tearex

In 2018, I did my first proper MR to SIN. It was a fantastic and memorable trip where I ended up starting my collection of Conrad ducks/plushes after not being able to contact my AirBnB host at 1am.

We packed 2019/early 2020 with a lot of trips, where I feel like we dodged a lot of bullets and got some good bucket list trips in. If nothing else, I usually use DL to reposition to NYC for flights on other carriers. The highlights:

- Tokyo/Kyoto during cherry blossom. Spur of the moment booking - alerted to a fare sale but instead burned some miles for better timing with the blossoms. Had a cheap FCM on outbound ATL-NRT to PS too. The flight just kept getting hilariously delayed from MX and pax jumping ship. Ended up changing my return to spend an extra week in Tokyo to get to eat at Jiro.
- Amsterdam, Paris, Nice, and Monaco via the 98k D1 sale. We caught the end of the tulip season and enjoyed the brief lull between Cannes and F1.
- Seattle - A weekend spent at The Gorge and stopping by Mt Ranier NP on the way back.
- Using miles to position to Hamburg for Christmas markets, then Tunis, to fly a cheap La Premiere flight from Paris to Hong Kong, then completing my first RTW in CX F with the cabin to myself. Had not been back to HKG for several years and had a blast exploring the quieter streets.
- Positioning to NY, then back from Mexico, on a second RTW, bringing us through the Maldives, Siem Reap, Ho Chi Minh, and HKG.

CarmenOM

Beginning in 2012, eleven long distance (~50-100 miles) inn-to-inn self-guided walking trips in Europe: seven in England, three in the Netherlands, one in France. As I shelter in place now, I re-walk them in my mind and through my photos.

dmarge18

I'm pretty happy with most trips I've decided to take, but for DL specific, I'll give 2. First, a random cheap round trip to Asia to visit an old college roommate based in Okinawa (and of course see my alma mater play in the Armed Forces Classic). Wife and I were in Seattle at the time and found dirt cheap RT on the non-stop to HKG, returning from PEK. Did 2/1 night (respectively) overnight layovers in each city and had a blast exploring the different cultures and hanging with friends in Japan. We also went to Zambia to visit a friend a few years ago, with 7 hour layovers in AMS and NBO. We were able to have a few hours exploring AMS for breakfast, got op-upped on the KQ flight to NBO, and then took a safari in the national park 30 min from the airport in between flights (saw rhinos, lions, giraffes, and zebras). Hoping to have another long layover adventure on the way to BLR this summer (LHR and BOM layovers), but we'll see how things progress.

apodo77

DTW-ICN in the UD on a 744 in 2017. My one and only ride up top on a 744.

jamesteroh

A few years ago DL had DTW/BOS/ATL/LIM really cheap in business class and a friend wanted to do it for a mileage run and I decided to go along for the rollover miles since it was so cheap and to spend four days escaping the December weather.

Had a great trip even though we stayed in LIM. Beautiful city, San Diego type weather and great food. Made me wish I would have kept up on my Spanish because I would serious consider retiring there if I was fluent in Spanish.

Kamalaasaa

2018: Flew into DTW from CDG in September or October and got stuck there overnight due to MX on my connection. DL gave me 10k SM as an apology.

Which meant I had just enough (like with 36 to spare!) when I read on FT about Delta’s 49k sale to Australia in Y. I had to pay $400 to buy the extra miles to get from the East Coast to LAX, but I’m so glad I did.

Visited two friends on opposite sides of SYD for one week and spent a second on Tasmania, which was beautiful. Early November is a perfect time to visit Oz!

Wouldn't have made the trip if I didn’t have that extra 10k mile deposit just when I needed it.

2010: My mother, sister, her husband & two children, and I used miles to fly into ANC, took a land and cruise tour of Alaska and Canada, and then capped it off with time in Vancouver and Victoria. One of my favorite family trips ever.

