Best sources to find Skyteam award inventory?
 

Just played around with various destinations and dates on delta.com.

Is there no Skyteam such as AF award inventory later this year or is DL just displaying their flight?

Only destination which displays an AF itinerary is SFO-CDG-VIE.

Obviously there's a lot of overlap and I wouldn't mind taking longer DL flights out of SFO but unfortunately, all the DL flights start at a minimum of 150k miles for BE and are at least 5 hours more in flight time than the AF flights over the same itineraries.

It's been about a year since they started showing award inventory on delta.com hasn't it? I guess they want you to call the SkyTeam Partners desk and what, pay $50 or whatever the phone booking fee is these days?

Get a subscription to expertflyer.com (about $100/yr) and look for the Z bucket inventory.

Then call DL with the specific flights and dates (pay the $20, it is worth it to avoid the on-line headaches). Keep expertflyer.com up on your computer at the time of calling DL so you can check other flights in case of a computer curve ball at the DL reps screen.

Not the cheapest way, but in my opinion it is the most cost/time/headache efficient.

Expertflyer doesn't show, as far as I know, award buckets but just upgrade buckets, i.e. V and G for domestic as well as X and Z for international.

If Z is available you can use miles (or PMUs) but you need an upgradeable paid ticket in the first place.

Though we are supposed to be able to upgrade award tickets soon but not sure what bucket those will come out of.

Your right.

The buckets on DL for award BiZ is O and the coach award buckets are N and E, and EF does not show these buckets.

Another option is to use Expertflyer and search under NW for the D (business) and W (coach) buckets. EF does show these for NW operated flights (at least for now). Hopefully DL will follow NW's lead on this aspect with EF.

FYI I've always had success having the phone reps put the rez on hold and then redeeming online later to avoid the phone fee. YMMV

Hmm, never tried this before.

But it's not the fee that I object to, just the lack of info.

Well if you have to pay extra to get access to this info. then it is objectionable.

You would think DL would want to eliminate those jobs and just put the data online.

Well if you make it difficult to redeem miles online is to DL's advantage, most people will...
1. Give up and not redeem (no miles spent, no seat given up)
2. Give up and call to book (handing DL the booking fee)
3. Give up and pay for the ticket

Actually, DL doesn't want you to redeem at all. That's why they make it so hard.

As for the best source, the nwa.com search engine always was the best. It doesn't show AF flights if the inventory isn't there but otherwise it is reasonably reliable as a source. It also shows inventory for several other carriers which is nice.

I could never find AF flights on nwa.com. I thought someone mentioned that the Japanese NWA site might show it?

If you want to go SFO-CDG, they only show NW/KLM flights, even CO flights.

No DL or AF flights though.

I guess I'm just going to have to call in.

If they are too successful at discouraging redemptions, they might find people disinterested in accumulating and flying on their airline.

It most likely means that there is no availability on the AF flight on the date(s) you are checking -- using a random off-peak date is an easy way to check, e.g.:

[KVS Availability Tool 3.5.9910/Diamond - ORT: Awards/SkyTeam/US-NWA]

Not anymore. If you call, there is no option to put a reservation on hold, not even even if you want to call later to redeem. Now you have to ticket it right away. I tried putting an itinerary on hold in April while on the phone, to think about it and call back later (I can never find the lowest level availability using delta.com for my destinations), but the agent said it is not possible, I have to book it or risk loosing it.

nwa.com/jp is the best place to search for award inventory. Once you find what you want, call DL with the exact details. Im so worried that this will be disabled soon when nwa.com goes away at the end of the year. I hope to ask this question at the DL DO later this month to see if there is a way that they can keep this inventory information available to customers in a transparent way.

Actually, I've been wondering about this.

If the award inventory is in O or N or E, how does the system account for the increased availability for medallions.

and now with the three tiered system, how does it differentiate? Is there any way to look for that anyplace other than the Award Search pages?

They may have closed this loophole but I know it worked in March. If you did not have enough miles in your SkyMiles account for the award you wanted but expected to soon have it via any means (partners or actual flights) they would hold it for you till those miles posted. Once they posted you could redeem it online. I moved a batch of miles from my SkyMiles account to my WorldPerks account putting me at about 4000 short of the award I was looking for. I then called in and got the itin I wanted locked and loaded. I said thank you and hung up. I then waited a day (flew a leg or two during that time IIRC), moved the miles back to SkyMiles and redeemed the award fee free.

I just read in Inside Flyer magazine that delta.com will remove all award inventory from partner airlines. All that will be left is DL and NW flights! For those without the DL Amex this means that the $25 partner award fee will apply. And we all know that still, many awards with most partners were still unbookable at delta.com.