Well this should come as a shock to no one as September 2023 is the month Delta had to make one more nasty move to remind us all why the airline hates us. As I blogged about before I am going to Europe next year and doing so all in Delta 1st class and then Skyteam partners in business class for under 100,000 SkyPennies all-in. I did this because until today, you could, with work and timing, find SkyPenny awards from Mexico to many places in Europe in business class for just 75,000 points each way.
As of today that price has jumped up by 40%. Take a look.
If you do a search from Mexico to Paris the lowest priced ticket using Air France business class is now 105,000 points.
The same goes for Mexico to Amsterdam the lowest price on KLM is also 105,000 points that is a again a 30,000 point jump from what you could find in the past. Other routes are also impacted but not as much.
For example if you want to fly to South Africa i.e. Cape Town it has jumped from 95,000 to 110,000 points an approximate 15% jump in price.
There are a few things I find surprising about this move at this moment in time. Delta has been ultra quiet on social media after the September 14th obliteration of the Medallion program and for good reason as their 1st post on Facebook (trying to be cute) has resulted in a tidal wave of anger directed to them. So why would Delta make this nasty SkyPennies change now?
The other thing I am frankly astonished by is that they have not simply killed this one tiny bright spot in the Delta points program. I burned up almost every single remaining penny point I had booking these flights and will savor each mile flown knowing I found value for my hard earned points.
It is not like folks need yet one more reason to leave Delta next year but yet, as you can see above, they have found the way (again)! – René
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There must be much joy at American, Alaska, JetBlue etc. champagne is flowing in those corporate offices Early Christmas gift from Delta as they pick off the Delta Platinum flyers with status matches.
Bummer…based on your experience I was looking to take advantage of the MEX routing next year. Sadly, even with the 40% increase, it’s still a better “deal” than flying direct to CDG/AMS from ATL/JFK/DTW/MSP etc. Looks like I’ll be back to using FlyingBlue miles and flying through NON-SKYTEAM hubs like ORD.
Rene! Keep descending is right! Congratulations on burning your miles on this award value.
Basically a SkyMiles buyback tactic since they’ve let AMEX dole out zounds during their abusive relationship. I wonder what other few lingering sweet spots they’ve culled. Indeed another reason to ditch Delta.
Do you think part of this was taken away because you (along with other bloggers) kept advertising this sweet spot?
@john – It was not taken away – it was devalued. There are MUCH bigger blogs than this one that shined a mega light on this route and it is now worth alerting folks to the change.
We wrote about this once. Saying that we “kept advertising” it isn’t accurate.
But if it makes you feel better to blame us, go ahead. I hope your day improves.
C’mon, this blog as well as many others have discussed this trick for a while and now you’re surprised Delta has closed the loophole? I’m just shocked it’s taken this long, frankly. It’s been an open “secret” for a while…
I’m shocked anybody out there still counts on Delta for anything except massive devaluations.
Delta charged me 412,400 miles (round trip) to upgrade from Premium Select to Delta One between DFW and Santiago Chile. And there were plenty of D1 seats. Many people got free D1 day of travel.
They likely were non-revs.
I’m almost to Delta million miler and I got to tell you I hate this airline almost as much as I hate Marriott. I just don’t trust them and I find them to be greedy and unappreciative.
@Gerald – OUCH! Worse than Bonvoyed?
Well, there goes the last sweet spot I planned on using to get outsized value for my SkyMiles. Delta also drastically increased the redemption rates for China Airlines flights out of Mexico City to
Asia. I have 450,000 SkyMiles and now I might as well simply use them for domestic economy fares because there’s simply no good way to use them for aspirational travel in business class anymore.
Wow someday I can afford to buy a foot-long sub with 350K sky-doing. I just have to keep spending $350K on Delta Reserve Card. What a deal! You get diamond status and miles to get a free sandwich! AA/AS/B6 all look much better at least I can fly international J less than 100K and they give you real hot food instead of a snack box. I haven’t seen hot food in real plate in DL F since beginning of Pandemic.