Thanks everyone. I am beginning to understand a bit. However, it seems like a lot of the issue is either getting premium class seats or international travel.

Let's say you just wanted to get a family of 4 across or around the U.S. on a domestic flight if you had 100K miles built-up. Still a bad experience, I presume?

Thanks.

For a trip like that, reference the required variables in the first paragraph of my previous post. If you hold Medallion status and are flying within the contiguous 48 states and you either know how to manipulate the calendar or you are willing to call support (SMS), you will be in about the same boat as you'd be with the other major airlines. That means that if you have a little flexibility and aren't seeking lots of seats, peak periods, or high demand routes, you should have a very good shot.

Four people over Thanksgiving on a nonstop transcon would be very difficult on any airline, but two tickets during a "normal" period where you can move your dates a day or three - you should be fine if you know what you're doing. Delta really needs to fix the calendar issue, as it's ridiculous that you'd need to know tricks to get it to work. If you lack Medallion status (or don't believe you can get it easily before your trip), then you might want to post your desired routing and time frame here and let someone help you. Lots of us are kind and helpful and could probably suggest the airline or two that would give you the best chance.

In Delta's favor, the earning of those 100K miles you cite is much easier with Delta than elsewhere. I recently booked eight tickets (albeit not transcon - it was an itin involving two RJ hops), all on the same flights, for my family and another, for 200K Skymiles. I needed the tickets and would have had to pay ~$4,000 after-tax dollars otherwise. Pretty good deal considering that I'm earning 180K Skymiles just for spending $60K on one of my Amex Reserve cards.

Delta's own accounts quantify the reason for the Skypesos term.

When Delta emerged from bankruptcy in 2007, the accounts valued each mile as a liability worth 0.83 cents.

In their latest accounts, each mile is valued at 0.54 cents.

Devaluation by over one third in 3 years.

You'd still be taking more of a chance than with other airlines. In January I was looking to redeem my remaining SkyPesos for LOS-NYC return in September. Whether logged in as a Gold Medallion or not, the lowest price I was getting, 9 months out, was 40,000 miles. Yet with no status on AA, 25,000 miles as far as the eye could see.

Unless you're heavily invested in flying Delta and plan to continue to be, and have the general spending levels to justify DL branded Amex cards, you're better off looking at other programs.

The only reason to accumulate Skymiles is if you live in a Delta hub city and are earning elite status for domestic upgrades.

Even if you live in a Delta hub, but aren't going to make status, credit your flying to Alaska.

And if you don't live in a Delta hub, fly a different airline and earn status with them and miles with them instead.

The only reason to earn non-flight miles with Skymiles is if those miles help you towards status. If your credit card spend isn't going towards status, it makes no sense to accumulate Skymiles at all. And other non-MQM earning activity? No way.

Such attempted SkyMiles redemptions are still a generally bad experience and getting worse for the overwhelming majority of DL SkyMiles customers.

I can't even get 25000 award tickets MEM to CLE. Six months ago I could. I'm so glad I switched to CO.

How many tickets and what dates?

A quick look shows that Medallion inventory over the next several months is wide open... ~80% dates have flights available at the 25K level, usually several options within the day and for 2+ passengers.

For non-Medallions, it's still quite open... ~50% of days for one ticket.

Some time ago, I started calling them the Zimbabwe dollars of the Sky, but I guess that is a bit long. SkyPesos is shorter.

Is there an explanation, on FT or elsewhere, of the "calendar bug" referred to above? Thanks.

+1

When logged in as a Medallion and you want to include Medallion award inventory (i.e., "I am traveling" is checked) and you are doing a calendar search (i.e., "My dates are flexible" is checked) as well, the calendar colors will often load incorrectly at first - not showing green when there is some available. To get around this, press > (forward) one month, then back, and the colors will load correctly. Do this for both departure and return. I've only tested this workaround to be valid for searches within the 48 contiguous states - not sure if it matters when searching HI, AK, or internationally.

The bug that causes this initial color load failure causes many Medallions to incorrectly assume that there are no low/saver awards available, when indeed there are.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm a frequent flyer or that I know much about redeeming miles, but the one time that I wanted to use DL miles was this spring to go to Las Vegas and it was pretty easy and not ridiculously overpriced points-wise. This booking was also only about 2 months in advance.

I know that many will say that these points shouldn't be used for this kind of domestic flight, but it worked great for me since I live near a regional airport and not a hub. If I were to buy the ticket, it would've cost about $350 and I used 32.5k miles for it. So, to me, I got more than the $.01/mile that is the baseline for "value" of my AMEX MR points (which I transferred to DL) and it was free. But, if I waited another week before I booked, there were flights available for the 25k level on the same exact flights that I booked for 32.5k. So, I just happened to get unlucky with my timing. If I was booking for something like 6 months or more in advance I would've waited longer and done more research, but I wanted to book ASAP to be able to assure myself a free ticket.

Basically, I'm saying that it all depends on what your needs/desires are. My goal was to not actually pay any $ for my ticket, but I wasn't going to use miles if it came out to less than $.01/mile. Lots of people look for a much higher return, but since all of my miles & points come from credit card spend, my desired return varies depending on the current situation. Sometimes just over $.01/mile is ok with me and other times I want it to be much higher.

IMHO, I respectfully disagree with SkinFans0521.

The problem with Delta is not that is not possible to get some value out of the SkyPesos, because it is--but, that it is much, much more difficult and each mile is generally worth much less than miles in other programs; evidently as part of Delta's business plan which includes rapid and large devaluation of miles, somewhat concealed by various devices such as the purported three tier redemption levels.

Clearly since DL got their mits on NWA, the FF ticket inventory has dramatically declined. I have been able to work the schedule, however to take advantage of some 25k tickets to Alaska in coach.

I'm most disappointed that in the old days, I could be assured on the first day of availability booking a 75k RT first class ticket to Hawaii . . . 150k for two. That option is long gone, as are the upgrades to first class. Now you aren't even eligilbe for them if you're a mere silver medallion member.

Like I said, I don't pretend to be extremely knowledgeable in redeeming options or anything like that, but for my situation at the time, it worked perfectly fine. Plus, like I said, all of my miles come from CC spend and a lot of it comes from sign-up bonuses which I got for free anyway.

So, while I do agree that I'm not actively trying to accumulate more miles on DL (like I am with others), they have their place. The whole reason for using DL on that trip was because they had the best options availble of any of the partners I could transfer to from AMEX MR. All the others either didn't have availability or cost more miles.