Earlier this week, Ben wrote about his recent experiences flying Delta, and the marked difference in quality of service when compared with American Airlines. As expected, the post brought out a flurry of comments, not only because the question of better is always subjective, but because the topic of Delta always seems to bring up…
Continue reading: Five Redeeming Qualities Of Delta SkyMiles
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One underrated piece of the puzzle here is that I am finding a ton of pretty good values on domestic coach itineraries these days. It’s not glamorous but I’ve seen itineraries, even around the holidays, pricing out at 1.5-1.8 cents per mile vs the coach cash fare, and you’re still eligible for Medallion upgrades on the mileage ticket (though you can’t use RUCs or GUCs). AA and UA will occasionally have better values on certain domestic itineraries but DL seems to produce higher value a greater share of the time for those types of trips.
" while waiting on hold for an hour with an AA agent " AA has automated call back when its ur turn.
One thing I’ve run into when trying to book a CI award is that if I add a segment beyond TPE, it won’t price at 85,000. For example, I booked SFO-TPE in December in Business for 85,000. If I searched SFO-HKG, my actual final destination, CI doesn’t even show up as an option despite O being available on both flights. If I call to get the TPE-HKG segment added, it refares to a much higher price.
Steph - glad to see you posting again!!
Saying that Delta "has no close in booking fees" is misleading. In most cases, Delta charges far more miles for close-in bookings. For example, ATL-SFO coach nonstop for today is 68,000 miles; it drops to 31,000 miles for flights at least 2 weeks out. If you include connecting flights it is still 68,000 miles today, drops to 20,000 miles two weeks out. By comparison, a United nonstop today is 12,500 miles.
Bottom line - Delta often charges hundreds of dollars in close-in booking fees in the form of additional miles for the award.
First, thanks for pointing out the better redemption rates on awards booked far out. I wasn’t aware of that so I definitely learned something there.
I think most folks want biz class on long haul fights so that they are able to relax and rest. All the other stuff I receive in biz class is nice, but it’s not why I’m willing to pay more for that seat. The whole champagne and caviar thing is neat, and it’s a novel experience I hope to share with others, but for me, it’s definitely not my decision driver.
My frustration with Skymiles is the oftentimes absurd award redemption rates. 500,000 Skymiles for a oneway ticket is bad. I don’t see those kind of rates with AA or UAL. I tweeted at Rene this week that it’s interesting to me that most of my paid travel is with Delta, but most of my award travel is with other carriers. This is primarily because I live in ATL and do a lot of domestic travel for work.
You make some interesting points about searchability, and I agree, DL is top notch there, but I’ve learned how to naviagate AA’s site even from my phone and I can find what I’m looking for on the AA site as fast as I can on the DL app. I did have to do some exploring to figure it out though.
I have flown with CAL now 2 times on a DL redemption. That is (IMO) the best (non-sale) redemption of Skymiles, and the CAL B777 seat is probably better than DL biz class seats (except the A350). You can sometimes find space on the JFK route at 85K too, but in my experience, the SFO route is usually the most available.
I’ve been thinking about my relationship with DL a bunch lately. In Atlanta, it just doesn’t make sense for me to try to consistently use another carrier, but I wish I had the option.
Props for the attempt but I feel like this particular blog is trying to justify DL by talking in circles.
You talk about how expensive awards are on DL and that you can search for awards on the DL app but then you come back with this... "And don’t even bother trying to search for awards on the AA app, because you can’t. So Delta has an edge here, at least when it comes to their award search technology." So I have the ability to search for it on DLs app but will pay 1million miles for the ABILITY to search it or I cannot search it at all within the AA app!? Is that a positive point for DL? That seems like hardly a win in my book.
And then you say..."But SkyTeam’s greatest hits seem to be highly concentrated in East Asia, and include the likes of Korean Air, Garuda Indonesia and China Airlines." So I have to use my miles in Asia!? What about any of the other continents, including America...where DL is based? That would be great! That hardly sounds like a win for DL.
Nothing wrong with coach redemptions, but at that point the fixed value open-bucket programs easily outclass legacy-style restricted award space.
Opportunity cost includes money-value in addition to time-value of work involved.
Agree with Bgriff here. I think the biggest piece that you missed here in the otherwise-great article is the super cheap Domestic award prices that I’ve been seeing lately. On their Award deals webpage, I’m seeing SEA-BOS for only 15k roundtrip! I imagine pricing isn’t nearly this good on AA and UA.
Also, this is petty but can you/Lucky please get a new picture of Comfort+ to replace the outdated Economy Comfort picture? There aren’t any Delta planes that look like that anymore, at least from my travels. A first world complaint, for sure! 🙂
Props for the attempt but I feel like this particular blog is trying to justify DL by talking in circles.
You talk about how expensive awards are on DL and that you can search for awards on the DL app but then you come back with this... "And don’t even bother trying to search for awards on the AA app, because you can’t. So Delta has an edge here, at least when it comes to their award search technology." So I have the ability to search for it on DLs app but will pay 1million miles for the ABILITY to search it or I cannot search it at all within the AA app!? Is that a positive point for DL? That seems like hardly a win in my book.
