JoelA

Two MCO -> NRT skysavers in BE out July 30 and back on Aug 7th through ATL on Delta metal both ways!

Joel

jbachich

I've used Delta Skymiles many times, but they do have a problem with very few Skysaver tix available. I usually will book months in advance when we decide on a vacation. Summer trips to Eurpoe are out of the question.

I will still pay more for a ticket and put up with the Skymiles lack of availability because Delta is a superior airline. Also, as a medallion member I almost always get first class upgrades.

MegatopLover

Unless something changed within the last six weeks, this is nonsense. For a number of years, I have been fly on DL-issued award tickets with SQ twice a year, once in Business and once in First. I originate in ATL, and I have gone out and come back through LAX and SFO, and my next one is out and back through JFK. I use a single award to get the whole trip. 140k ATL-SIN (and if I'm extremely lucky up to BKK) in First or 120k in Business. It gets issued as a single ticket. I have never had to cash in two awards, one for ATL-Gateway on DL and one beyond the gateway on SQ.

brewgator, you've been screwed here. You should be in First Class for your JAX-ATL-JFK flights, not Economy. Since the redemption levels were bumped up in early 2004, even SQ Business Class awards get First Class on DL domestic legs; SQ F awards certainly do. Moreover, if you misconnect, you might have a problem rebooking because you're on separate tickets. Call the Partners Desk back, get someone competent, get it fixed, get your miles back, and get your first class seats on the domestic legs.

Dovster

No, this is not new at all. About two years ago I was given the following itinerary:

TLV-EWR (on CO)
EWR-FLL (on CO)
MIA-CDG (on AF)
CDG-MXP (on AF)
MXP-TLV (on AZ)

As these were all SkyTeam partners, it was on a single award ticket. I was told, however, that if I wanted to take El Al back from MXP I would have to get an additional award ticket.

Likewise, if I want to fly TLV-ATL-FLL, all on DL, it is a single ticket -- but if I take TLV-JFK on El Al, and JFK-FLL on DL, it is two tickets.

If you take a look at the Delta website you will see that the "Delta/Multi-Airline Awards" apply only to Delta, Aeroflot, Aeromexico, Air France, Alaska Airlines, Alitalia, Avianca, Continental Airlines, CSA Czech Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Korean Air and Northwest Airlines.

There are separate award charts for Air Jamaica, China Airlines, China Southern, El Al Israel Airlines, and Singapore Airlines.

mcjava

DOVSTER, I think you might be mistaking the situation here. Using an El Al award to the US, you get a ticket on El Al to the US gateway, and ongoing DL ticket. Flying to Taiwan out of Atlanta, I can use CI award and DL throws in the domestic part to LAX or IAH or SEA or SFO.

Your example has it backwards..... you were trying to use El Al for the inter-Europe (Israel) last connecting flight.

I'm quite sure if you had El Al from TLV to the US, then you get the ongoing DL connection included in the award.

I'm pretty sure this is right. I know my golfing buddy in Atlanta got free J tix for his wife on CI via IAH-SEA-TPE, with the DL ATL-IAH segments thrown in for free just last summer.

Dovster

Yes -- and no.

DL has a number of codeshare seats reserved for it on LY's TLV-USA flights. If there is a spot available and I get a DL ticket for that flight (meaning I am sitting in one of the codeshare spots) I can continue on within the US on the same ticket.

If there is no such spot available, DL gets an LY ticket for me and then I must take a second award ticket on DL to get to my final destination.

MegatopLover

I understand that. The rules are based on the specific terms of the FFP partnership agreement between the airlines. SkyTeam has a master agreement for all members that is specifically designed to make even award travel "seemless" between all members.

The Delta-China Airlines agreement, if I recall correctly, permits travel only as far as Taiwan on a single award, with a further award required beyond TPE. That is also true for China Southern getting you only as far as Guangzhou. I'm not going to try to guess at the terms of the El Al agreement, but it sounds kinda funny.