Gig103

Egypt in 2015. We had planned on seeing it via a cruise, and the cruise line cancelled the port for security reasons. So we hired a company off TripAdvisor and had a 3 day private tour, fully guided. Never felt unsafe, things were cheap, and barely any other tourists so my photos are great! Plus, we have a particular fun memory of Queen Hatshepsut's temple. A bus of Egyptian middle school girls arrived for their tour and they were so excited to see Americans. They knew a few (English) phrases and were using them with us and wanted selfies. I'm probably on some Egyptian insta or snaps.

gigglypug

3 week trip to Africa last September: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia...Trip of a lifetime!!!. Flown on KLM but using Delta GUC on a LAX-AMS-JNB-AMS-LAX routing. If I recall the underlying economy ticket was about 1,300 per person...so there was plenty of $ left for photo safaris, shark cage diving, dune climbing etc. Came back with 7 full 16GB memory cards!!

mathprof

Vegas, over Presidents’ Day weekend, two weeks before NV had any confirmed COVID-19 cases. Had to cancel four planned trips since the outbreak started on the US.

Biscoff27

August 2018 to the Azores: Had a tight connection at JFK (SEA-JFK-PDL). Woke up to see that the inbound aircraft for my first flight was delayed several hours taking off. After a quick call to Delta, I was on an earlier flight. I took a nap on my first flight, and when I woke up I checked the Delta app, which said we were diverting to DTW. I stopped the flight attendant passing by (who was so excellent!) to see if I missed an announcement, and she said she knew nothing about it. She called the captain, and 5 minutes later an announcement was made about the diversion. After a few hours in DTW, we were back on our way to JFK. Thankfully the second flight was delayed a little, and because of a lot of missed connections most of us got our own rows on the way to PDL. As we were approached the beautiful Sao Miguel, I knew I was in for a great vacation. It makes me sad that this route was cut.

hotturnip

I went to Madrid in December to see the exhibition of Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana at the Prado.

speede racer

Visiting museums and art galleries is a favorite activity for me. It started after going through DTW about a million times, and thinking on a long IROPS that I should actually do something. So I went to Detroit institute of Art (which has an airport-code like acronym DIA). Since then I've made various tweaks to my schedule to visit museums and galleries in at least ATL, JFK (many), DCA, LAX, SFO, SEA, DEN, PHL, HOU in the US, and AMS, LHR (many), CDG (many), MUC, FCO, VRN, and yes MAD. This has been a very rewarding way to enrich my travel.

SJC ORD LDR

I'm glad I went to Hong Kong and Australia last November. We were able to try a couple different DL partners, GA (HKG-DPS-SYD) on a redemption and VA (SYD-ADL) in paid Y. It was great getting to see Australia for the first time and to be there before the fires and COVID became major issues. The highlight out of this trip was four nights on Kangaroo Island where you can see a lot of wildlife around the entire island. Next, would be the drive from Adelaide to Melbourne following the coast ending up on the Great Ocean Road. I'd do it again after it recovers from the devastating fires that occurred at the beginning of the year.

vinnmann

Back when you could use DL miles on SQ, I was able to get MCO-JFK-FRA-JFK-MCO with the domestic segments in DL F and over the water in SQ F. What was really great is that I had no itinerary planned. I had a project get cancelled and asked if I could take 2 weeks off. I went to the airport and asked the DL rep where in Europe can my miles take me today in J? She suggested London, Paris and then said hold on a second, let me check something. A moment later she replied, I can get you to Frankfurt on SQ, for 90k miles in J or 100k miles in F. For 10k more miles, I'll take F. Upon arrival, I took the train to Munich, Nuremburg and Rothenburg before visiting Frankfurt and returning home. The trip was incredible and flying SQ F was icing on the cake.

Stripe

One of my favorites was a MR to SIN in 2009. That was in the wake of both the financial crisis and in the middle of DL's takeover of NW, so the value for money was great. Triple MQMs on a $1,700 M fare that was easily upgraded with one of DL's old Platinum upgrade certs. Three nights at the Conrad Centennial in SIN at about $80 per night. The trip over was a bit of an adventure as the initial AUS-DTW had a mechanical cancellation, so everything got rolled forward one day. Then a medical diversion to Edmonton the next day on the DTW-NRT flight, followed by a missed connection at NRT, a surprisingly pleasant overnight near NRT on DL's dime, and onward to SIN on JL the next day. All flights except for JL were on NW metal and the DTW-NRT flight was the very first flight the legacy NW crew was using DL service items and procedures. It was a bit of a hot mess. But it was my first trip ever to Asia. Great fun and that one trip got me over halfway to qualifying as a charter DL Diamond. Looking forward to similar opportunities popping up after this crisis abates.

Here's an old FT album I posted after the trip: https://www.flyertalk.com/gallery/NW...NRT-SIN?page=4