Later this week the new MIA American Express Centurion Lounge should be opening up. I can not wait to check it out following my visits to the LAS Lounge, the DFW Lounge, the SFO Lounge as well as the LGA Lounge. All of them are nice but this one will be most like the DFW one, that is, they will have a SPA but will not have facials as a treatment option (but will have massage and manicure). You can enter the Centurion lounges, with up to 2 guests free, if you hold the non-Delta personal AMEX Platinum card or the non-Delta business AMEX Platinum card. Nice, but what does this have to do with Delta vouchers and tickets? A bunch.
You see one of the nasty little rule changes that happened a few years back was that Delta no longer “officially” allows you to combine vouchers (most of them anyway). We are talking about a bump voucher or a service voucher or one of the many other kinds of vouchers Delta will give you. We are NOT talking e-Gift cards as you 100% can combine up to 3 of those no problem.
So, the frustration is that on a ticket that say costs $400 you may only be able to knock off a small part of the price of the ticket. Each year I get many e-mails from readers asking me to help them find some kind of cheap Delta Mileage Run to burn them up. But is there a better way?
Many times, but not all, a round trip ticket is much cheaper than a one-way ticket, but this really is market influenced as well as depending on other factors that impact if Delta will actually offer two one way tickets for the same price as a round trip (or just about the same price anyway).
Notice the above screen shots of a round trip then next the two shots of one way trips from South Bend to Miami. I have a number of smaller vouchers I wanted to use and limited times I can pop down to check out the new lounge. On a number of days the two one-way tickets will end up costing me just the same (or about the same) as a round trip ticket. This allows me to use two vouchers for one round trip. Neat right?
As already mentioned this does not always work, but you would be surprised how many times it actually does. Are there any downsides to booking two one ways over a round trip? Very few and in many cases it can be a real advantage if your travel plans change. The only real downside I have found is doing this with award tickets, that is, a round trip can sometimes be better than two one ways? Like how? Well if there is a schedule change, a big one, and you want to change your departure and airport, sometimes you can do that if the two airports are within 100 miles of each other and it is simpler to change the return airport as well when just one round trip.
So there you are. I am booked almost free on two one-way Delta vouchers for my trip to the new MIA Centurion and will enter the lounge free via my non-Delta business AMEX Platinum card and can’t wait to review the new place and get to top it all off even spend a day in Miami with some old friends! – René
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Editorial Note: This content is not provided by American Express. Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express.
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Are you going on the 23rd or 24th? I’m doing a CVG-MIA run on the 23rd, haha.
i hope the MIA new lounge will be accessible from all areas esp delta flights