Alliance award seats to Japan
 

Hi -
About 3 years ago I learned a secret - that Delta partners had to honor the delta mileage chart for 1st class tickets if they were available. As a result, I got 2 first class tickets to/from Thailand via China Southern - each for 60,000 Skymiles.

I am looking to potentially re-create that same experience from the US to Japan. I will be using American Express Rewards points - so Delta isnt a requirement but I will be leaving from Atlanta or LA, so...

Questions:

a. Is this still possible via Delta skymiles.

b. What tool is there to find available seats by partner airline?

c. Which airlines do you think would have the best availability that go nonstop from either Atlanta or the West Coast to Tokyo?

Thanks.

Huuuu ???? :confused:

60k would be Business Class wouldn't it?

If it's actually Business Class you're after, then you have heaps of options to Tokyo. DL is the easy choice and ONLY Skyteam non-stop, though maybe not the sexiest. Others (with a transit in their home country), KE, CI, MU, CZ.

When thinking about which airlines might have non-stops, you have to look at who has hubs on each end. Japan has exactly Zero Skyteam airlines, so therefore no non-stops to Tokyo from the US mainland except Delta. The exceptions to this are when airlines have 5th Freedom rights between two countries that are not their home country, however Japan to the US doesn't have Skyteam carrier 5th Freedom routes to anywhere except Hawaii anymore. Korean Air used to have LAX it changed to Hawaii several years ago, CI also has NRT-HNL but that's not a very practical routing to avoid DL.

I don't understand what you mean by "honour the mileage chart". When you book a flight via the Skymiles program, Delta takes your miles and pays money to the airline partner to buy that flight for you. The airline partner could not care less what the mileage chart says. They get money. The mileage chart just specifies the amount of miles in exchange for which Skymiles/Delta is willing to buy you a flight from their partner.

And what do you mean by "secret"? The fact that you can spend miles on flights with partners (particularly Skyteam airlines) is openly mentioned on Delta's website.

Sorry to confuse - its been a long time since I posted.

What I meant is this:

4 years ago a flight from LAX to Bangkok on Delta in business class (I was in the upfront lay flat bed of the brand new double deck planes on China Southern - no idea if that is biz of 1st class) was like 120,000 miles. However, according to the Delta mileage chart these seats start at 60,000 miles. Since Delta's partner, in this case China Southern, had seats Delta had to book them for me at the 60,000 mile rate (vs paying 2x to fly Delta proper). That is what I meant.

As far as Japan - does anyone go from LAX to Tokyo with a "free" stopover in Hawaii?

There used to be a tool that let you look up inventory on airlines - that is how I found the China Southern seats - does anyone know that tool?

I don't understand anything in your story. Sorry.

A search for a business class seat on the delta website shows 220,000 miles per person. I can get that same seat on China Southern for 60,000 Skymiles per person.

Is that more clear?

That's common with all of the big 3 US carriers. It's called Saver Awards vs Standard Awards. Partners airlines are usually only available at the Saver level (basically a seat is available on miles or it's not). Standard Awards have different inventory, sometimes up to last seat availability, but at a greatly increased mileage cost. Delta is very stingy with Saver award inventory, so that's why you're seeing 220k for their flight vs 60k on partners. CZ (China Southern) has always had good availability in Business Class for awards, and that was true back when their only US flight was a 772 to LAX.

In any case you haven't discovered any secrets or tricks.

Tools you're looking for to search award inventory are Expertflyer and KVS, both are paid services.

Thanks. Glad to hear it is not a secret and still available. I assumed all of these loopholes would be closed.

Is the best way to book these tickets just by called the Skymiles desk at Delta? Or is there a better way?

Jake, did you read what people have replied to you here? It's not a loophole. Delta does it intentionally.

Awards with SkyMiles can be booked online for many of the relevant carriers USA-Japan. See the primer in my signature link. Updates to delta.com award search November 2014 - March 2015 to put more carriers online for DL awards took much of the work out of it.