Today we look at award booking. One of the reasons I love DELTA is how simple it is to collect a ton of miles. The reason most dislike DELTA is their hopelessly broken DELTA.com web site to search for free tickets. Many in the frequent flyer community call it DELTA.dumb. Why? Let’s say I want to visit my mom in Sweden. I would like to fly from Kalamazoo MI (AZO) to Gothenburg Sweden (GOT). Let’s see what I find on July 4th this summer in BUSINESS CLASS?
Ugh – 245,000 miles per person. Yuk.
But, look at this. If I first search AZO-ORD in coach I find low level seats 25,000.
Next I look for seats from ORD-GOT in business I find low level seats for 100,000!
We need to understand the rules and that we can have up to 5 legs each way as a “legal” routing. So, with the above info in hand, if I call DELTA and they put this into one trip, it will cost me just 100,000 all-in for the trip.
Now I really don’t want to fly 5:40 AM from Kalamazoo to Chicago via Detroit (DTW) in coach before I fly business the rest of the way to Sweden. But, I bet you missed the best part in the photo’s above. Notice we only have a 33 min connection in DTW! The minimum legal connection is 30 min. Why is this a good thing?
THE MIGHTY Schedule change rule!
That far out, and with regional airline partners, schedules change all the time! Once that happens and you can not make your connection the “miles requirement” for your frequent flyer ticket goes out the window. Then, we can simply ask for the flights that would have cost 245,000 and avoid ORD all together! Now there are times this does not work and you may have to fly some crazy routes but when that happens I just look at is as extra “bumportunities” or a chance to give up my seat for DELTA $$$ or ETV’s towards my next trip.
Crazy, sure, but it works! BTW you must do this searching for a one way trip. Then the same on the dates for the way back home. It takes some time and work on your part and then phone time with a few reps but worth it for the points savings! There you have it. You now know the way to get low level seats in business class to Europe on DELTA in the middle of summer.
Get 500 free DELTA miles in no time when you pick DELTA as your program here:
eMiles survey site
(let’s see that’s 1500 free points for the last 3 days – not too bad!)
And I want to have another give-a-way. So, leave a comment (by 10PM EST) below for a chance to WIN this DELTA PGA pin! – René
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Rather than calling, it’s often possible to input your individual low-level flights into the multi-city search and get the website to price it out correctly.
Hi Aleks, yes, sometimes that can work as well. Sometimes to get coach part you want and biz the rest of the way a rep has to do it. Thanks for your input!
Have you ever been able to find low level availability LAX to SYD?
Looks like a few days in DEC for low level. The 6th & 7th showing seats direct in biz class outbound (are you looking for biz?). Not so much on the return in biz but a coach on the 15th. Most of the pro points bookers use V Australia for good availability but I have to say I have never been down under or attempted to book a trip!
Nice blog….
Yeh, flew V Australia biz in Sept using Delta miles. Next Sept my wife and son (30 months) will be with me so looking for cheapest (oh, and most comfortable) options. Next to no availability even in coach on QF, UA, DL, AC. Will call V Australia for coach avail in the next few days. Thanks for your feedback.
Interesting – those dates in Dec (6th & 7th) both price at 150k one-way. Is that correct, or delta.com bug?
Yes. I see that too. Both those dates at low level biz seats. At this point you would have too come back on the 15th in coach and the total price would be 150,000 per ticket. If you are PM or DM you can keep looking for biz low level coming back and then change. If not it would cost $150 each to change it but maybe worth it if low level biz opens up.
Hi Rene — We need more info on Delta so I am looking forward to your blog!
You presented an interesting idea with seeking tight connections and the hope that they would later become impossible, creating an opportunity for a manual override. However, isn’t that risky? I would think that it might only work 25% of the time, at best. If the flight times are not changed, or the gap between flights increases, then no dice!
Hi Craig. Well I can tell you my experience. Every single trip ever I have done this way, has worked. There are many ways to work this game if you know the rules. If you can get 2 regional flights back to back you are GOLD for changes that will help you. Also know you need MIN – 90 min from last flight to your INTERNATIONAL flight – so that can help a ton too in this game!
Very interesting! Thanks indeed! Will remember this once I decide to get some Skypesos! 🙂
Speaking of V Australia and LOW awards LAX-SYD in Biz, I lucked out on a DL mistake. Apparently when I ticketed my J award ticket LAX-SYD round trip on V Australia, something got gooned up. Months later V Australia bumped me off their outbound flight so DL had to rebook me on their metal. No LOW availability on DL metal, but that didn’t matter since the ticket was gooned up. Sometimes you do get lucky with airline mistakes or errors. I’d also echo schedule changes are great for optimizing award tickets.
welcome to boarding area!
The image for the AZO-ORD leg shows the 33 min connection in DTW, not MSP. You might want to correct that to avoid confusion.
Hi Vinyl – YES my old PIC had it via MSP and I did was looking at that photo so nice catch. I changed it to ORD via DTW where the 33 time is. Thanks for help I have update the post.
Can I have a break journey included on delta partner flights? I want to take a trip from SFO – BOM via DXB with 1 week break in DXB. Is that possible
You wrote “Get 500 free DELTA miles in no time when you pick DELTA as your program here”.
How do you come up with 500 points? I didn’t see anything like that.
Just go to eMiles and pick DELTA as your “reward” https://www.e-miles.com/enroll.do?ic=emiv2
It will take about a week to answer enough of there free surveys to get the points free!
Very nice blog!
Could you please elaborate on this? How do you exactly do this and why it only costs 100,000 miles?
“We need to understand the rules and that we can have up to 5 legs each way as a “legal” routing. So, with the above info in hand, if I call DELTA and they put this into one trip, it will cost me just 100,000 all-in for the trip.”
Hi Jerry. Low level seats from USA to EUROPE, if you can find them, is 100,000 miles. So, if you can find a route, like the one I found, it will price for DELTA reps at 100,000 miles.
I have the same question as Jerry and didn’t understand your answer. It looks to me like the AZO to ORD segment is 25,000 miles and the ORD to GOT segment is 1000,000 miles. Doesn’t that add up to 125,000 miles? What am I missing here?
@Philip – this will be much clearer after my post Wednesday but that is not the way the math works with delta. Follow this:
Leg1 coach 25,000 domestic
Leg2 biz 100,000k to Europe
Leg3 biz 45,000 inside Europe
Total cost for this ticket round trip would be 100,000k
The key thing is the are ALL low level. Thus, when you stick them together as one, they price out at the lowest “BIG” number. Clear?
Thanks for your prompt reply and clear explanation. Your site is truly an eye opener. I’m in the Arts and my wife is an educator. We’d love to travel more. I’m excited to think that it has now become much more financially feasible.
@Philip – Sure, please reach out to me any time you need rene@deltapoints.com
Rene –
With a mixed class low level business award, what happens when the schedule change is on te economy segments of your booking. Will Delta force you to keep those as economy, or allow you to reroute all in business even thoug you did have business all the way?
@Brian – change will be free but can only change from coach to business if space is open same award level.