Hope some you with more experience dealing with Frequent Flyer miles can help.

Last July I managed to get booked using Sky Saver miles RT to Hawaii for this May. Then, in September, along came hurricane Ivan. Ivan did a number on our house and the repairs probably won't be completed until June. We were still planning to go to Hawaii, figured we'd need the "change of scenery" by then.

Well, 2 weeks after Ivan I was diagosed with breast cancer. We planned to still go to Hawaii until we learned recently I won't be through with chemo and radiation in time.

I'm asking for advice on what we should do about our tickets. We can't get time off for Hawaii again until May of '06. Should we pay the money and have our miles put back? Should I change the dates, even though I can't get May of '06 now and change again later when I can get May of '06?

I'm really bummed about this since the Delta rep who booked our trip spent so much time helping me get the tickets Sky Saver instead of Sky Choice. Probably won't be lucky enough to have that happen next time. (I mean getting the Sky Saver seats. I've always been very fortunate with the Delta reps I've spoken with. They've always tried hard to get me where I wanted to go, when I wanted to go, and using Sky Saver if at all possible.)

This is the first time we've had to change our plans after booking, so I don't know how best to proceed.

Thanks for any advice.

May of '06? Just pay to have the miles redeposited. It makes no difference if you already have a FF award ticket, or if you're starting from scratch - there's still just a limited number of seats with SkySaver. Just book as soon as 330 days out, or as soon as you can decide on the exact dates you want to go to Hawaii.

Pay the $100 or whatever Delta charges to have the miles redeposited into your account. Then and only when you know that your health is fine and your house won't fall down, rebook.

Since your award tickets were originally issued in July 2004, you won't be able to use the same tickets to travel in May 2006. Award tickets have a validity of 12 months from the date of issuance. I would just redeposit the tickets. The award redeposit fee was recently lowered to $50 per ticket. I would explain your reason for cancelling and they may waive the redeposit fee for you. No guarantee they'll do it, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

My sympathies at your rotten year. When you change date on award tickets for some airlines, it has to be within a year of original date. I do not think you can then re-change them to a date further out than the first year time period - so if May 06 turned into June 06 you might have a problem.

So redeposit miles and meanwhile get a Delta-affiliated credit card and use it. That way if they change mileage requirements before you go (as many airlines are doing), you will still have enough miles to go.

The other possibility is to finish radiation and go between chemos - with MD consultation of course. Sometimes this sort of trip is as important as the medical treatment -

Thanks to everyone for the advice. And we do have an American Express Platinum Delta Skymiles card. Use it for everything.

I'll try to find time in the next week or so to get the miles put back and I will explain the situation. Who knows, maybe I'll get a sympathetic person on the other end who'll waive the fee. If not, so be it.

We really debated long and hard about going anyway. But we do a lot of heavy day hiking on our trips and worried that I wouldn't be up to it since I can't work out as much as I usually do.

Oh well, Hawaii isn't going anywhere and there's always next year. This year we'll just do some spur of the moment, whatever I feel up for thing.

Thanks again and happy traveling.

FF