can we claim for each of us when we travel as a couple?

Thanks.

pharmflyer

As long as you each have a bag checked under your respective names, yes. My fiancé and I usually both check a bag so we can each claim the 2500 miles

xliioper

Depending on where you live (Southeast, for example), NAS or CUN may be more convenient starting/ending points than MEX. Basically, anywhere Caribbean, Mexico, or Bermuda will have the lower priced awards, although MEX generally will have better availability due to having more DL and partner flights to/from there. The cheaper partner award levels only require having a single partner flight on them (doesn't have to be long haul flight) to qualify for them. DL dropped separate partner award levels to/from US/Canada last year and you will basically have to hope to catch a Skymiles award sale to find exceptional values when originating/ending in US/Canada. They recently ended an unannounced D1 Spring sale (good for travel through May 8th) for US roundtrip awards to numerous EU cities (from 153K roundtrip with Amex 15% discount). I think even the travel bloggers missed this one and you only would have known about it if you were following the DL forum here fairly regularly.

Note that pretty much all the cheaper longer haul international award levels to/from US/Canada have a roundtrip booking requirement (generally with a 7 day minimum stay requirement) and you will never see them when looking at one-way award bookings. You can have open-jaw bookings and mixed cabin bookings in each direction and still qualify for lower roundtrip award levels.

bladerunner6

Thanks for the help.

Firstboss

All the bonus programs are designed to be profitable for the company.

If one finds inefficiencies in the terms and conditions and optimizes the value he/she gets it will work.

However, disclosing any loopholes in a forum will quickly lead to their disappearance: the owner of the loyalty program will tweak the pricing or finds a business case to amend terms and conditions

metalblaze

+1 — recently got burnt with this in LHR-AMS with KLM.

Also, you don’t earn MQDs & MQSs when redeeming skypesos on non-DL marketed/operated flights.