Using Delta SkyMiles for travel to South America on Aeromexico

Wow. Amazing job. I think all of us owe Mac a steak dinner and a bottle of wine! Sounds like a SkyMiles Trip to Argentina?

Great job with the description Lucky. You simplify complex tasks with ease.

I will definitely be referring my readers to your great write-ups.

Personally I don't have too many miles/points and will stick with JFK-EZE on Avios for 12.5k one-way (lowest Avios & Money option).

But I will definitely look to use this trick in the future.

Cool. Is this sweeps week or something Lucky? Trying to capture the top spot in Technorati's blog rankings? 🙂

So one question -- I thought that DL allowed a stop-over OR an open-jaw, but not both?

@ Zach -- Thanks!

@ hobo13 -- They publish that they allow one or the other, but in practice they allow both. Sweep weeks? Nope, just have smart readers this week. 😉

Wonderful, this will be a great help, especially with GRU which seems difficult for low awards with any airline.

Kudos to you and Mac!

Great find. Get it while it's hot. Watch Delta create an enhancement for this very soon 😀

I didn't realize people didn't know about Aeromexico. There are a number of AM trip reports involving MEX-NRT/PVG and TIJ-NRT/PVG.

As far as getting to MEX on AS, are you sure you combine AS and AM? I tried it a while back and couldn't get delta.com to price the award properly. It priced it as 2 separate awards.

OK, never mind, looks like you did get delta.com to price AS + AM properly. Must have just been the routing I was attempting.

@ ArizonaGuy -- Well the Aeromexico redemption option is nothing new, though to the best of my knowledge being able to book it on delta.com is pretty new.

@ HikerT -- Were you maybe trying to price an award to Asia or Europe on Aeromexico? If so, it would price as two awards, since it exceeds the MPM for the routing. To South America that shouldn't be an issue.

Lucky this has been a hell of a week. Nice work you and Mac!

And then once you're down in South America, use Avios for cheap redemptions on LAN!

Now let's see how long it takes The Points Guy to literally copy-cat the discovery!

Lucky, no one wants to read this trash. Spend your time writing trip reports instead.

I live in SAN and TIJ is a very convenient airport nearby where I have flown multiple times to Europe via MEX on Aeromexico. In fact, I must say because of that option, I really value skymiles because there is generally decent availability. The Airfrance website is definitely your friend when looking for availability

Which is all great, except that most DL miles folks will still at least have to buy tickets to/from the Aeromexico or at least Alaska gateway cities... 😉

AM offers a free shuttle from downtown San Diego to the TIJ airport about 18 miles away just on the border. Daily flights to NRT and PVG.

Gary, are you unable to properly use the wink face? Is that a symptom of chlamydia?

I was at the travel show in DC recently, and the AeroMexico rep there told me they are re-opening IAD-MEX nonstops this summer.

Frank clearly has chlamydia, given his expertise on its symptoms..

Is it safe to travel to TIJ?

@Gene perhaps that's where Frank got chlamydia?

@Gary -- ROFL

Great help, maybe the best I've seen in a long time. My wife and I have over 600,000 delta miles and have been wanting to go to EZE. I've started saving UA points because The cost on Delta was terrible. Now to decide when to go, I already have a AF sign in. THANKS

Hi @ Gary,

With all due respect the ability to now view AM availability online using Clubpremier.com or the AF site and then book using DL.com is an HUGE ENHANCEMENT for Skymiles. Sure there may have been the same inventory before, but you had to rely on phone-agents and you know how that goes.

I understand that when you say "Most DL miles folks will still at least have to buy tickets to the AM gateway" it is a little tongue and cheek, but the truth is actually AM covers almost everyone in the US so the opposite is true.

People on the West Coast are completely covered by the ability to use AS/DL to get to the multiple daily LAX-MEX flights. Those in NY have multiple daily JFK-MEX AM flights. Those in Florida can take MCO or MIA AM flights. Those in Texas can use the IAH or SAT flights. AM also provides n/s service to MEX from LAS, SFO, PHX, DEN, ORD. So this opens up a ton of 1-stop options for people with Skymiles.

For those in ATL there is 2x daily DL service to MEX that actually has decent current month available (I see more than 30% of the days have 2 J seats available). And to top it off those folks going to Chile from ATL can now route ATL-IAH on DL and then IAH-MEX-SCL on AM since it falls under the MPM.

This is a REAL enhancement to Skymiles-It is shocking I know!

Mac, Great finds! I always used the partner links including Jet and AF for Asia. These make my pesos more useful. Hah, I am spending in pesos on Aeromexico as well.

Lucky,
Why must you make this so easy for the masses? You are giving away all my quiet years of study of rules and award tables and booking engines to anyone with a browser! Skymiles needed a PhD in award travel. You are making it easy for kindergarten.

DealMommy, you made my day as well. I hate positioning flights.

Love it! Thank you so much.

Once again excelling as a blogger. It is true that you got a tip from Mac, but you take the time to do a complete analysis.

I do not have delta points, but this kind of reporting is what differentiates a good blogger from an exceptional blogger!

Here's a question. Anyone actually transited MEX?

Also note AS uses T1, AM uses T2. The MCT is 120 for international to international connections but it increases 165 when switching terminals. People should be aware of that. It's largely because you have to clear passport control and customs regardless of your onward connection. MEX uses the craptastic US model.

A good use of Flying Blue miles is redeeming AM to S. America. I just recently redeemed YUL-MEX-LIM RT for 35,000 miles! Even better when Amex has a MR transfer bonus.

