Find what you believe is a good deal and use them. Thinking it's gonna get better is the wrong thinking, it will get worse in the next few years I believe.

Have also seen several sub-15k award flights in CONUS. Usually they're sub-2hr flights serving high frequency markets that probably have loose capacity anyway. May as well fill some seats with award bookings that would have otherwise gone to Non-revs or flown empty.

Heads I win. Tails DL loses. Change fees died with Covid. If the price goes down I get my miles back or an ecredit.

We will have to wait for the next big industry downturn for it to improve for customers. There have been too many mergers allowed. Less competition has led to the devaluation. Customers have little choice compared to 20 years ago. Delta is the worst out out of the Big 3 when it comes to devaluation. From lounge access to mileage redemption Delta is the worst for customers. I am glad I don't live in a Delta hub city, or a city reliant on Delta.

The long term goal is presumably to tie all awards to the cost of revenue tickets. I honestly don't have a problem with that (or revenue based accrual) anymore because they've given us more than a decade to get used to it.

Separately, I agree with those who feel the simplicity of the current scheme is kind of nice. Sure, you can position yourself in Korea and fly to Africa, as you point out, but taking vacations within the US is a lot easier, and the numbers aren't all that different from those during the award chart days.

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I've gotten e.g. JFK/LGA-ORF or v-v for like 6800 in Y but with enough F space loose that I knew I would clear into F.

Same with SFO/LAX/LAS I’ve gotten some dirt cheap awards out west since SW is a dominant player. I’ve also flown ATL>NYC for 6,800 SM.

If anything, from a mile-valuation in USD perspective, DL is the US airline that's gone the longest without a devaluation (and as long as they have the Pay With Miles escape hatch, arguably the one with the least ability to devalue going forward)... It's been a stable USD value now for 5+ years (and not impossible that a SkyMile is worth more USD now than it was then, given the ability to earn elite credit). UA has had a couple of brutal devaluations in that period, and AA some lighter-than-UA as well.

Personally, I find great value with Sky Miles, but it's because they are combined with nice DM perks. I have booked dozens of quite cheap Main Cabin tickets where I will automatically get the free Comfort + upgrade, (very much worth it for me as a 6+ ft tall person who enjoys alcoholic beverages) but will nearly always get upgraded to F.

I keep track of my bookings and what the cost I paid in miles was, the cost in C+ was, and the cost in F was. One recent example was roundtrip from JAX to ANC for 55k miles, (including the 15% AMEX discount). Paid the 55k, but C+ was 91k miles which I automatically got upgraded to for free. Roundtrip F was 170k miles. I ended up getting upgraded to F on all 6 legs. Had I paid for F, it was $2,100+ in cash or 170k Sky Miles. So, that ends up being $0.039 per Sky Miles used.

This is pretty typical for me, but I also try to take flights where I am likely to get these upgrades. So, I have a good bit of flexibility and also like to fly later in the day and on weekends. I also do this in conjunction with RUCs and GUCs which then provide even better redemption rates, but again, flexibility is absolutely required.

Obviously YMMV doing this. There's no guarantee to get upgraded to F, but the guaranteed free C+ upgrade is enough value for me even if I don't end up getting upgraded. Otherwise, when not using miles, I just WFBF. But I try not to maintain too many Sky Miles so that's my strategy when using them.

Great perspective - as a newly minted Plat, guaranteed C+ is an often underrated benefit by FT

As was the $150 waived award ticket redeposit fee pre-covid.

You spent a decade manufactured spending and earning *DL miles*? The devaluation happened a decade ago. If anything, DL miles have become more valuable in recent years with the AMEX 15% benefit.

There are definitely times where DL's mileage prices are cheaper than the alternatives, but it has to be the right scenario, as others have mentioned. Int'l J flights that don't touch the US. Domestic flights where DL has a competitive price. The days of just amassing a bunch of DL miles and deciding where you want to go at a flat rate are long, long, long, long gone and have been for many years now.

yes. definitely some SM value out there. I find a lot more value in domestic US trips than INTL. Maybe because I just can't get into the habit of booking flights 1 year out when the window opens for booking.
to me 25K miles for rt domestic is way too high. So I'm often looking for flights more in the 15K range.

And schedule change rule. Book that awful 5:30AM flight out of EWR and wait for schedule change saturday. 75% of the time I get my choice of flights out of LGA after sked change. yippee!!

Free comfort+ for platinum. F is very hit or miss as we know.

Thing is… since it’s related to cash price, 1 year out is actually too early to book international from the US on DL. The sweet spot is closer to 3-6 months out depending on which month you’re targeting.

I find that to get GUC space I have to book 330 days out from my return date which sometimes means that the GUC space on the outbound is already gone.