yinzara

On two separate occasions with 331 days out I've attempted to book international tickets to the South Pacific with Delta. First was a trip to Palau which failed miserably and they found absolutely nothing. The second was a trip to Fiji. I worked with Delta over 6 different phone calls and changed my travel dates for them 3 times (varying weeks and dates) to try to find some week in January/February of next year that I could leave and come back two to three weeks later.

Eventually they found one itinerary that worked and they told me they wanted to charge me 250k miles for the itinerary in business class. I asked about Sky Saver awards and they said this was techincally a Sky Saver award but because of the routing they had to increase the milage. I said "then find me a routing that is at your advertised fare". That's when I found the most interesting news. I was attempting to leave from LAS to go to NAN. They told me the only way I could get a ticket for the 150k miles they list on Delta.com was to leave from LAX! That the 150k miles price was only good if I left directly from LAX since that's the only airport that flies directly to Asia.

I've twice booked international tickets with United and US Airways that were 120k miles in business class and I left from LAS and went to some location in the south pacific and came back. I had no trouble booking the tickets (they had the availability I needed) and they reps were very helpful. Right now I've got 350k Delta miles saved up after my PM status last year but I'm honestly considering just selling the miles. Delta has really disappointed me. I'm going to cancel my Delta American Express because of this fiasco.

bradfordm

This stuff is just starting to bug me. There are several things I would have done differently...starting with not bothering with Fiji.

Can you really blame Delta when they don't fly to either destination? Blame Continental - at least for Palau. Is Fiji even serviced by SkyTeam?

spgaston

See this thread.

Unfortunately, you are trying to go to a location where SkyTeam has quite a weak presence, this will cause you to need to make many connections (on CO I presume). You are at the whim of the connections rules and CO availability.

jackplum

I would like to use my numerous miles for a flight to Antarctica. Oh wait ... DL can't get me there and the Partner Desk is useless. Maybe I can redeem 250000 miles and that might help. Nope. Perhaps I'll make a few mileage runs and reach PM for better availability. Still no luck. My miles are useless. I am going to cancel my internet account.

Everyday we get the same thing.

andymo99

That isn't allowed either.

DLfan

If the OP visited this forum more often s/he would have realized long ago that SkyMiles are "worthless", award tickets "impossible" to find, Delta lies about award availability and AMEX knows it, and Delta is guilty of "fraud" for even suggesting that award seats are, in fact, available.

If all the people who have threatened to "never fly Delta again", never do, then award availability should improve significantly. Bora Bora anyone?

tkey75

I've had a firm 'Don't let the door hit you in the a$$' policy in place for some time now.

I am actually sorry the op's trip did not work out. I'm not sure where the lie is, though.

gpan

There is no lie. There is just the new cnx/routing restricted award ticketing rules which makes many markets nearly impossible to work with. (And has caused me to shift the majority of my mileage crediting to NW)

DLfan

I applaud you for this...really. In today's market, about the only way to get a for profit business to change its policies or actions is to move ones business elsewhere. Especially when that business no longer meets ones needs. All the ranting in the world won't change Delta's policies as long as the planes are full!

spgaston

And since this is more a matter of price than loyalty, looks like we're screwed

GUWonder

According to Delta's rules, yes. According to the law, is another thing.

It's not surprising that such would be the desire after all the pent-up frustration.

DL's new award calculator is separating more miles from more customers in a manner not reflected clearly on DL's published award charts. A very customer-unfriendly move is what this new award calculator process is all about.

GUWonder

NW's program is getting to be a better program than DL's for a growing number of frequent flyers. Now that DL has basically tried to mimic NW's award calculator approach and then make it worse, and now that NW has systemwide upgrades as a reward option that are far easier and cheaper to use than DL's heavily restricted systemwide upgrades, using NW's program more or ditching DL's program for NW makes increased sense for more people. (And NW elite status is good for complimentary upgrades on NW and CO, while DL elite status is only good for complimentary upgrades on DL.)

BFG

MAybe Delta should just do away with Skysaver and only offer Skychoice.

Would that cut down on the rants?

Bulldog King

This actually makes some sense.

One of the things I dislike the most about NW's mileage program is the inability to book a free multi-night stopover on a domestic award ticket........something that Delta allows as indicated by my next itinerary where I was easily able to schedule a free stopover in LAS while traveling between JFK and LAX.

This feature alone makes DL's SkyMiles program worth much more to me.

A.J.

lanemckenna

Here is a novel idea @:-)....Maybe Delta should get out of the pyramid scheme business (i.e., selling miles) and focus on the business of flying passengers from points A to B and AWARD them from time to time for their loyalty. Keep it simple!