Gary is right to point out the loathsome availability of Delta domestic flights to the many Aeromexico gateway cities. I was limited to one DL departure date & one DL return date each month I searched for my trip, although AM was wide open.
I have an EZE biz reservation on hold for about 24 more hours. Must decide to spend the Skypesos on this or on a possible KE A380 biz trip from JFK to Asia, if Delta will get me to JFK.

Hi Lucky, have you heard anything about Aeromexico availability being removed from the Air France search engine? I've been searching on the Air France on dates throughout this spring for flights from Mexico City to Bogota, Lima, and BA, and 100% of the available flights (which are far less numerous than the samples you cite above) are DL flight numbers with connections from Mexico City through Atlanta before continuing on to South America. Has any systemic change been announced or otherwise noticed / documented previously? Thanks in advance.

@ diamondvargas -- Hmmm, I just had a look and notice the same thing. Not sure why, though I'll do some digging.

[...] City, all kinds of options open up! (Lucky at One Mile at a Time has a very infor­ma­tive post on using Delta SkyMiles on trips to South Amer­ica with Aeromex­ico going through [...]

Too bad Delta doesn't display the mileage required for an award ticket or even low/med/hi on its website for multicity (open jaw) destinations. I called them to confirm them and they said that information isn't available on their website.

Wow, thank you so much for this info, I've spent hours trying to figure out how to use my points at delta with a multi-city reservation, sometimes it would come up at 77,000, sometimes at 50,000 and every now and then I'd find it for 35,000 and not have any idea why this "magic" combination worked or how to tweak it, using Air France saved my head from exploding, thanks again!

Thanks for the info. I already booked a South American vacation thru delta.com, which was a painful experience (as I alluded to in an earlier comment, above), and I wasn't able to beat the 200,000 miles pp RT rate for a combo of first in the USA and business to/from the USA. Since I booked open jaw, I need a couple of conecting flights in South America and these seem to be pretty pricey. Any ideas? I see Avios suggested but that seems to be a new program I have to join and accrue miles in, which I won't have time to do. Basically, give or take some stray miles here and there, I only have Delta SkyMiles left, about 90,000 of them. I was going to, and may have to, just pay cash for these connecting flights (Rio to Iguazzu Falls, Iguazzu Falls to Buenos Aries).

Lucky, and idea what's going on with Air France and their site (showing plenty of Delta/Aeromexico availability but then the agents not being able to find seats)? From what I understand they're supposed to be good for searching Skyteam awards. Well I found a RT Aeromexico flight from IAD->MEX and back for 12500 pts each way, so I transferred MR points to AF, but then when I went to book it on the site it was giving me issues.

So I called in, and the agent said he can't get the seats either, and that Aeromexico isn't letting them grab any award seats even though they are showing plenty available on the site. There's also Delta awards showing on the site that he can't seem to find seats on.

So I tell him to eventually put a hold on the seats he can find on some crappy Delta itineraries through Detroit, and when he computes the taxes, it comes out to $370. On the website it says they're supposed to be $105.

So I'm not sure what to do at this point. Do you have any recommendations or ideas?

@ Matt -- For what it's worth unfortunately Air France's website is showing a LOT of phantom award space nowadays. When searching for space I recommend trying to get all the way to the last page of the transaction, because if the space is phantom you'll usually get an error message prior to that.

You're saying the taxes were $370 for a Delta award between Mexico and the US? That does seem way high.

Yeah, the agent could only find space routing me through Detroit and the taxes and fees came out to $370 he said. When I looked at the same flights on the website they totaled out to $105 though, so I'm not sure what's going on.

Is there anywhere else to search for space that won't show so much phantom space?

When I look on Delta's site it shows the flights as available, but I wanted to go with AF to save the 10k miles.

The other really strange thing is that the flights I want are showing as available for awards on both Delta and Aeromexico's sites. I can get all they way to the redeem award page on Delta, so it doesn't look to be phantom, right?

I can just get the award on Delta I guess, but then I gotta figure out what to do with the 25k miles stranded at Air France.

And it gets even stranger. I called up Delta just to make sure the flights were available, but the agent said she couldn't see anything for the direct IAD-MEX flights. So I said thanks and hung up.

Decided to see if I could book it online since there's a 24 hour cancellation policy.

Sure enough the award booked and I even have a ticket #.

I think I'm going to try and call Air France and see if I can escalate to see if I can get something booked with them and then cancel the Delta award. What a PITA this is.

Thanks for the quick response though. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Lucky, if KVS tool is showing YS availability for the Aeromexico and Delta flights, they should be bookable by Air France, right? Or is KVS tool just scraping from Air France's website which has bad data?

@ Matt -- What are you setting as the source for searching on KVS?

*S Skyteam[DL/KL/AF/AZ/AM] + [VS/AS/HA] (Quick)

@ Matt -- I believe they pull the space from Flying Blue, so that would explain it.

They must have been having an issue with their systems and Aeromexico, cause this morning I called up and was able to book no problem. They even waived the phone fee when I told them the website wasn't working. Finally...

@ Matt -- Happy to hear!

My parents transferred Chase Points over to Korean Air this summer to redeem an aeromexico award. Korean Air told them the seats were available and completed the reservation (sent them itenerary/confirmation) but said the award could not actually be ticketed because AeroMexico has blackout dates and the 2014 blackout dates hadnt been requested yet. My parents were told to call back in mid - November. They have been calling for the past 3 weeks, and Korean Air continues to tell them that Aeromexico blackout dates for 2014 have not been released and that no aeromexico awards for 2014 can be ticketed because of this. Any ideas? Thanks!!

i know i'm posting on a very old page here, but any update on this situation? i'm now trying to use DL miles on a trip from SFO to UIO via MEX all on AeroMexico in either biz or coach for 2 people. the AF website is giving different results practically every time i search.