c_d

Poor me is a FO in with DL with the need to travel to Australia this summer. Appareantely Australia is not well covered in the SkyTeam, especially my home base TXL.

DL and NWA would not even show me any flights at all and AF + KLM are just referring me back to their ST partners DL and NWA (AF agent: You need to book through DL when you want your SM account connected )

Would anyone please advise on how to book, what to consider and how to optimise pricing and miles return? That would be awesome!

Greetings!

sbm12

Welcome to FlyerTalk!!

SkyTeam truly has very few options to fly all the way to Oz on alliance metal. You're basically stuck with Korean or China Southern.

Are you looking for a paid ticket or for a reward? If the latter then you would, indeed, need to book with the carrier where your miles are (DL in your case).

I'd look at the DL partnerships as see what your options are for non-Alliance earning to Oz. Flying on Singapore Airlines, for example, will earn you miles, though not MQMs. That would likely be a better/more direct routing option.

acjflyer

When are you trying to go. Delta will start service to SYD in August. And they sell "the long way" from Europe. So you could route TXL-JFK-LAX-SYD it will be a hell of a trip, but a great mileage run. It seems like you can book it on delta.com for about 1300 EUR (including taxes and fees) which does not sound like a bad price. I put in travel dates for early August:

You selected these flights:
Departs Arrives Stops Travel Time Flights & Cabin (Class)

Berlin-Tegel, Germany (TXL) to Sydney, Australia (SYD) on Fri, 07 Aug 2009
11:25am
TXL 6:40am
SYD

Arrives 09 Aug Multi-stop
Los Angeles
(2 hr 38 min layover)
35 hr 15 min
Delta 79

Change Planes
In-Flight ServicesCoach (U)
View Seats
Delta 17
Boeing 777
subject to government approval
In-Flight ServicesCoach (T)
View Seats
Sydney, Australia (SYD) to Berlin-Tegel, Germany (TXL) on Tue, 18 Aug 2009
9:15am
SYD 9:40am
TXL

Arrives 19 Aug Multi-stop
Los Angeles
(2 hr layover)
32 hr 25 min
Delta 16
Boeing 777
subject to government approval
In-Flight ServicesCoach (T)
View Seats
Delta 78

Change Planes
In-Flight ServicesCoach (U)
View Seats
Price per passenger: €970.00 (EUR)
Taxes/Fees: €354.04 (EUR)
Subtotal per Passenger: €1,324.04 (EUR)
Total for all passengers (1): €1,324.04 (EUR)

graraps

I wouldn't hesitate to fly China Southern.
In fact, I did try them not so long ago and was reasonably impressed. Trip Report here.
However, buying an ex-TXL ticket with them may be a tad complicated- if they can't help you, buy a separate one on KL/AF and connect to the CZ service in AMS/CDG.

c_d

Guys,

please excuse my stupidity, I forgot to mention my final destination: Brisbane (BNE).

I looked into the China Southern, however it's pretty expensive for just having 40% of the miles accounted. Does anyone knows, whether Emirates are still somehow connected to the SkyTeam in terms of milage bonuses?

Thanks for all your help!

Alice11

Deleted. I've found the info on the government approval on the DL forum. Sorry

jsfr

FWIW - I just went through the same exercise for flights in April (Europe-SYD//BNE-Europe)

Virtually impossible to find any Skyteam flights (cheapest was €1500). Malaysian was better at €1300 which gets miles on FB.

In the end, since we are three people flying (and only one mileage addict - even if Mrs FR loves flying redemptions in first) I really could not find any justification not to book Emirates for €981. No FB miles, but you can do a lot with 3 x €319... (certainly more than 25% miles that I would have earned on a cheap ticket).

Also the DXB to SYD leg is on an A380 which I suppose is pretty exciting.

sbm12

Emirates is not part of any of the big three alliances. As such, any partner mileage earning they have is a direct bilateral agreement. One can earn points in the OnePass program, for example, but that is based on a direct negotiation, not on an alliance membership.

c_d

Woha! I do have an old OnePass account with some miles on it. But those miles will not get me anything on SkyTeam or am I missing something here?

irishguy28

Continental is leaving SkyTeam (I think the effective date is October 24 of this year - check in CO threads) and moving to Star Alliance.

So if you want to use OnePass miles on SkyTeam - you'd probably need to book them in advance of that date!

sbm12

That date is correct for the SkyTeam departure. Reward tickets issued prior to that date will still be honored but no further SkyTeam accumulation will be possible. In the meantime, however, they are a ST carrier on which one can accrue RDMs (no EQMs) for an EK flight to BNE.

c_d

But my FO state with ST will not be reflected with EK, right?

sbm12

Correct.

c_d

Boo! Thank you for your reply! I think I try to put those on my onepass and hope for the best in SA!