9W award availability using skymiles
 

Hey FTers,

I'm trying to add 9W domestic segments to my DL award ticket. But there is no way to check the availability since I do not have JP miles. The DL agents also test against a blackbox by hit&try method.

Could someone do me a favor checking these days for award ticket (economy-X or business-D)?

Thanks in advance!

Dec-11-2012, AMD-BOM 9W2004, 19:00-20:05 - 1 Ticket

Nov-17-2012, BOM-AMD 9W2001, 05:35-06:35 - 3 Tickets

Dec-03-2012, AMD-BOM 9W2002, 11:15-12:20 - 3 Tickets

Oct-23-2012, BOM-RAJ 9W7129, 05:20-06:20 - 1 Ticket

Jan-22-2013, RAJ-BOM 9W7136, 20:35-21:40 - 1 Ticket

almost 4 years for your first post charms81....

nothing available here....

only one available in economy, nothing in business....

only one available in economy, nothing in business....

2 seats available in economy....all economy flight....

2 seats available in economy....all economy flight....

Thank you so much for taking time to find all this Keyser. You've been awesome(st) member of FT.. read plenty of your helpful posts and reviews.

I guess I should contribute with my limited knowledge to keep the helpfulness going since I'm feeding off FT as a leecher all these years :).

glad i could help....

It's safe to say that no one should be surprised.

so true....i could have told charms81 that without even looking....

Hello Keyser,

Would it be possible to look for the award inventory again for these 2 segments? For some reason when Delta is trying to request a ticket, it comes back unconfirmed.

Oct-23-2012, BOM-RAJ 9W7129, 05:20-06:20 - 1 Ticket

Jan-22-2013, RAJ-BOM 9W7136, 20:35-21:40 - 1 Ticket

If the above do not show anything available, how about these?

Oct-23-2012, BOM-AMD 9W2001, 05:35-06:35 - 1 Ticket

Jan-22-2013, AMD-BOM 9W2004, 19:00-20:05 - 1 Ticket


Thanks so much for your help!

no problem....

2 seats in economy, all economy flight....

2 seats in economy, all economy flight....

1 seat in economy, nothing in business....

1 seat in economy, nothing in business....

Thank you Keyser! Apparently DL was not able to secure any 9W inventory for any dates (it always came as waitlisted and that cannot be ticketed). My primary reason for having 9W on same itinerary was to not have baggage policy issues since 9W does not honor international baggage policies when it is separately ticketed.

I guess I'll need to pay the $150 or Rs.200/kg charge for additional luggage + the ticket rates (which would have been free if it was in same skymiles itinerary).

Btw, DL has terminated skymiles agreement with 9W and IT effective April-15-2012 and hard-stop on Oct-15-2012 (skymiles can only be redeemed on 9W until Oct-15 per DL Rep). So 9W possibly joining Skyteam is probably off the books now.

Yep. Delta's partnership with Jet ends on 15 October (and with IT on 1 Octiber).

I won't be surprised if it's because Delta found Jet to be useless partners, in that there was never any redemption availability on Jet metal. :p

It doesn't necessarily mean joining Jet's SkyTeam is out just because of the FF arrangement coming to a close. But if it does, too bad for Jet. They can continue to sit in limbo. Their own damn fault anyway.

Out of curiousity, and since you guys seem to know a lot more about this than I do, what would be the incentive for an airline to refrain from joining one of the alliances? I know that joining one would probably reduce their ability to work with other airlines outside the alliance, but wouldn't they make up due to (conceivably) much higher volumes?

Right, not joining an alliance allows them to work with everyone. As long as there is no other competition that is part of another alliance, 9W basically has the entire international FF market.

If IT or AI join an alliance, then suddenly 9W can't work with their alliance partners. That will make it more advantageous to be an alliance member. As long as everyone in India is unaligned, alliance membership without a ATI/JV type agreement would not be particularly better for 9W.

Thanks; that makes sense. Based on that logic, then, the benefit for the other alliance-based airline (say... AA) to partner up with Jet would be the (theoretical) ability for their customers to redeem miles on 9W and also to earn AAdvantage miles when flying on 9W?

the advantage to AA is that they gain connectivity to the Indian market - a market which they could not serve properly by themselves.

Actually, that is not necessarily correct. It all depends on the contracts between them. For example, for quite a while DL had a separate partnership with SQ while both of them were ST and *A members respectively.

The main benefit of being an alliance member (from the airline's pov) is not mileage earning or redemption. At the very high level, it is capturing more revenue pax to/from destinations served by the partners.