So I just used 60,000 delta miles + $129 to book convenient econ flights with virgin JFK-LHR. The flight would of cost me $979. So I've got just over 1 Cent per mile value... If you read a lot of the blogs I didn't redeem at a very good rate. But I still feel like I got a good deal...

I got the miles for signing up for the credit card and referring my wife, I never fly delta any other time. If these were my united miles I probably would of spent the $$$ instead and kept the miles. And obviously I would of like to been able to redeem for biz class or even pay for one leg in econ or use miles for 1 leg in biz but with the cost of 1 way international pretty much matching round trip i couldn't do it.

So I'm happy, do you think i got a good deal?

There was a time when Skymiles were a far better value than they are today. Perhaps they were never as good as other programs - but they were better than today and much better than what we will see tomorrow.

Some will point out that other routes and other flights might yield a better value. But if you wanted these flights then you essentially traded 60,000 miles for $850. If you are happy with that then that's all that matters. I don't think that's a bad deal.

Thanks.

If anyone wants to try,

I need to be in London on 6/26

and will be leaving from Bordeaux on 7/3 it seemed imposssible to use my miles to start at BOD hence the LHR round trip. I don't really mind flying from anywhere in Europe to any airport in NYC and would love to fly back in business if possible. I have 80,000 sky miles

When we last saw DL award charts, 60,000 was a low coach TATL RT award ticket.

As much as you say you're happy with this, it sounds like you are trying to still convince yourself that you're happy with it. Why post this on a public forum otherwise?

I'm happy with another Delta redemption that surprised me. LAX<->AMS in mid-April in Business Class, all the way on Delta metal (one connection in each direction in the western US, so the main portion of the flight is on a longhaul widebody), for just 125k miles and minimal taxes/fees. My other option was BA with just 100k AA miles but whopping YQ fees .

I don't know exactly what "value" 125k miles for this flight is, but given that it's only about double the miles of the OP's flight yet is in Business Class (the cash costs of which are way way way more than double the cash costs of coach!) and is from the west coast rather the east coast, it seems a pretty good value to me for Delta. (Obviously, if AA had had its own TATL metal available for an award on the same trip, it would have been only 100k with minial taxes/fees, so that would have even better. But between the two choices I did have, this still seems quite a decent deal to me.)

Having said that, this was the absolute latest dates that were available at this price. It's obvious "shoulder season" pricing. But given that it's prime time for tulips in Netherlands, why should I care?

"What is the value of a point?" has been debated here since the last millennium. The debate often comes down to a ticket being worth what the airline charges for it if you buy it or what a given person would be willing to pay for it.

In other words, say an airline charges $500 for an economy ticket from New York to London and $4,000 for a business-class ticket. The potential traveler knows that J is a lot nicer than Y but wouldn't spend $3,500 more for seven or eight hours of niceness. He would, however, buy a business class ticket for $1,000 if he didn't have miles to use on this trip. If he redeems miles for a J award, is he getting a value of $1,000 for those miles, $4,000, or perhaps some other number? Most of the existing threads end with people agreeing to disagree.

For Delta that's a decent redemption, IMO. Especially what I've seen them try to charge that much for a domestic economy round trip.