DL117

So I'm organizing a transatlantic trip with 6 other people, Europe to West Coast, 6 segments (2 each on DL, AF, KL) and all in booking class T. Total of about 13000 miles.

So I asked my fellow travelers if they are interested in the ff miles, one of them is (and opened a Flying Blue account) but the others don't care, and told me I can use their miles if I wanted to.

What's my best strategy to turn these trips into oneway award flights for myself? (without breaking any FF program's rules)

First option: They each open a Skymiles account, ending up with 13.000 miles in each. Then they book a one-way award flight for me using 12.500 miles. Why it doesn't work: DL oneway awards are 12.500 miles, but based on round trip. So the 13.000 miles on each account don't help anything.

Second option: Transfer these miles into my Skymiles account. The problem: Transferring miles is so expensive it isn't worth the miles.

Third option: Do option 1, but on a Flying Blue account. KLM/AF actually let you book 12.500 mile oneways, even on DL. The problem: Our trip is in T class, and while Skymiles would credit us 100%, KLM would credit me much less, so this option is out of the window too.

Any advice? Is there any Skyteam FF program that lets us collect 100% miles on those T class transatlantics, enough to use these credits for oneway DL/AF/KL domestic award flights? I've looked at Aeromexico and it looks like they could be an option, but maybe anybody here has a better idea?

Thanks for your help!
DL117

javabytes

Perhaps Alaska? You wouldn't be able to redeem on DL for one ways, but you would for AA.

dd1612

If you don't have a DL AMEX Credit card, get one.

Book all the travel through Delta.com and get additional mileage from the purchase.

DL117

Thanks for the hint. But I'm in Europe so the option is out. Also, I'm not after the couple thousand miles from the ticket purchase. I want the multiple 13.000 award miles. A huge difference.

DL117

mAAine_flyer

Frankly, I'm not sure it's worth the effort to draw mileage from multiple orphan accounts (each with 13k miles) but if you really want to try, you might look at VS's Flying Club which allows earning on DL and has some fairly cheap redemptions on VX's west-coast routes (e.g., LAX-SFO for 10k roundtrip or SFO-PDX for 12.5k rt).

Or just have your friends use their miles to get you every magazine subscription under the sun for the next decade.

Do your flights on AF and KL metal have DL codeshares?

motytrah

If you're going to put the miles into AS make sure the flights are covered. There's a list of DL flight numbers on the AS miles earning pages for DL/KL/AF. A lot of the time the DL code share on AF/KL flights is outside that range.