Award Ticket Success - Post It Here
Apr 15, 2010, 5:58 pm
#1426
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: PVD, GVA, BUD
Programs: AA ExecP
Posts: 830
So I mentioned this itin a few weeks past, and I've just read the DL Award Reservations T&Cs. I'm confused how this is allowed...I booked (2 tickets in J at 120k a piece):
BOS-SLC-LAX-TPE-SGN (8 day stop), REP-ICN (14 hour stop)-NRT (5 day stop), NGO-DTW-BOS
Based on...
Stopovers
One stopover is allowed per Award. Round-the-World Awards allow a maximum of three stopovers per continent, not to exceed 6.
...don't I have 2 open jaws/stopovers? Any thoughts?
BOS-SLC-LAX-TPE-SGN (8 day stop), REP-ICN (14 hour stop)-NRT (5 day stop), NGO-DTW-BOS
Based on...
Stopovers
One stopover is allowed per Award. Round-the-World Awards allow a maximum of three stopovers per continent, not to exceed 6.
...don't I have 2 open jaws/stopovers? Any thoughts?
Apr 15, 2010, 6:02 pm
#1427
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: SAN
Programs: AS 100K, DL MM, AA PLT
Posts: 2,934
So I mentioned this itin a few weeks past, and I've just read the DL Award Reservations T&Cs. I'm confused how this is allowed...I booked (2 tickets in J at 120k a piece):
BOS-SLC-LAX-TPE-SGN (8 day stop), REP-ICN (14 hour stop)-NRT (5 day stop), NGO-DTW-BOS
Based on...
Stopovers
One stopover is allowed per Award. Round-the-World Awards allow a maximum of three stopovers per continent, not to exceed 6.
...don't I have 2 open jaws/stopovers? Any thoughts?
BOS-SLC-LAX-TPE-SGN (8 day stop), REP-ICN (14 hour stop)-NRT (5 day stop), NGO-DTW-BOS
Based on...
Stopovers
One stopover is allowed per Award. Round-the-World Awards allow a maximum of three stopovers per continent, not to exceed 6.
...don't I have 2 open jaws/stopovers? Any thoughts?
Apr 15, 2010, 6:04 pm
#1428
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: PVD, GVA, BUD
Programs: AA ExecP
Posts: 830
Yes, but DL's new all-knowing pricing engine will spit out a (generally) non-sensical number for any itinerary. (For example, I've had it spit out entirely different prices for the same segment in different directions!) Most of the times it's way higher than you expect, rarely, as in this case, it's lower. I say take it and run!
Apr 17, 2010, 8:27 am
#1429
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Welcome to Boston. Expect stupid.
Programs: Foodland Maika'i Plastic Card, DL GM when it meant something
Posts: 300
As Good as Gift Cards!
Or, what passes for a close-to-max-value redemption nowadays.
Mrs. Tim recently scored a coach r/t LAX-HNL for our nephew in June. 40K SkyPiles at 1 cpm plus some additional cash with the miles+$ option or whatever the heck it's called. She has got to cancel that AMEX. DL wanted 77,500 for a pure award ticket on the same flights. They offered other options +/- a few days for a mere 65K.
Yet another example of how the lack of Low award availability is just sickening - I can buy a ticket for $400 yet I can't redeem a 45K award for the same seat.
Oh well, 40K down, only 610K to go...
Mrs. Tim recently scored a coach r/t LAX-HNL for our nephew in June. 40K SkyPiles at 1 cpm plus some additional cash with the miles+$ option or whatever the heck it's called. She has got to cancel that AMEX. DL wanted 77,500 for a pure award ticket on the same flights. They offered other options +/- a few days for a mere 65K.
Yet another example of how the lack of Low award availability is just sickening - I can buy a ticket for $400 yet I can't redeem a 45K award for the same seat.Oh well, 40K down, only 610K to go...
Apr 21, 2010, 3:44 pm
#1430
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: LAX
Programs: DL Diamond, Sky Club, United Club, Admirals Club, Hyatt Platinum, Hilton Gold
Posts: 613
Success!
I travel a lot, work a lot, earn a lot of miles every year. One of the perks the better half gets for putting up with all my (issues) is a "first class" (well, business elite anyway) round trip ticket with me somewhere for a vacation. Sometimes we go with friends and family, sometimes it is just us two. A few times it has been Hawaii but usually we end up in Europe. Often we go to and through CDG since Paris is a city I love, and I speak French fairly well.
