fti

Not uncommon to have different rules with different airlines. With AS they have one-way awards whereas DL doesn't for example. AS has more liberal stopover rules on award tickets than DL does (with DL miles any layover in an airport >4 hours is a stopover, whereas with AS miles, you can have a longer than 4 hour layover in e.g. SEA and it really is not a "stopover").

Generally I like to have some DL miles and some AS miles. For example, with AS miles you can book award flights on KS. With DL miles you can't do that.

tikiboy

I like to use my Delta on Alaska, for example SEA-HNL on AS was 40K vs 65K on Delta. You are not losing an upgrade opportunity for SEA-HNL flights on DL, and the AS exit row is more comfortable.

Britinboise

I guess I need 5,000 more miles, whats the best way to do this I am going from Sonoma county STS to Boise ID BOI R/T in September does anyone know at all?

goodandclassy

IF you want to use miles for Pay with miles, you need to have a DL American Express card linked to your account and book Delta-operated flights only. The good news is, you would probably get a decent chunk of miles for getting the card.

If you want to fly Alaska Air, you need the 5000 extra miles and alaska saver space available (if they serve the two airports). You can get 5k miles relatively easily - skymiles shopping, complaining, or you know, flying

flymonthly

You can't use DL Skymiles to get 50% off an AS ticket, you can only do that using AS miles. But if you can find Saver (low) award flights on AS, you can book an award flight (for $10 or so) on delta.com using 25k Skymiles.

3Cforme

The relevant Alaska Airlines award inventory for DL miles redemption is actually termed Super Saver when searching with the Alaska Mileage Plan engine.

roknroll

Okay, I'm having some issues here trying to book an AS award SFO-PVR. The DL website is showing availability for FC on my dates, but when I click through I get the all too common "We're sorry. One or more of the flights you selected just sold out." I also tried it as a one way outbound and one way inbound, and both do the same where it shows available but can't click through to booking.

I can search on Alaska's website and it is showing 2 tickets available for Super Saver first awards. ExpertFlyer also shows A3 on the outbound and A2 on the return.

I called in and the agent also wasn't able to book them. She tried it together with no luck. Also tried to see if it was only one direction causing the problem and couldn't get either direction to show available. Her explanation was that sometimes partners don't always make the same awards available to DL, but I thought that any Super Save award would be available?

Any help on this? Is it possible that someone booked it already (or put on hold) and it hasn't updated in the search engine?

I tried another dummy booking for a week earlier where EF showed A4 on both outbound/return and it would let me click through to booking.

3Cforme

Years ago, AS award inventory with Delta miles could need a 'long sell'. Try asking.

roknroll

I was thinking about doing that, and will do it when I call again this afternoon. The only thing that prevented me from doing it initially was my limited understanding of a long sell (the extend of my knowledge is that we can ask the agent to do a long sell, but I know nothing about it). Are all of the agents going to know what that means if I just say "can you try a long sell"? I'd have no idea how to explain what that is to an agent if they didn't know what I was talking about.

I ended up putting an itinerary on hold for V-day week in February which was working. I was hoping for the following week which is my wife's bday, but V-Day would also work out and could double as a birthday trip. So worst case scenario we still go, but a week earlier and for another special occasion. Best case scenario I can call in and switch to the next week if a long sell works or it opens back up booking online.

3Cforme

Put bluntly, if the agent doesn't know how to do this you will want to speak to a different agent.

edyang

Hello,

Looking to use my Skymiles to book a ticket that codeshares with Alaska Airlines for LAX to YVR.

1. Since you can't pre-select seats on award tickets, does anyone know if I can choose my seat after booking via Alaska directly? Or will they deny that because it's a Delta ticket?

2. Similarly, will my ticket be eligible for Last Minute Upgrade to First Class on Alaska the day of the flight?

Thank you,

Ed

NWA/Deltaflygirl

Once you book your flight, get the ticket number from the Delta rep, (because often as not, the AS record locator doesn't show up for us) and call AS for a seat assignment. If you have status, you would be eligible for an upgrade behind AS's elite folks.

tikiboy

The Delta rep never seems to be able to give me the PNR for Alaska, so after a reservation, I just call Alaska and they have always found my reservation by name and date and then I am able to manage the reservation from the Alaska site.

beckoa

AS doesn't even upgrade its own elites on award flights. One policy I wish AS would change as most other major carriers allow upgrades on award flights.

g8tor20

Ok. I've read many threads on using Skymiles on Partner airlines and I think I'm thoroughly confused. I didn't want to start a new thread and figured this was the right place for my questions.

Anyways, I live in South Florida and am getting married in October and we want to do Hawaii for the honeymoon.

We have a ton of Delta miles on our Skymiles Amex.

I go to Delta.com for redemption and of course Hawaii has no "low" award travel...ever. Their Mid price is 65,000 miles for a roundtrip.

I read Alaska airlines is a good Partner so I checked them out. They have flights from Ft. Lauderdale to Honolulu (layover in Seattle) for 40,000 miles for a roundtrip (which is the same as the Delta "low" fares that are non existent.

From what I gather, I cannot book this trip through AS nor Delta.com. I have to contact a Delta rep (Wooohooo!). Or is there a way to do this without having to contact a Delta agent?

I guess if I call armed with the exact dates and times of the AS flight, they can do it (with I have gathered is an additional $25 phone ticketing fee). Any other hidden Delta fees out there I should know about?

And I can further assume that if I fly Alaska Air, I will have to abide by Alaska Air's checked baggage policies?

Please let me know if I got this right or am I off base.

Thanks in advance!

Jason