JIM_Travel

Ironic, isn't it. So if DL got their act together with offering just an average number of awards, they could have best program in the business.

techboyds

If an average number of awards were available, people wouldn't value them at .6 cents.

Delta has been by far the most generous in terms of bonuses and earning for years. It seems possible that what's actually happening is that they are offering some saver awards (perhaps as many as before), but so many people have so many miles, they're getting snapped up nearly instantly. Inflation.

Or, I suppose, so many people have so many miles that they know they don't have to offer the lowest awards, because people will blow more (as they have them). Still inflation.

Supersonic Swinger

Another data point

Why Delta Skymiles Is Lagging As A Loyalty Program For Non-Elites

onthego15

I have 50000 SkyPesos from before I found FT and learned that my frustrations with Delta SM were widespread. I have given up on trying to find a domestic award ticket. But since I have a DELTA AMEX, I am going to use their pay with miles program for an upcoming trip. At least that way they are Skypennies for me (a penny per mile in the pay with miles program). Then I will use up my miles, cancel my credit card before I have to pay the annual fee and focus on CO, UA and AA for earning miles.

mooper

What domestic route and date range were you seeking, before you gave up?

jpdx

There's a whole lot of complaining about DL miles, but I think much of this is unwarranted. I am among those who have very little problems using DL miles. In fact, I have redeemed over 4 million DL miles at the "Low" level since the beginning of 2009, all for international C/F trips. Only one of these trips was a mixed Low/Medium (150k RT to Europe) trip, all others were Low (100k to Europe, 120k to Asia, 140k for SQ F). The "Low" awards are out there, and even if you can't get all-Low trips, with a little bit of knowledge about the constraints of the program (searching/timing), you can always at least get a mixed Low/Medium award.

Regarding Domestic Trips: Try booking a domestic trip in the next few months with any alliance, and you will find that Saver awards on AA and UA are extremely hard to come by. I've done over two dozen award redemptions this year -on all alliances-, and done probably thousands of searches for availability. And I can tell you that it's much easier to get TATL/TPAC C/F flights than the domestic feeder flight. Spend a few minutes clicking through the ANA tool to see how many available seats on PDX-ORD flights there are in the entire month of August. You'll see that there literally are weeks where there is no availability at all (you can even try ORD-DEN, and despite the dozen or so daily flights UA has on that route, no more than a few will have open Saver seats). Similar picture for PDX-DFW on AA (check their calendar for available seats, just takes a few minutes). People repeat the mantra that UA/AA have oh so vastly superior award availability, but right now, the fact is that for most travelers, all miles are extremely hard to use. In fact, I would posit that for anyone looking for a domestic trip in Summer 2010, DL miles are worth more than AA/UA, because you have a very high likelihood of being able to use these miles at the "medium" level (40k), which is lower than "Standard" seats on AA/UA (50k).

Regarding international travel: I also don't agree with the assertion that DL miles are useless for international trips. Much will depend on your origin/departure, and even more will depend on your ability to do a search that reveals all the options. I won't argue that DL availability is as good as UA/AA for TPAC/TATL flights (it clearly is not), but the superior availability on UA/AA for TATL/TPAC flights buys you very little if you can't use your UA/AA miles to get from your hometown to ORD/SFO/IAD/whatever. When you factor in partner availability, DL can be quite competitive, but again, this will depend on origin/destination and search skills.

Imo, there is plenty of "Low" availability -- if you know where to look, and depending on your travel patterns. In cases where "Low" is not available, DL inventory at the "Medium" level unlocks vastly superior availability than UA/AA Saver, and thus there are plenty of situations where DL miles are indeed useful.

onthego15

Most recently I was looking for flights between AVL or CLT and LAX in Sept. But in the past, I have looked for domestic flights and have had to use far more skymiles than I would with other airlines' programs. I am grateful that I have gained most of my skymiles for little or no cost, but I am not going to pursue skymiles any more.

mooper

Those who use the term "useless" are clearly incorrect, for the availability of just one seat would make the statement false. However, if you take a random sampling of US to Intl trips and search amongst airlines and alliances, I don't think it's debatable that Delta falls short.

Everything you said regarding domestic is true, and while I'm behind you with maybe 2,000,000 Delta Skymile redeemed (all low/saver) over the same period, my experience has been similar. More often than not, especially when using Medallion inventory, Delta provides *superior* low/saver redemption opportunities within the 48 contiguous states. To boot, my average CPM values have climbed over 2, as fares have risen in recent months but the 25K mile requirement has not.

Much of the misdirected perception that DL miles are difficult to redeem at low/saver levels results from confusion between international and domestic redemption, refusal to accept that peak routes/dates/multiple seats aren't always available (and typically aren't for any airline) at the lowest level, or a lack of knowledge on how to search for availability (some of which is Delta's fault, when it comes to the calendar bug regarding Medallion inventory).

mooper

How many seats and what cabin? When is the last time you checked?

