Not to HKG, but KIX-TPE-SFO. h/t again to RealHJ and gooselee for their suggestion to call in:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...l#post27465123

(I'm actually in the middle of this trip now in Taiwan right now but flying to Japan next week)

dullta.com is not able to effectively search origin to destination. Remember that you have to search flight by flight (for all possible routings). When you've found the available flights, you need to call to put 2 or more flights together, as dullta.com will not do that for you - at least, not for CI (but also for other airlines, dullta.com will generally give you very long itineraries with a lot of backtracking; the more direct and shorter, lesser travel time routings it has been designed not to give you, so the more direct routings you have to find by yourself segment by segment).

So, search for xxx-TPE, and then TPE-HKG separately. When you find flights that you like, call in to book. Online booking is not possible.

So I was just curiously checking possible award tickets on Delta.com in Business/First from ALB to MLE during "low" season (May - October 2017) for 2 seats.

Using the 5-week flex calendar, I was a bit shocked (to say the least) that it came back at 550,000 miles (per person).

OK, unfortunately after that, any subsequent dates kept coming back with "we're sorry no flights available for you". (I think it's a bug as I've had this happen before for like JFK to HNL).

Next day (today) I figured I'd search from BOS to MLE. Again, flexible (5 weeks calendar) for business/first for 2.

Oh look, it says there's one for 217,000 miles. OK, click on it. Shows me like 5 flights all of which are 330,000 miles or more.

Is this a "bait and switch"? I mean I know AA.com website is atrocious but can't say as I've had it pull up a calendar date for say, 67.5k miles and then you click on it and you can only find stuff at 90k (aa.com has a diff. feature where you pick business/first and then it shows you economy class).

Since delta no longer has award chart, I was curious as to the "average" miles for low-season to MLE would be. Although looking like it's triple what a Hawaii flight would be. Wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong in my search methods.

Well partner awards are going to be expensive now, the lowest would be 85k each way for TATL.

So you go from CDG to MLE on AF, it could be another award?

Presumably only AF/KLM flies to MLE through a TATL routing?

Oh, OK. I still think it's kinda "sneaky" of Delta to show you one redemption info on the calendar, then when you pick it it's over 100k points more.

I'll have to play a bit more I guess. Just trying to guesstimate how many miles I'll need to rack up. LOL!

Did you check how the results for the particular date were sorted? The calendar should show you the lowest mileage price for each day, but when you click on it, you won't necessarily see that lowest-cost option on top. DL sorts the results by "best" choice first, which is usually not the lowest. Change the sort drop-down above the results to 'lowest price" to see the results you were after.

I think I know what happened now.

I originally searched ALB -> MLE and about died when I saw prices of 550k miles only on Wednesdays. (all other days were not available, only Wednesdays showed up for July).
Yeah.

So I clicked "Start Over" and I think it reset my search of First/Business to Main Cabin and was displaying BOS -> MLE at 217k miles in Main and then when I clicked on it, I only looked at the First/Business column.

I am shocked though at how big of a price difference between ALB vs. BOS/JFK. Went from 550k to like 330k. Obviously ALB will be out of ATL mostly (could also be MSP/DTW) and that apparently isn't as "cheap" as BOS/JFK.

Searching one-way D1 flights from TYO to HNL on either August 31st or September 1st. Looks like there's 2 flights on Delta metal, a 7 PM & 9:20 PM. The 7 PM flight is priced at 80 K for August 31st which seems reasonable (different dates are priced at 60 K), however the 9:20 PM is substantially higher (i.e. +150 K). Ideally would like to book the 9:20 PM flight in order to get a full day in Tokyo and have a better chance at sleeping however not sure if the price will come down.

Thoughts on booking the 7 PM flight at 80 K, or so should I wait to see if the 9:20 flight will come down or maybe the 7 PM flight will drop to 60 K?

Yes, the 60K price is highway robbery. Insanely high. And then most days it's truly aburd pricing like 150K, 180K, etc. Until not long ago used to be 35K, and is 35K or 40K (was 30K) with StarAlliance and OneWorld.

Just book the CI or KE NRT-HNL flight. Better service than Delta and at least those are at just the nearly double of what-it-should-be-and-is-with-everyone-else 35K (at 60K).

But yes, to book this at the new "normal" of 60K you will definitely feel like you are robbed and violated by Delta, and see just how worthless your SlyMiles are nowadays.

Married segment logic is really annoying. Looking at NYC-DTW-NRT in the fall, I can fly out of EWR on a 6am flight for the low level of 80k. If I want the privilege of flying out of LGA or JFK I'll have to pay 112.5k, even though there are numerous low-level LGA-DTW and JFK-DTW awards available at better times. I could actually save miles by booking separate domestic and international awards. Weak, Delta.

Looking to book SFO - NAN (connecting in LAX and BNE or SYD) in K class and using points to upgrade to D1 (phone rep said it'd be 80k each way to upgrade). Only issue is that I'd have to wait list for the upgrade since there are none available at time of booking. Stil, this seems more plausible than booking an outright award ticket at 400k or more round trip, but does anyone have experience with miles upgrades clearing on these routes? I have lots of flexibility if there's a better time to guarantee the upgrade.

Either looks like horrendous value to me. If you were using AS miles, you could book (not upgrade, just book) SFO-SEA-LAX-NAN (AS/FJ) for 55k or SFO-ICN-NAN (KE) for 62.5k each way in business. (FJ availability can be hard to find, but KE seems plentiful.)

(Yes, I credited some flights to DL instead of AS in the past too and am regretting that.)

Thanks for the tip. Alas, I only have Delta miles - there's no way to transfer miles from DL to AS, right? It looks like KE would be the best bet, but I haven't seen any availability on the DL site for that routing...

You are searching segment by segment, not origin to destination, right?
dullta.com is really bad at O&D searches.
For non-DL flights, where there is no married segment logic, you really have to search segment by segment all the possible routings (starting with your preferred).

Thanks for this - I wasn't searching segment by segment, so this is a huge help. That being said, I can only find 95k reward tickets for SFO - ICN and 62.5k for ICN - NAN. There's also no availability for next April yet, and KE only seems to release one seat on each flight, so I'll have to keep looking.

(Funnily enough, I could fly SFO - JFK - ICN on DL or SFO - CDG - ICN on AF, but that adds a big chunk of time onto an already long flight!)