Kacee

Have you been following them lately? Lucky just posted a piece yesterday about how DL may now be better than UA for international redemptions. Is The Relative Value of Delta Skymiles Increasing?

TPG now values UA miles at only 1.5 cents each.

I don't think there's any question award availability has been severely reduced by both UA and LH. Just look at what UA has done with ps.

The bright spots on the chart continue to be *A's Asian partners (especially TG, OZ, and BR), OS to VIE, and the occasional release by TK.

berto714

I think it's a little harsh to say they "sell an idea that is fraudulent." Many people are still able to use their miles - it's just somewhat harder. And they are always using their miles to get places, so clearly it's possible. It just takes a little bit more work, which is fine by me considering the value you get out of it.

And it doesn't even seem all that hard to me. Starting next week, I'm flying EWR-HNL, HNL-NRT, and NRT-ORD-EWR all in UA J on miles, and it was incredibly easy for me to find the exact flights I needed on the dates I needed them. I was not flexible at all. Also, my friend was just able to secure RT tickets in J to Australia next summer on UA. Traditionally one of the hardest tickets to redeem on UA, and he still did it.

Obviously, these are only two examples, and YMMV. But this thread is based on examples of limited availability to Europe next summer, which is also just one example. So maybe availability to Europe has dried up, or maybe UA will release it at a different time going forward - I think it's too early to tell. There are also other tried and true ways to get to Europe on miles if you wait to book until a closer, more-specific time from when you want to fly (people who know can figure out what I'm talking about here).

Look, I'm not going to sit here and argue that the surge of free miles on the market is not negatively affecting availability. Obviously, it has to be. But I also think that the devals will help availability open up more going forward - as there are more miles in the marketplace, devaluations are necessary to balance supply and demand. Is this ideal? No, not at all. But it's not the miles apocalypse like some people are making it seem.

Cargojon

I just ran DEN-FRA and there's blue's and green's all over the place up till at least April, where I stopped - using 1 pax. When I switched to 3 pax, it looked similar to yours.

spin88

No offense, but I am going with multiple posters of long standing here - all of which say reward redemption has gotten harder on UAL and seats (especially premium) are not available at all any longer - the idea works study, showing the trends as of March 2014, plus Lucky's post, over your, and your "friend's" ability to always easily find J awards on UAL on the days you want, with no need to even be flexible.

The reality is that (1) Delta realized it had a problem, (2) publicly admitted it had a problem, and (3) said it would fix it. As of March 2014 (idea works pull, check the link I gave) they were doing much better, and promised more, and they appear (if what Lucky says, and what people are reporting, is correct) to be following through. United is another story entirely, and anyone who trusts this current management team not to further devalue MP miles via reduced availability as they flounder around is a sucker.

Long Zhiren

The DL merger with NW was complete ~2010.
The UA merger with CO was complete ~2012.
Is UA just two years behind?
Is this a prediction of what will happen to AA/US?

nwflyboy

We will have to agree to disagree on that.

I'd argue that it's not "somewhat harder." It's orders of magnitude harder. And I do think it's dishonest - yes, intentionally, willfully deceptive - to continue to blithely tell people what the bloggers say and imply every day: that it's easy to quickly accumulate enough miles/points for multiple seats in premium cabins on award flights, and that the average, casual noob can accomplish their dreams of taking the wife & kids off to a previously out-of-reach destination…just follow their easy instructions, beginning with clicking that link to apply for the latest awesome credit card offer...

The difference - and the dishonesty - IMHO is the little disclaimers and qualifiers (or complete lack thereof), the language used, the presentation. But nobody should expect anything else - they have a direct, clear conflict of interest. Nobody should be shocked to discover that bloggers have to get you to sign up for credit cards or else they would have to go find a real job.

Yes, it is true, that under a specific set of circumstances, a blogger can point to an example here and there of a way to get to destination X on airline Y - even in a nice flat-bed seat - using points. But finding one example does not mean that example can actually be replicated by the rubes in their real lives. The bloggers specialize in this kind of dishonesty: sure, if I had nothing better to do, I could eventually find a way to get from some city in the USA to some island in the South Pacific using miles, and smirk. But for 99% of their readers, that is useless disinformation. Because they have real jobs, with narrow windows for vacations - they can't just drop their life, put on their flip-flops and fly off to Palau on Wednesday when a seat becomes available. They need 2 seats (more if they have kids). They need to be able to schedule a trip to the other side of the world more than a couple days in advance so they still have a job and a mortgage to come home to - they're not living in Mom's basement. And they don't want to go via Easter Island, Cairo and Rangoon to get there. The bloggers cheerfully wave all these things away as if they don't matter, with photos of water cottages at 5-star resorts, gold-plated showers at 30,000 feet, and other misdirections.