Anyway this year we have been discussing with friends what to do. I wanted to do Asia but everyone else seemed to rule it out this year. South America was next on my list but they ruled that out too as too imprecise. We settled on the Eastern side of the Mediterranean so we will do Greece, Turkey, Israel and Egypt over about 3 weeks time. This will include, while we are still young enough to appreciate it - a few days on a few of the Greek Isles (exact details tbd). I did the Greek Isles 15 years ago... and we have no kids yet so this may be the last chance to "tear the roof off" in Corfu if you catch my drift.
It is now almost May and here we are trying to plan a summer trip for August. I couldn't get an award ticket this late in the game for cheap, could I?
I read and re-read the sticky thread "definitive low fare award thread" and tried as many combinations as I could think of to see if we could get anywhere out there on the cheap side. LAX-ATH? JFK-IST? CVG-AMS-CAI? Not much came up priced well. With almost 1 hour of searching I couldn't find any awards that came up business when searching coach. And that which did come up coach was coming up pretty expensive (some mids and a lot of highs).
However, I did try one bizarre search, originating at CVG and going to TLV (I actually live at LAX) and we found a trip, CVG-TLV via ATL at the low fare of 120,000 in BE on a 777. I was floored! Everything I searched for was coming up at 250,000, 280,000, 300,000 miles! It seemed odd that it was going to make me fly CVG-ATL in order to take the trip but it would be worth it!
I went back to the screen to try to enter it leg by leg, and it worked fine except I did the return date (we lose a day coming back) wrong and kept getting an error. Once I realized the error I was tried to enter it without the silly CVG-ATL leg and instead was able to get LAX to ATL and, for the first time, get to fly in DL's 777 in BE to TLV. I am very happy! This is a $4200 itinerary (LAX-ATL-TLV) if I paid cash today, all for the low low price of 120,000 miles. I am getting 3.5 cents for the mile here. I'm very pleased with that rate because I know they cost me a lot less. And I've not yet flown in the DL 777 so I am excited about that too.
So now that we know our points of origin we will just do Israel first, then all the other cities (Athens, Cairo, etc) are short hops from TLV anyway. While I am not getting every air ticket (e.g. the TLV-ATH and TLV-CAI etc we will have to buy separately), I am very happy to be getting the long haul LAX-ATL-TLV all in BE for 120k.
It's gonna be a great trip... Now I just need to convince her to pack light!
Anyway this year we have been discussing with friends what to do. I wanted to do Asia but everyone else seemed to rule it out this year. South America was next on my list but they ruled that out too as too imprecise. We settled on the Eastern side of the Mediterranean so we will do Greece, Turkey, Israel and Egypt over about 3 weeks time. This will include, while we are still young enough to appreciate it - a few days on a few of the Greek Isles (exact details tbd). I did the Greek Isles 15 years ago... and we have no kids yet so this may be the last chance to "tear the roof off" in Corfu if you catch my drift.
It is now almost May and here we are trying to plan a summer trip for August. I couldn't get an award ticket this late in the game for cheap, could I?
I read and re-read the sticky thread "definitive low fare award thread" and tried as many combinations as I could think of to see if we could get anywhere out there on the cheap side. LAX-ATH? JFK-IST? CVG-AMS-CAI? Not much came up priced well. With almost 1 hour of searching I couldn't find any awards that came up business when searching coach. And that which did come up coach was coming up pretty expensive (some mids and a lot of highs).
However, I did try one bizarre search, originating at CVG and going to TLV (I actually live at LAX) and we found a trip, CVG-TLV via ATL at the low fare of 120,000 in BE on a 777. I was floored! Everything I searched for was coming up at 250,000, 280,000, 300,000 miles! It seemed odd that it was going to make me fly CVG-ATL in order to take the trip but it would be worth it!
I went back to the screen to try to enter it leg by leg, and it worked fine except I did the return date (we lose a day coming back) wrong and kept getting an error. Once I realized the error I was tried to enter it without the silly CVG-ATL leg and instead was able to get LAX to ATL and, for the first time, get to fly in DL's 777 in BE to TLV. I am very happy! This is a $4200 itinerary (LAX-ATL-TLV) if I paid cash today, all for the low low price of 120,000 miles. I am getting 3.5 cents for the mile here. I'm very pleased with that rate because I know they cost me a lot less. And I've not yet flown in the DL 777 so I am excited about that too.
