may be stupid, but newbie question...
 

How hard is Delta to get award flights on? Any harder than any other airline, provided you give decent notice? Can you ever book awards in a few days notice because of an emergency? I am still new to the FF program and want to use a program where I will actually be able to use the pts. Amexes always double pts makes me go with the DL amex card, but I want to make sure that I will be able to actually secure award tickets, ya know? Sorry if this is a dumb newb question, but I really need some input as I have never actually even booked an award ticket. Thanks so much in advance.

I have never had a problem getting award tickets on Delta There may have been times I've had to move a trip one or two days in either direction, but I've always gotten seats to my destination and in one instance, at the last minute. I've had the same experience with American.

Ero2-We have been able to get award tickets with Delta but there has recently been an increase announced for most of the overseas awards effective Mar 2004. You might want to check out the Delta board to read about award availability and recent changes.

Thanks, I will do that! However, the odds of me using these pts to fly overseas will happen once in blue moon, but will happen at least once. Mostly will be used to fly to BNA from LAX. I am very flexible as far as moving my flights around 4 or 5 days either way, so, I guess being flexible is the key right? Thanks for the reassuring responses!

The only dumb question is the one that's not asked. Bob

Probably should have been posted at Delta forum.

But FWIIW, I have never had problrms getting award tickets... That is not why I left DL.

glad that I made a good choice then. Only bad part is BNA to LAX is always a 2 part flight. But if I used a different card to get miles and a different airline, I would get to see my family in tenessee a lot less. Because the delta amex will earn me trips MUCH faster than a 1pt per dollar. Because probably 2/3 of my purchases are everyday purchases. Thanks for the reassurnace, and for taking the time to help a newb :-)

Coach or First? LAX-BNA is really cheap in coach. That would be a waste of 25,000 miles.

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"It's as easy as 1, 2, C" -- Kelly, Married With Children

coach. The cheapest I could find was southwest for 308. Am I missing something? If so please show me the light :-)

Southwest regularly runs promos for r.t. tickets for $200 or less to some or most places they fly. Be sure to get on that airline's mailing list for discount fares. You get an email every week. http://www.southwestairlines.com/email/

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Free Frequent Flyer Miles

cool, thanks! the only bad part is it may not be a special time when I need to fly.

[This message has been edited by ero2 (edited 11-07-2003).]

so am I wasting my time with FF or does my theory make any sense?

Pay 55 a year
earn a 200-300 ticket (maybe more depending on where I am flying to besides BNA)
earn back at least 145 for spending around 15,000.

At least I wouldn't be wasting the cash back on something stupid :-)

Also, since I am new to this, how much would an award ticket on delta end up costing me? (just rough estimate?) I know southwest is completely free when you use an award ticket but how much would an award ticket end up costing me in cash ontop of the miles on delta?


[This message has been edited by ero2 (edited 11-08-2003).]

Well, that is a value of miles question, and if we really got into it, we'd be getting into the longest-running discussion on FT, (from what I've been able to discern). Just do a search for "value of miles" here and there, and you should get more answers then you'd ever care to read.


But here's a couple of pointers:

IMHO, coach awards are worhless. An intercontinental F (first) or J (business) ticket may run into $5-8K, and yet it (usually) only costs twice the miles. An infinetely better use of those miles.

Also, if you want to earn miles through a CC, get the Amex Starwood card. Starwood points are worth much more according to most people here, and they can be transferred into any domestic airline program, with a 25% bonus every 20K points. (So you get your coach award 20% faster...)




[This message has been edited by notsosmart (edited 11-09-2003).]

as others have suggested, unless you are very short on cash, ~$300 is not a very good value for 25k miles, especially on DL where last minute availability is decent, open jaws + stopovers are permitted, and sat stays aren't required.

many FTers employ a $.02/mile conversion when deciding whether or not to redeem miles. bna-lax in Y typically falls well below the implied $500. on the contrary, lots of people use that route soley for the purpose of building miles (and status) that yield dividends in other situations. if bna-lax is your main route and you never take vacations, you might want to consider WN because you'll earn free flights quickly, which you can redeem on the same route at a moment's notice.

I live in ATL and have found DL awards difficult to redeem. Of course, I have no status and am not willing to pay 50K for a domestic flight.

Every airline has capacity controls which they don't disclose, presumably because if you knew how hard it was to redeem you wouldn't bother saving the points. That's just a presumption on my part, but why else wouldn't they disclose how many award seats are available per flight?

BUT I am in a different boat than most, I am seeing it as getting a free flight, for which I would otherwise have had to pay for, not necessarily getting the HIGHEST value for my miles. I know I am looked down upon for saying this, but pay 55 dollars a year out of the change jar I accumulate over that year, earn a free flight to see parents whenever I want. May not be the best use of miles, but as a poor college student, paying 55 for a plane ticket is MUCH better than paying 300-? however much. I will also use it for when my GF's parents pay for her to go on vacation and I can't afford to go because a plane ticket is too much $ (which has happened several times), situations like that. Am I now banned from this site? :-)

