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.

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.

True. But we’re talking about mileage awards.

22,500 miles for $179 WJ flight isn't exactly good use. Such awards are normally even below $0.01 per mile value. You are right, it is indeed ridiculous as to how poor value it is. (Though, of course, on some select routes there may be the occasional sales when the value is actually good, as in considerably above 1cpm. Usually it's just in X, though there have been the occasional O awards on DL itself also that are high, but not super extremely outlandishly though (as is the norm).)

You are right. EOS (End of SkyMiles) is something DL was specifically hiring some 10 years ago, so EOS has been long known to be coming (where EOS means basically 1 SM ~ 1 cent, price tied to revenue fare). There has been plenty of time to switch one's mileage earning to other programs, as many have done. (For me, the last SkyMile earned was a few years ago. But the SM # is still useful given the "lifetime" ST E+, to use for non-mileage-accruing bookings at least.)

ROUTINELY, I beam $.01 per mile on trips to Flordia. No, they aren't especially expensive with cash but still offer a good value. I have seen them as low as 7,500 and trust me, the cash price never got close to $75. I got almost $.02 on a trip to LGB last month. Of course, there are "bad" deals but there are plenty of good ones too.

Also, Delta Vacations is fixed at higher than $.01, although I forget exactly what it is....maybe $.013? Having said all of that, 22,500 for a $179 flight is still a trade, in my circumstances, that I am willing to make since I have a lot more SkyMiles than I do cash.

WS awards aren't currently fare based. They have 3 levels, but they are entirely based on advance purchase, 60 day = 12.5K miles, 21 day = 15K, and no AP = 17.5K. So you will definitely see a lot more variability in terms of value (as below). Although revenue fare inventory availability on WS coded flight below is considerably better than the DL coded version (H bucket), the award value still represents about 2 CPM with WS coding of flight.

TPAC and TATL awards to/from US/Canada on other partners used to also have fixed 60/21/0 day AP levels, but DL did away with those about three years ago and just started using the cheapest applicable DL metal levels on partner metal bookings on these routes. These vary not only by O&D route and advance purchase, but also things like seasonality, roundtrip booking w/min stay vs. one-way purchases, day of week travel, etc. These requirements follow revenue fare filing requirements and you can find them in both revenue and award fare rules on delta.com.

DL still has fixed levels on partners where they do not touch US/Canada soil as DL does not have any fare filings to base award levels on these routes. Perhaps one day they will come up with some scheme to implement fare-based awards on these routes, but at this point, they don't have one.


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I got what I thought was a decent deal redeeming SkyMiles: for 58,200 miles I got an open jaw main cabin ticket CLE-DTW-LHR / CDG-DTW-CLE, plus $97 in taxes/fees (the cash price on this was over $800). I upgraded the eastbound TATL to PS for $400 cash (they want $780 for a westbound UG to PS, which seems silly).

Had I done a RT returning from LHR, the taxes/fees would have been $204.

I'd like to hear more about you earning almost two cents per mile on a DL award ticket to LGB. Based on the fare at the time of purchase?

When nothing was under 25K, there was availability at that price for fares that cost way more than $250.

For the portion of DL flights that are under $125 one-way, having the mileage ticket tied to the price, as DL now has it, is a good alternative. For the flights on DL that are more than $125 one-way, the value proposition and ability to get outsized value for your miles have disappeared. I would venture to say that the vast, vast, vast majority of DL tickets cost more than $125 one-way.