And then you say..."But SkyTeam’s greatest hits seem to be highly concentrated in East Asia, and include the likes of Korean Air, Garuda Indonesia and China Airlines." So I have to use my miles in Asia!? What about any of the other continents, including America...where DL is based? That would be great! That hardly sounds like a win for DL.
We use sky miles exclusively. We booked a trip to Scotland for 33k miles round trip per person. Hard to beat that deal!
There's some OK domestic 1st class rewards too. My wife and I are flying SEA to ORD. We had already booked award ORD to MAD on Iberia, so we didn't have much wiggle room on our positioning flight, but even then Delta turned out to be our best option. My wife paid 22.5k miles for first, only one award ticket available, but that's ok I paid about $360 cash and extended my Flying Blue miles for another 2 years.
It's great that you pointed out the Tokyo to Singapore/Jakarta routes. I found far too many people not realizing that they're both as long as transatlantic flights.
As a former SEA-based AS miles user (scored Cathay 1st to HK) I was loath to switch to Sky Pesos when I moved to MSP. But pleasantly surprised at availability, everyday pricing, and main cabin service for recent MSP-CDG RT. Now AF that serviced DL return flight at CDG, that’s another story (Psst DL: your alliance partner treats stranded DL pax like total strangers).
@ J -- I'll stick with non-smoking airlines from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, etc. Chinese airlines suck because the pilots smoke on board.
Delta frequently has 5,000-8,000 one-way fares from LAX/BUR to DEN/SLC. Since I live in LA, and mi kids go to college in Colorado and Utah, this has been a great perk for me. Also, they usually offer their Extra Leg Room seating for only 1.000-2.000 points more. Hated SkyMiles for a long time, but now, they are my go-to program for redeeming short haul flights.
Don’t really agree with this post... diamond in NYC with desire to redeem miles for mostly biz class to China / Hawaii... compared to UA the partner flights availability is shit (talking about 85k tickets, with no stop in the U.S.), and all DTW flights are 300k. I highly recommend you look into UA. After 5 years DL diamond I’m actually 1K on UA this year as well, and love their redemption options!
@J - Yeah, they really kinda do. The vast majority of mainland Chinese carriers, both with international longhaul and domestic short hop routes, lag far behind the rest of the world's carriers when viewed qualitatively through the lens that this blog uses to rank airlines, based on a number factors. You're either new here or don't travel within China much.
The funny thing is I am based in East Asia and consistently find great biz class redemptions for my wife. Just never realized that was an exception!
Even though I can't use any of these sweet spots, this was a super useful article Steph. Thanks for writing it.
Great article! My favorite way to use DL Skymiles is by buying Pierre Herme macarons at the JFK skyclub in terminal 4. It's the only place in the USA you can get them in and whoever I'm visiting or the clients I go to are always amazed and appreciative of the gift (especially those who love macarons!)
Recently, my friend and I used 30,000 skymiles for JFK-LHR roundtrip in economy! ROUNDTRIP! I couldn't believe what a deal that was... sure people will complain but JFK-LHR is relatively short trip that I don't think flying in J or F really matters especially since I have access to the skyclub or VS clubhouse anyway even while flying in Y.
I agree with others on the domestic award sales we have seen in recent months. I've seen JFK-FLL roundtrip for only 10k skymiles.
I also agree with others that you basically mention to redeem DL skymiles on DL skyteam partners outside the USA since award availability on partners are widely available... but I believe that's true for the other alliances too.
@UAPhil - Thanks! I've been lurking around here some but my day job responsibilities took a toll this month. Hopefully more soon!
You bring up a good point, particularly when it comes to domestic awards on Delta itself. There are certainly times when it's better to hang onto the extra cash vs. the extra miles, although I'd definitely choose UA and the extra cash outlay in your example.
@AJ - Fair points, and I don't think anyone here at OMAAT would claim that SkyMiles hold greater value than, say, United or Alaska miles. Frankly, their slow devaluations over the years have caused me to shift my credit card spending habits in a not-insignificant way.
That said, a certain percentage of us are going to continue to fly Delta, either because we are hub-captive or simply like the airline better. Which means we will continue to earn SkyMiles regardless of how strategic we are with credit card spend.
The point here isn't to sell you on reasons to earn SkyMiles - I'd probably be doing you a disservice if that was the case. But my hope is to shed some light on some higher-value redemptions for those of us who are going to keep earning SkyMiles due to our travel patterns.
So, in summary: Love the airline, don't love the currency, here are some better uses of the currency if you have it anyway. If that makes any sense 😉
@DiscoPapa - Yeah, I hear ya. I'll see what I can do (although rushing to the front of the boarding line for pics isn't exactly my strong suit...)
I booked one way business class DTW to DXB for 84,000 miles this December on Delta’s site flying AF. Granted I stop in London and Paris, but happy about the deal.