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Well it’s here! “We” (well someone, not me, that is for sure) have “asked” for this! So how great is this new feature that cost us SO much to get.
The site does not look much different than before as the changes have mostly been loaded already including stuff like the change to no longer allowing stopovers and open jaw awards. So it looks the same, does it work the same?
Let’s take some real simple stuff. Can we find 50% of a round trip ticket domestic. Yep.
What about a 50% of the round trip ticket from the states to Europe? Yep that works too.
Then the NASTY (and fully expected) tax jump (in Euros so even MORE) to take your one-way 50% off a round trip ticket from Europe to the states (gosh I am so happy we asked for this) will cost you a bundle more.
Oh and do keep in mind, if you want a stopover now, you have to add another one-way ticket inside Europe.
Compare this to a round trip cost miles and tax to the two one-way tickets (and that does NOT even include the extra cost of miles and tax for the extra one-way to get a stopover).
We also have CASH & POINTS working. Anyone who does this should have their frequent flyer card taken away from them. As I talked about before, it is bordering on insanity for Delta to charge you for what should be a free ticket. The best part of the search above I did was that Delta showed coach C&P “not available” (then again 45k points for a one way is bad enough).
So we have what we have “been asking for“! We have working one-ways at HUGE extra cost and a loss of so many perks. Welcome to Skymiles2015 – #KeepDescending! – René
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@Rene –
Thanks for doing this so early.
Was really worried about the one ways back from Europe!
Thanks for Nothing, or less than Nothing DELTA!
@John Delta – as expected.
René- you’re given me my first largo of the new year….. I really hope you and i were not the only 2 sittings on delta.com to see the change go live. Hahahha…..Ugh…. Those are some nasty priced one-way euros…… Fly back on mileageplus?…. But heck, even their *A stopover is better….
@Diego – you think Euros are bad, try from England in POUNDS and you will really UGH UGH #KeepDescending 🙁
You’ve/ laugh / sitting
it hurts that the taxes are so much higher on the way back, but at least they don’t charge fuel surcharges originating in Europe anymore!
Out of England is the worst.
@Augias – still higher from England than from say Amsterdam. Either much higher than RT starting in USA.
Hadn’t even looked at those! (Make sure you use that no forex amex) Lol. Seriously stinks… #KeepDescending
oh, actually when it breaks up the price, it does list the YR in many cases (when originating in Europe) so I guess they are still charging the fuel surcharges. That’s terrible and unnecessary. I read somewhere that this could be part of some agreement they have with Air France and KLM and their Flying Blue FF program, to compete on more even footing? But then, why are Delta awards costing so many more miles than the Flying Blue awards?
Any chance KLM and Air France availability improved or are we still seeing those low availability awards available on KLM/AF and not Deltas?
@Milesfor5 – BUUBHHAHHAHAHHAHHA – OH sorry, you are being serious! Expect more the same. Delta is no fan of Skyteam. Expect better deals with KLM and especially their monthly deals. Yet one more reason to have Membership Rewards points on hand for transfer.
FYI, open jaws are not pricing with YQ. So it is really not so bad if you book the two one ways at the same time on a single PNR. If you want to split airlines try to get the outbound on DL and the return on another carrier not charging high YQ back from Europe (AA, or AB on BA, etc.). I will miss the stopovers but I was really worried about YQ on the open jaw and I just tested it and didn’t see it.
Rene, you are the BEST. Happy New Year and THANKS! Can someone explain what YQ and YR are? Does anyone know if you can do two one way trips to EU, then combine them later into one record locator ……. or do something equivalent to prevent the extra high taxes?
@Don in ATL – http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/planning-a-trip/booking-information/fare-classes-and-tickets/taxes-and-fees.html
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The only good two ways are to book round trips starting in USA or as others have mentioned, and I think Delta will fix, an open jaw that is really two one ways on one ticket that prices as two one ways but tax is lower since “starting” in the USA again.
Kind of off topic but did anyone try to get a RTW yesterday? My husband and I sat on the phone on hold for 2 hrs and 28 min before the call dropped. We called back and the exact same thing happened. By then they said the desk was closed. I know, I know, our fault for waiting until the last minute but they kind of sprung it on us last minute, and it really wasn’t published, and he was working in Korea and then there was all the Christmas fuss thrown in and we really did have to put some thought into where we wanted to go, right?
@Sue – I would call and beg and see what can be done. Delta should have a record of what happened. Maybe they can do a 1x exemption and a supervisor can push it through.
Sounds like my strategy of flying over the pond and sailing back is best. 🙂
We just booked one way fares from Santiago, Chile all the way to Christchurch, New Zealand for only 60,000! Happy new year to us! Yesterday it was 120K miles and I thought that was a pretty good deal. This flight would have been well over $1,000 so was a great use of miles for those folks like us who travel long term and always tend to fly one way. Really excited about Delta FINALLY honoring one-way fares at half the miles.
Hi all. I rebooked my first class roundtrip free ticket to Costa Rica this morning and got back 40,000 miles. It was at 140,000 (yeah, it stinks booking during peak periods) and this morning at 100,000. The person on the Diamond Desk actually said to me, “see, Skymiles 2015 is not all bad”. I told her in this instance I was a happy camper. But I told her that holding back so many first class seats to the day of departure has upset many Diamonds and Platinums and they are moving over to AA. She understood and did not say much after that.
This entire post assumes that the only thing Delta flyers use SkyMiles for is trips to multiple countries in Europe. I’m pretty sure that is an awfully small audience. How about some info onTranscon, Hawaii and Carrobean one-ways, which I assume are relevant to a much wider audience?
@Lee – uh, since half the screen shots are domestic, i think i covered that too 😉 Lastly keep in mind this went live at 00:07 today.
I contaced the RTW desk 3 times over the past 6 days (2hr, 1 hr and 40 min. wait times). While their RTW planning tool was useful, the reality is those (my preferred) dates are NOT available, and what would be a 2 segment trip to Hanoi would really be a 3-day 5 segment trip, for the first destination. Only 16 segments are/were allowed, so I knew that between that and them dictating my dates it was futile. Another killer was that even though my wife and I combined have the total miles for Business with the 2 accounts, the award must come from one account. I would have had to transfer 90k miles from her account to mine… at a cost of $990. Get real Delta!!
They are still mispricing awards with domestic connections. Looking at AKL-SLC and it makes it 2 one ways even though it’s just a connection. And to top it off, saver space is available to my regional airports (PIH/IDA) connecting from SLC but DL.com won’t even return a search! All saver business space is available AKL-BNE/SYD-LAX-SLC-PIH/IDA but no shot at booking online and the if I drop the PIH/IDA segment, it prices at 105K instead of 80K.
Seeing same as Deborah. MSP-AMS-XXX is pricing at 105k because I found an OL (80k) and a O (25k) in business. Instead of pricing properly at 80k it’s pricing as 2 OW awards. Called CS twice and neither could explain why it was pricing that way.
I did some searching yesterday, and it seems that there is a LOT more saver availability right now. There are a half dozen or so routes i’ve been watching that had NO saver space for the past 6 months. 1/1/15, I can book 4 saver tickets on those same flights.
I’m hoping they didn’t just blocked saver space for 6 months so they could flood the market with lots of saver space in order to make skymiles 2015 seem like a good thing. I’m also hoping they don’t reduce saver space in the near future back to old levels.