So now that we know our points of origin we will just do Israel first, then all the other cities (Athens, Cairo, etc) are short hops from TLV anyway. While I am not getting every air ticket (e.g. the TLV-ATH and TLV-CAI etc we will have to buy separately), I am very happy to be getting the long haul LAX-ATL-TLV all in BE for 120k.
It's gonna be a great trip... Now I just need to convince her to pack light!
Apr 21, 2010, 5:03 pm
#1431
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: NYC
Programs: Delta DM, SPG Plat, Hyatt Diamond, MTA Rust, Hertz Five Star something or other
Posts: 2,858
Just helped a friend book a trip to Africa this summer for a service mission.
80,000 miles, all low level coach, $130 for a $2000 ticket
LGA-DTW-AMS-EBB, EBB-NBO-AMS-DTW-LGA
I just signed up for the KVS tool and absolutely love it.. highly recommend to anyone who books award travel frequently. It actually shows all DL High/Med/Low awards on any route (incl connections) on any date. ^^
80,000 miles, all low level coach, $130 for a $2000 ticket
LGA-DTW-AMS-EBB, EBB-NBO-AMS-DTW-LGA
I just signed up for the KVS tool and absolutely love it.. highly recommend to anyone who books award travel frequently. It actually shows all DL High/Med/Low awards on any route (incl connections) on any date. ^^
Apr 21, 2010, 7:43 pm
#1432
Join Date: Nov 2007
Programs: DL GM, WN AL/CP, UA Silver, Marriott Lifetime Titanium
Posts: 1,483
PHX-ANC-SEA for 25k, all on AS, had to combine with a Southwest Rapid Reward reservation to make it work since I live neither in PHX nor SEA. Since I smoke my extra WN Awards to unwind when I'm low on cigars, that was not a problem.
Apr 22, 2010, 1:53 am
#1433
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: LAX
Programs: DL Diamond, Sky Club, United Club, Admirals Club, Hyatt Platinum, Hilton Gold
Posts: 613
Apr 22, 2010, 2:46 am
#1434
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Syracuse NY
Posts: 83
Apr 22, 2010, 4:37 am
#1435
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: MUC
Programs: LH SEN, Marriott Bonvoy Ambassador, Hilton Gold
Posts: 520
Just booked MUC-CDG-JNB and CPT-AMS-MUC in J for 100,000 miles (low award) plus about 300 EUR in taxes. Not a bad deal, considering I needed a 3 month stay and the way down is on the A380.
I found this by using the FlyingBlue award search engine and then booking on delta.com It looks like the delta.com award engine now has more access to KL and AF seats than a couple of months ago. But remember, they only show up if low is available (no mid, high redemption).
I found this by using the FlyingBlue award search engine and then booking on delta.com It looks like the delta.com award engine now has more access to KL and AF seats than a couple of months ago. But remember, they only show up if low is available (no mid, high redemption).
Apr 22, 2010, 5:29 am
#1436
Join Date: Nov 2007
Programs: DL GM, WN AL/CP, UA Silver, Marriott Lifetime Titanium
Posts: 1,483
Geez, some people are so sarcastic. Hope this helps... http://lmgtfy.com/?q=kvs&l=1
Apr 22, 2010, 6:04 am
#1437
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 219
Monkeshine, congratulations on your seats. I don't want to "rain on your parade" but you aren't expecting the new lie-flat seats are you? I'm pretty sure that they are not available on that route in August. We've been on the regular BE seats on the 777 and they are okay with us, but I must admit I'm interested in trying to the new seats on the 777LR and hope to on an LAX-SYD flight in the not-too-distant future.
Apr 22, 2010, 9:51 am
#1438
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: MSP
Programs: NW/DL Plat, Marriott Plat, HH Silver, National Exec
Posts: 9
Booked 4 coach award tickets MSP-ATL-EZE-ATL-MSP for 60,000 a piece back in November and leaving next week and just recently did two first class award tickets MSP-SEA-MSP in July for 45,000 a piece. Not to terrible considering DL wanted 40,000 a piece for coach award on the same dates in July.