The DL-SQ agreement has some funny terms. You are not supposed to get award travel from Singapore to mainland China, for example. And you cannot use DL miles to take SQ from Singapore to Australia. Plus there's the whole nonsense of having to come and go across the same ocean, which is really ridiculous with the EWR nonstop service (sometimes transatlantic like the old EWR-AMS-SIN Megatop route but often over the pole and almost always transpacific on SIN-EWR). The rule on awards is that you can combine DL domestic service with SQ international service, but you can only combine those two airlines. You cannot, for example, take DL to the gateway and NW back from the gateway. You also cannot take SQ JFK-FRA and DL FRA-JFK because the transoceanic services must be entirely on SQ.

For brewgator's purposes, there's one thing that is beyond question. His JAX-JFK service should be included in his SQ F award (as long as it is on DL metal), and it entitles him to a first class seat on DL domestic.

I'm not trying to be rude, just firm. The hacks on the Partners Desk have taken 25,000 miles from brewgator and downgraded him to Y. That's just not fittin'.

piyush

The last time I booked an award ticket on a non skyteam DL partner I was told that the domestic segments will be included as long as they are on DL. I was able to get DL F in domestic with a SQ business ticket. You can't use CO, NW, etc. for domestic or even use DL for any of the international segments.

I'm pretty sure this is the case so like MegatopLover said brewgator's ticket should have been only 100k!

yngdiego

This past December I booked SAN-JFK-FRA-JFK-SAN using DL for the domestic portion and SQ over the water. First class domestic, business class international. 90,000 miles! I could not add any other airlines, nor any additional hops in Europe since I was booked with SQ and they have funny rules.

Domestic schedules seem to change every few weeks, but that's another story.

yngdiego

Skysaver coach, SAN-LAX-HNL-LAX-SAN, end of January 2008-Early Feb 2008.

upgrader

Just booked two standard Business class award RT tickets IAH-LIM using 70K Skymiles for each for a trip in July. With the converted 757-200 CO plane this is a lot like BE and one of the few if not the only true business class seats from USA to LIM. Lots of availability on several Skymiles carriers from USA to LIM at that time but very little availability for the return flights. But we found a return by checking the CO web site for award availability and, sure enough, a call to DL yielded the same availability using Skymiles. ^

tkey75

Nice. Let us know how CO is. I'm looking at taking the same trip myself soon.

Gargoyle

Not a high value award, but it was easy to book- ORD-ATL about 23 days out. A paid ticket would have been $330, and since I value miles at 1¢/mile I didn't want to spend much over $250 for the ticket.

Anyway, just 3 weeks out there were skysaver choices on pretty much every flight each way (a half dozen a day) on the exact days I wanted, and also availability on all the other days I noticed for April.

brewgator

Gang,

I just picked up the thread as I was gone over the weekend....

Megatoplover said:

brewgator, you've been screwed here. You should be in First Class for your JAX-ATL-JFK flights, not Economy. Since the redemption levels were bumped up in early 2004, even SQ Business Class awards get First Class on DL domestic legs; SQ F awards certainly do. Moreover, if you misconnect, you might have a problem rebooking because you're on separate tickets. Call the Partners Desk back, get someone competent, get it fixed, get your miles back, and get your first class seats on the domestic legs.

Let me call the partner's desk and see what they say. Certainly, if I am only supposed to be charged the 100K I will see what I can do to get them back. The original quote (First class on DL metal between JAX and JFK) was 135K miles - it was my request to go to Y on the domestic legs to get that dropped by 10K miles - while I would like to travel in F domestically, the legs are short enough that it really doesn't matter one way or the other. Anyway, I will do a follow-up and post here.

Thanks for all of the input.

Brewgator

brewgator

Hey Gang,

Well it looks like I owe Megatoplover a drink of his choosing. I called the partner's desk and talked to a very helpful rep. who confirmed that the booking should have been for 100k. The computer booked the domestic and international legs seperately (incorrectly). The 25k miles were redeposited to my account and I was booked into first on 3 out of 4 domestic legs (I was waitlisted on the 4th. Fortunately, it was the JAX-ATL leg)

Dovster also gets a drink as well because he seems like a great guy. Thanks again for everyone's input - you guys made a great trip even better.

Brewgator