Do you intend to make large charges to your credit card? (ie pay your tuition, buy bonds, etc). If you do and think you can place these during promotions then cards like these should work well. Also, if you do a large amount of spending but it is spread out or likely not during promotional periods, then I'd recommend the Starwood card.
Lastly, i'll give my advise for what appears to be your situation. Don't pay an annual fee and try to get a card that's good for economy awards! These cards been mentioned in most of the threads on credit cards here. You can find ones that will allow you to get delta tickets as well as other airlines. Flexibility aside, why would you pay $55 for what you can get for free? If its for additional miles in promotional periods, estimate how many extra you will accrue and decide whether those miles are worth $55 to you. For you, they probably aren't. The ScoreCard program mentioned in several threads seems to be a good consideration for you and BankOne may be willing to give you a no-fee variant of the ValueMiles like what I have.
And no, you're not banned, you just seemed to be confused but don't realize it. Most people here are not in our situation but that doesn't mean you can't find the info you want here. Also, if you include more info (like your expected average monthly balance, what other cards you have, where does your gf go on vacation, etc) we can be more helpful, but I get the feeling while reading this thread that you've pretty much made up your mind and that we're wasting our time giving you advice. Let us know.

nope, you are definitely not wasting advice, I am very willing to take the advice. A few things. I like the starwood card, but am wary of the "how do miles expire" problem. I know starwood lurker said that "as of right now" pts do not expire, but this could be changed at any time, thus meaning that at any time I could lose my pt balance. I like the amtrak card, however it requires you actually go on amtrak at least once every 3 years to keep your pts from expiring. I had the bronze citi AAdvantage card but realized I could get much better rewards than a coach ticket for 50,000 in spending. I have the MBNA worldpoints card, but they will NOT allow you to choose which airline you fly on. I spend about 1,200 to 2,000 a month depending on the month. I will fly to Tampa alot with my GF from LAX because her family has a condo there. I will also fly to detroit metro a lot because ALL of my extended family lives there. The reason I may seem like I have decided because I have approved and taken the hard inquiry for the delta card, but am always looking for the best NO FEE card, don't get me wrong. So, please continue with the recommendations. Am I missing any good free cards? Does bankone have one? I would be interested for sure, just point me in the direction. Thanks for all responses and keep em' coming.

also, like I said, probably 600-700 dollars of that amount will be everyday spend classifcation, I.E. double points, and I am a person that will wait for a double or triple pts promo to buy big ticket items. And during tuition months I will spend about 4,000-5,000 plus all other expenses. Maybe this will help a little?

It's hard to give you advice when after trying to do so you add all sorts of facts like the above which may completely change the equation!

Originally all you said was you wanted a free flight a year LAX-BNA. Later you added that you flew additional times, but I think you said your flights were paid for by your family in those cases.

Who will pay for the flights to Tampa and Detroit? (Presumably not you, because if you could afford all those, why would one more to Nashville be a problem?)

There's a major fact which I'm not sure you realize that's the key to why business people are a major user of FF programs: The person who gets FF credit/miles for a flight is the booked passenger, NOT the person who paid for the flight. So every paid (paid by whomever) flight you make to Detroit, Tampa, and Nashville earns you FF credits/miles. (But that's only of great use if you use the same airline in all cases, or at most maybe split it between two consistent airlines.)

Furthermore, Southwest goes to all those cities from LAX. 6 of those flights with NO credit card earnings at all will earn you a free "anytime last-minute" flight to Nashville. (On any other airline, it's likely to take dozens of flights to equal one free flight.)

If you only need one free flight a year and you earn that by all the paid-by-whomever flights you take the rest of the year, why worry about any credit card at all? But if you are going to fly an airline consistently to all those cities and earn each time you fly, and you still want to earn more with a credit card, it only makes sense to earn with a credit card that puts your miles/credits into the same FF program you're earning miles/credits through flying, because then your flying earnings add to your credit card earnings and produce free flights faster.

But if you have more facts (are you going to stay in hotels? are you going to rent cars?) it's time to put them all out now, because each such fact can again completely change what solution makes the best sense.

Btw, if your GF is going to fly "a lot" to Tampa make sure she signs up for the FF program on the airline y'all fly to there. Since she's a different booked passenger, she has to have her own FF account. Again, it doesn't matte who buys the ticket, it matters who flies in the seat on the plane as to who earns in an FF program. So you earn for your tickets, she earns for her tickets, no matter whether you, she, or someone else pays for all those tickets.

my parents will occasionally pay for my flights to see them. The reason I brought up the thing about my GF is because every summer her family takes a vacation, and every summer I CANNOT afford a plane ticket to where ever they are going because I usually have to pay tuition around that time. So, in a way this is guaranteeing that if they go on vacation, and I actually want to go to this place I cannot afford a ticket to, then I will be able to afford the ticket because I will have enough FF points saved up. Also, like for my little brother's 21st b-day I want to suprise him and my parents by just showing up, again with no money, the one way to assure this is by earning with my CC. I say that I will take these flights several times a year when realistically the last time I was in detroit was 3 years ago, and the last time I could afford to go to florida was 2 years ago. My GFs parents always pay for everything BUT my plane ticket, which is hugely generous, and which is why I would like to earn these pts, to be able to go with them on the vacation they so graciously offered to fund. Also I may occasionally need to take an emergency flight to BNA in case of emergencies and would never have the extra $ just laying around to pay x,xxx dollars for a ticket 5-6 days in advance. So, I would like to bank them for when someone isn't paying for my ticket and I really want to be able to go somewhere even with no money. I guess that is what I am getting at. I am also sorry I made it so difficult for everyone to give me advice, I was not intending to do this.