Devaluation Run Wild
 

I played the manufactured spending game full-bore for about 10 years and ended up with, among other things, about 1 million miles on each of AA, UA, and DL. For several years I was flying actively on AA so not often redeeming miles, but I've now effectively retired from both work and travel, and I'm a free agent among where I redeem my miles.

When I compare prices in miles, it seems that DL are always the highest and often by a lot. Domestic, overseas, Y/W/J, always much higher.

As a long-time flyer, with loyalty varying according to location and travel pattern, I'm well aware that the grass is always greener; devotees of a particular carrier bemoan their fate, the whole loyalty game run amok, I'm just saying - I'm sure people on this forum whine about devaluation, but is my perception correct that DL is devalued much more than other airlines?

Yes, you’re 💯 correct. Delta can print an unlimited amount of SkyMiles and just raise the redemption level. Especially when the award charts were removed .

It’s been like this forever. The currency has been nicknamed “SkyPesos” for as long as I can remember.

WN and DL points have the closest connection between spend, points, and redemption value of the four major airlines. Miles have a floor of 1 CPM and can generally be redeemed around 1.15-1.3 CPM. There aren’t really amazing deals flying ex-USA since partner awards are unified with the general awards chart.

People on this forum generally don’t comment on the devaluation since the SkyPeso has been pretty stable for maybe 10 years or so.

I earn and spend my SM quickly. Accumulating a depreciating asset long-term in a hyper-inflationary environment is a fool’s game.

The round trips across the Atlantic in J that I used to get for 100,000 SkyMiles circa 2008 now cost 600,000 and more. I have to admit, I had a good run for many years.

Domestic awards have largely been tied to fare prices for close to a decade at the already noted 1.1 - 1.3 CPM range. The move to international revenue based awards to/from US/Canada began a few years later. But it's not exactly a new thing there either. The inflation in awards is largely driven by inflation in revenue fares at this point. Unless they modify/get rid of Pay with Miles at 1 CPM, I don't see much of a reason to get all hot and bothered.

Bottomline, if you educate yourself on how revenue fare pricing works, in particular, the fact that they tend to discount business class seats around "significant" US holiday periods, you can get significantly better deals than 600K roundtrip for international J. We have one coming up in a couple months -- Easter. President's Day weekend is also one, but we are too close-in for those revenue fares/awards due to 28 day advance purchase requirements in them. See Seasonality section of fares rules below (from delta.com) which are present in both revenue and award fare rules.

While award pricing is certainly a factor in many people's choice of airlines, most people don't obsess over it to the extent of the MS/CC churner crowd who is a realtively minor subset of flyers. Nor are many as hyper-focused on international J awards as that subset.

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There's an ironic zen in redeeming SkyMiles. There are no good deals anymore, so I just use them at around 1.3cpm like I would cash and don't worry about deal hunting :)

TPE D1 discount awards are still out there for travel through April 30th. 93.5K each-way out of SEA, and 110.5K out of most everywhere else with Amex 15% discount. That's roughly 2 - 3 CPM depending on origin (discount Z fares on SEA-TPE start at $2.6K one-way and $4.2K roundtrip). Unlike discount TATL D1 awards, the TPE awards do not require roundtrip bookings or have advance purchase requirements.

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Interesting - I knew about the award price but I didn't realize that cash fares hadn't been slashed to match.

Just redeemed about 53K worth on a one way flight for 2 people. I've been hoarding miles intending to use them on my daughter's high school graduation trip.

I think this route is really struggling hence the low fares. Maybe there is too much capacity from USA->TPE.

Yeah, 100%.. That is why I mainly look at SM now as mainly domestic use - or when using them for overseas, I only use them for sales or with GUCs.. To buy D1 with miles (except for the rare sales - few and far between) is cost prohibitive..

Just to be clear, the holiday seasonal award levels are not really one-off "sale" awards and the patterns are fairly predictable by looking at a calendar for holidays. These are simply periods when business travel demand is low and they attempt to sell otherwise empty J seats to the EU to more price sensitive leisure flyers. Google Flights can also be quite useful for showing them as well using calendar view since awards coorelate well with revenue fares. The validity dates can be found in the Seasonality section of the fare rules (posted above). At this point, they haven't yet filed holiday D1 fares/awards beyond Easter for 2025, but if previous patterns hold, you can expect to see them also around Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, in addtition to President's Day and Easter.

In addition to DTW-CDG for 221K roundtrip, you can also find 221K roundtrip D1 awards on ATL-MUC. While not quite as low as what you can find at times out of competitive hubs like BOS and JFK, they aren't as bad as you would normally expect out of hostage hubs.

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DL SM are only good for use outside of North America. Don't originate in or go to NA.

To use DL SM, you have to get yourself to a good gateway airport, like ICN, NRT, HND, KIX, etc. Then book the DL SM flights to/from there. For example, 80K one-way J TYO or ICN to JNB, CPT, etc. (Asia to Africa) is a pretty good deal and almost matches UA 88K one-way J from NA to Africa.

DL SM is not meant for use within North America, as it's designed to rip off those who originate in or go to NA. In NA for SkyTeam, use VS miles. Outside of NA, there are some good uses for DL SM still.. for now.

So ridiculous. I have redeemed so many sub-15,000 mile awards it isn't funny. And I am so old that I remember when NOTHING was under 25,000 and many were 50,000 and nothing in between.