The fact is, most people want to be able to choose where they go, choose when they go, and take along a loved one (or two).

As recently as a year or two ago, it was not really difficult to do that. It only required a little bit of flexibility, some planning, and a little knowledge. There were lots of good options available, nonstop flights or good connections, even in forward cabins. At the low/saver level, with plentiful availability.

Not any more. It's not "somewhat harder." The difference is like night and day. I think that's an objective fact that anyone can easily see.

You might attribute the change to other reasons, and that's fine, but I do think it's dishonest to pretend that things have not changed fundamentally. Personally, I believe the reason is the blogs + inflated sign-ups = an explosion of points and people chasing them, which caused the airlines to devalue big time, and repeatedly (both the public devaluations, and the unacknowledged removal of most award seats). I'm not really surprised by any of this - bloggers are driven by their own personal greed, those new to the game are excited by dreams of Fiji and Dubrovnik, and it all looks so easy - just follow the circles and arrows, see you at WallyWorld. Though slow to react, the airlines are simply businesses that fine-tune their practices to align things with their goals. Freeloaders in the forward cabins is not part of their business plan.

It was a great run, but for the most part, for average people, I think it's over now. Feel free to disagree if you like, but I know what the availability looks like up ahead, and it ain't pretty.

andrewwm

Did you even read Lucky's post? Talk about the choir here singing to themselves.

Faults of DL's program that have not changed:

* No availability to gateway cities still
* Severely restricted access to key partner award availability (AF/KL)
* Terrible partners
* Can't use to book F
* Tiered award chart means you can forget about useful Standard awards
* Pointless fees for originating outside of the US
* Terrible phone agents
* Seriously broken website

So you can basically use DL miles as a conduit for booking Virgin partners, which is the big change.

You still can't use the miles usefully domestically. You still can't use them internationally unless you happen to live in a gateway city and want to fly to a handful of partner hubs.

He said Delta was becoming relatively more valuable only because the award costs went up so much on UA and UA's partners released so much fewer TATL award space for next summer.

In terms of a flexible currency that will get you where you want to go to anywhere in the world, it's still very hard to beat miles in Star Alliance, and on United. Few fees, many partners, many many more destinations.

How do you plan on getting from PEK to NRT on DL miles? How about BOG to GIG? How about JNB to CPT? How about even finding space to do something like EUG to MHT?

Pictures say it all:

nwflyboy

No, he did not.

He said Delta points "had become more valuable recently."

Things he did not say:
He did not say more valuable relative to other currencies.
He did not say more valuable in light of other programs' even greater devaluations.
He did not say more valuable because others had become even less valuable.
All of which one could argue are somewhat true - but that is NOT what he said - at least not until he was called out on it. He may have gone back and tweaked his language later, but he definitely said that Delta points had become "more valuable" recently - which is a bald-faced lie. All airline currencies are becoming less and less valuable, Delta's (and United's) included. None have "become more valuable" lately.

But he's gotta generate income somehow, and that means driving credit card sign-ups, so I guess that's OK.

He said that as he was pimping sign-up referrals for a Delta credit card.
I don't recall him ever having anything positive to say about Delta's program previously. Suddenly, he's a fan of SkyPesos. Who knew?

What do you think his motivation was?

Cargojon

I just booked and traveled in intl J on a UA partner in July (Saver award). I was a piece of cake and I had several options coming from the East Coast. My travel was all on weekends also.

I don't why the hysteria. Sure, getting UA metal was impossible in J, but I could in F if I'd have chosen to. Didn't deem it worth it. Could I have gotten 5 tickets on the same itinerary? Who knows, I only needed 2.

berto714

Nowhere in my post did I say I or anyone else can always find availability in J. I even said in my post it's gotten somewhat harder to find. So I'm not sure why you're rolling your eyes at me - I specifically qualified what I wrote as only two examples. I just think the attacks on Lucky and other bloggers is a little bit much.