For two seats, either cabin, and using Medallion inventory, it's wide open for September, even for weekends. Virtually every day is available at the low/saver level from either AVL/CLT > LAX in each direction, and most have multiple options within the day.

Using regular (non-Medallion) inventory, it's very much the same, albeit slightly more restricted. Coach is still very wide open, but first becomes more of a 50/50 proposition for any given day.

jpdx

I think the availability calendar is a huge problem! It misleads (intentionally?) customers into believing that Low awards are not available, when they actually are. I have even had agents tell me that "Low" awards aren't available; I laughed and gave them the "Low" flights I wanted them to book for me.

I think the usefulness of DL miles and resulting satisfaction with the DL program depends primarily on the following factors:

1. Your location. Availability is much better with partners than on DL metal. If your airport is served by AF, KE, VN, KL, you have a very high likelihood of being able to use your miles for international trips. Domestically, AS is far superior to any of the majors, so you'll usually do fine if you can use AS feeder flights to a large airport served by the above-mentioned partners. If, however, you want to use your DL miles from Oklahoma City or some place served only by DL, it is much tougher.

2. Your ability to search for availability. This is a tough one for the regular user who may have 50-100k miles per year or less. If you're just looking for a couple of tickets a year, it just doesn't make sense to subscribe to Expertflyer or invest time to learn some of the search tricks that are available to the heavy hitters. Many small-time mileage redeemers don't know how to find available seats. A better award search engine would level the playing field.

3. Flexibility. I think the talk about needing extreme flexibility to use DL miles is exaggerated, but yes, you do have to be a little flexible. The problem is, once more, that people expect to use the 100k miles they saved up over the years to fly their family of 4 to Florida for Thanksgiving. For reference, I have used "Low" DL miles to travel over Thanksgiving the last three years. However, I did not book 4 weeks before the trip.

4. Realistic expectations. Again, the Thanksgiving trip for the family of 4. This doesn't work with most airlines, but that doesn't matter to a person who can't redeem their DL miles -- they'll be complaining about DL.

I fully realize that some of these things pose huge challenges to some of the people who complain about the inability to use DL miles. So you only have 100k miles, Thanksgiving is when you have your time off, and you have a family of 4 that needs to get to grandma's house. Honestly, I don't think any airline can provide a satisfactory result with these constraints. The truth is that that's not how airline miles work these days. What I would recommend to people who fall in this group is to actively work the promos. DL miles can be had at insanely cheap prices (I bought millions of miles at .2cpm, or $200 for a US-EU Business ticket, and even though that deal isn't available right now, anyone shoule be able to get miles for a penny or less). Top off your 100k account to 160k and pay the 40k needed for 4 "Medium" tickets. It's just not worth the headache.

For all those with larger balances, familiarize yourself with the program. Buy an Expertflyer subscription. Understand partner routes, and how partner programs work (when do seats become available, etc). Learn the loopholes and workarounds. Appreciate the advantages of the DL program -ability to change tickets after departure, have open-jaw and stopovers, etc-. DL lets you book amazing almost round-the-world open-jaw trips (e.g., SIN-NRT-oPDX-AMS-oMUC-CGD-MRU for 120k in C), and if you play your cards right, you can easily get free side-trips (e.g., instead of booking PDX-MUC RT, book PDX-MUC-oPDX-HNL, and get a free trip to Hawaii). It's really a fine program if you know all the angles.

Happy

I honestly think this is THE most important factor of almost all programs. For those who live in NW, thus have AS at their disposal, it works great for them. Not so hot for others who live in SE, for example.

The reality is, the majority of folks do not want to PAY anything, not even taxes and fees in their mind, for award tickets. People often fail to see that paying $200 for a business class TATL ticket which normally costs $2000+ at the cheapest, is a superb deal. They are not willing to "buy" cheap miles via the frequent promotions DL runs.

It also takes efforts and time to work the DL promos for buying cheap miles. Most folks are not up for such task.

onthego15

Thanks for checking, but I am not Medallion, I have specific days I want to fly because I am attending a conference, and the best I could find would cost me 40,000 miles for a ticket I can buy for $300. I'm much better off using pay for miles, and I have decided to stop trying to accumulate Delta miles and concentrate on CO, UA and AA.

GuyverII

I'm impressed how civil this conversation has been. Guess it is because Gary posted

mooper

Most $300 tickets are redeemable for 25K miles (should you want to redeem them for that) - are you sure you are checking correctly?

Your earlier statement implied that it was difficult to find availability for your route in September, but that's clearly not the case. Your requirement for specific dates is the hitch. Is your expectation that CO, UA, and AA will typically have two low/saver seats available on over 50% of the days for the routes you want? You are likely to find that other airlines typically require a bit of flexibility to make it work.

mrx900

The only time these SkyPesos have been useful for me is to redeem them for AS flights to gateway cities for CX or JL using BA/AA miles to fly across both ponds.