I really only read a few blogs other than Lucky's, and I think Lucky is for the most part pretty honest. Others might exaggerate - I'm not really sure, I can't speak to that. As many other people have pointed out, he had a recent post about availability trends decreasing. And anyone who reads his blog consistently knows that he has rather excited posts when large blocks of availability open, and encourages people to book ASAP. I'm not sure how anyone could read into that as being dishonest - if he was really trying to push the idea that there is a ton of availability, he wouldn't be telling people to book ASAP before availability is snatched up.

Kacee

Hmm. You must not have seen the post recently by the member who was able to find overwater segments ex-IAD and IAH, but could not find any domestic availability between MCI and either IAD or IAH. This was for next July.

That is not an uncommon situation these days. And JFK is now effectively unavailable as a connecting point from the west coast to Europe because UA has essentially stopped releasing any seats on ps, and - according to several reports - now counts EWR as an OJ.

andrewwm

Well he did say relatively specifically several times:

But overall I agree with you that all programs are getting worse over time. The next in line to devalue is going to be AA, once they merge the programs.

On this I will agree with you. Lucky isn't as bad as some at pimping the credit cards as some other, less reputable bloggers but it's clear that they get most of their income from these links.

It's funny that many of the bloggers repeatedly post about the Barclays card as if it is the end all be all, yet there is mostly crickets about the Fidelity card, which is in most cases better for their readers (yet earns no referral bonus for them).

berto714

Ok, so I don't necessarily disagree with you here. I am relatively new to redeeming miles, and I will say it can be frustrating at times, and definitely time consuming. But it's an interesting game to play, so for me, I don't mind much. And I will say that I had very specific dates in mind to plan a vacation, and we were not really restricted by destination (outside of destinations not served by *A) - it was rather difficult for us to decide where to go because we had so many options to fly on saver J. Like I said before, YMMV, but for September of this year, booking 3-4 months out, I found an incredible amount of availability. I will say, I was actually rather shocked by the amount of availability, because based on what I've read on FT and blogs, I assumed it would be more difficult.

I guess where I disagree with you is on what bloggers do. Maybe some bloggers are pretty deceptive, but I don't read a lot of them, so I can't speak to that. I find that Lucky is pretty even-handed and honest, for the most part. Maybe if you don't consistently read all his posts, you could get the impression that it's easy. Other bloggers might be much worse about this, but I wouldn't know. I read much more about miles from blogs until I recently discovered FT, however, and I never had the impression that it was "easy" to use miles. Maybe I'm just better than most at reading between the lines?

That being said, there is at least one blogger who I do think is totally deceptive, and I no longer read this person's blog. Won't name any names here, but if you were to say the above about that specific blogger, I'd be totally on board. I generally stick to Lucky and FT now, however.

spin88

I don't think the merger status has anything to do with this (other than CO management thinking people just have to fly them, so they can do what they want, squeeze them harder).

Delta with the NW merger went with a far less rewarding mileage program for international upgrades, and inflated the miles badly with a deal with AMEX. But they also started a rather dramatic improvement in product quality combined with better service. IMHO the two balanced out some. Now they are admitting that they went to far with SkyPeso inflation, want to be competitive. Are making the miles more valuable again.

United when taken over by CO, dramatically hacked away at MP benfiits (upgrades, special handling, etc), cut service levels, cut soft product, and tanked OT reliability. It became by far the worse of the majors. But they also dramatically raised the price of redemption (for *A and some UA metal) and have now in essence deflated the value of MP miles by cutting back on saver availability.

The airlines have taken very different paths, they are almost the anti-mergers of each other. Parker says he is not going UAL's way, but some decisions (recent cuts to meal windows) are not promising.

integrinB4

As others have mentioned, Savers have been showing up closer to actual departure date. I have a recent example of T -30 availability.
Example:
In March, was looking to book for August (Labor Day Weekend-ish/flexible) for ORD->HKG. There is a daily direct flight, but would only show up as Standard. In fact, the only SAVER awards were overnight layovers in NRT and a AC ORD->YYZ->HKG. I booked that and kept checking every week to see if Saver awards popped up for the ORD-HKG direct.
At EXACTLY T-30, SAVER awards for ORD->HKG showed up. Called United and switched flights.
So I guess strategy could be if you see any sort of crazy routing for the days and destination you want in SAVER, go ahead an book it and then watch T-30 and T-3, -2 for SAVER availability on better flights/routes. Worked for us.