I have a sneaking suspicion that Delta has stopped offering most (if not all) frequent flyer seats at the "SkySaver" rate.

I'm trying to travel to Europe next year and have a great deal of flexibility. I just spent several frustrating hours trying to book award travel on the Delta site. Although I tried a variety of dates, destinations, and cabin classes (both coach and business) I couldn't find a single seat available at the Skysaver rate.

This seems highly suspicious to me. My guess is that Delta has quietly decided to only offer frequent flyer travel at the SkyChoice rate. This would mean that it would take twice as many miles to get a frequent flyer ticket.

Does anyone know how I could find out if there are any SkySaver seats still being offer?

Delta.com is only capable of searching award availability on Delta operated flights. You have a choice of many partners across the Atlantic. Call the partner award desk and give them your dates and destination(s) and have them search all partner flight availability for you.

Also it helps to do some homework on your own. Read my posts in this thread for additional suggestions - http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34798922

Maybe it's different for Europe, but I used Delta SkySaver awards for travel to the Caribbean last winter, during their high season. In fact, I was able to get two tickets at the Sky Saver mileage le vel, one of which was booked about 6 months out and the other of which wa s booked about 3 months out. I was amazed that this could happen.

I don't know if they have stopped offering them altogether, but I have several times this year with very flexible dates (non-holiday) tried to book Boston-Savannah with no luck on SkySaver. Also tried to book Boston-Tampa for lots of dates this summer - same result (who would want to go to Tampa in the summer?)

Problem recently is that both DL and NW are in bankruptcy, and few months ago there were worries that either or both airlines may close their doors. As a result, lots of Skymiles and Worldperks members cash out their FF miles whenever possible on DL, NW and CO flights. That make them pretty hard to get for a while.

In the past I have also had success in getting reservations using miles. For what it's worth, I booked First Class SkySaver tickets to the Caribbean in Feb 06 late in calendar year 05. However, booking tickets now seems to be much more difficult than ever before.

Maybe I am just a paranoid but I can't help thinking that given Delta's financial difficulites that maybe they just decided to release fewer seats at the SkySaver rate (or maybe none at all). Instantaneously, their liability on the books to frequent flyers would be cut in half (or more). And whose to know?

Everyone seems to agree that not all frequent flyer seats are released 331 days before the flight but no one seems to know when other seats are released. Therefore, I have to conclude that the only way to travel using Delta miles at the SkySaver rate is a combination of flexibility, persistence and most of all luck.

If the whole purpose of a frequent flyer program is to generate customer loyaty then not being able to use your miles would seem to defeat that objective.

There was a report recently which showed that Delta actually gave away more award seats than any other airline in 2005. I will have to go look for that.

Many people have had no problem obtaining award seats, myself among them. But the high demand award seats tend to be the same as the high demand paid flights so there are fewer of them and for what seats there are, people are happy to "bid" up to the more expensive SkyChoice mileage payment. Supply and demand strikes again.

I just got SkySaver seats SFO-JFK for October (which is a pretty popular time to visit NYC) with no problem. So I know that they do still exist. But, as other posters have explained, there are several reasons why it seems virtually impossible to get them for other flights and destinations. One other thing--airlines have reduced the number of flights and are flights are fuller, so they are less likely to offer FF seats.

Okay, now let me add my experience of an hour ago to this post:

I want to go to Italy in August-I want a 50,000 Sky Saver, not Sky Choice award ticket. Not available on the Delta website. Called Delta SkyMiles-got a very pleasant CS rep. on the phone, gave her my flexible dates (leave 3rd week in August, and come back in Sept. out of Brussels).

NO PROBLEM. I had 3 different dates to choose from, leaving out of the East Coast and into MXP (Milan), and 3 different dates to choose from coming back from BRU. A SKYSAVER rate-50,000 miles plus $US 70.00 in taxes TOTAL.

So I say, thank you Delta! This SkySaver award ticket (fare value $1100.00) was TOO easy. Last minute planning does have its rewards!

interesting, spygirl. Did you happen to ask why those options didn't show up online, but were available via the telephone? Assuming that you saw the available flights online, would you even be able to book an open-jaw award ticket online? if so, I may have to look into it, as I have some Delta miles to burn. Most of my fun travel is to the Caribbean, usually on an open jaw itinerary, on American, but it's not possible to book open jaw award tickets on www.aa.com.

To answer your question, Delta does provide for open jaw ticketing on its Skymiles website, at least, they have the links for it,(click the link "more search options&quot but I wasn't having any luck there-and I knew already that I could book any number of SkyChoice flights for 100,000 miles during my time period-but nothing was coming up SS.

It seems that when you call and speak to a CS rep. directly, they always have more inventory than when you try to book award travel online-this has happened to me before-I called and got a Delta rep. who was very patient, but it took some 45 min. for him to find the flights-this award ticket only took about 5 minutes!

What DID surprise me is finding that I had three choices both way in this peak vacation time period. No, I didn't ask about the discrepancy with the website, I was just thankful to get the good news, given that it's two months away.

Bear in mind also that I wasn't looking for business class, I had flexible times, nor was I looking for multiple seats-so that improves your chances I think.

If I were you, I'd try to book open jaw online-and if it doesn't work, try calling. Delta reps. have been quite helpful of late.

Spygirl,
Were the flight choices you were given all on Delta metal or were they operated by partner carriers? If partners, then those flights do not show up on delta.com and can only be booked over the phone.

The other possibilty is that sometimes XXX-YYY-ZZZ will show up on delta.com as Skychoice, yet both XXX-YYY and YYY-ZZZ show Skysaver availability when checked as individual segments. The only way to book it in that case would be by phone.

A third possibility is that if you left the default morning setting under Time, you'll only see morning flight departure results (even though an afternoon departure may have Skysaver availability).

DL's online award booking capability is pretty weak. Hopefully that will start changing next year as they're supposed to be implementing the capability to book Continental and Northwest operated flights by then.

I don't know if this is what happened here, but most airlines' online FF booking only shows the carrier's own flights, not flights on partner airlines (unless they're codeshares with the carrier). So, for example, calling Delta can get you access to seats on NW/KLM, Continental, Air France, Alitalia, etc., that you wouldn't see online.

I see now that Patty already discussed the partner award thing further up the thread. Sorry to repeat.

Right about the code-shares of course. I don't know why I forgot to mention that, and yes, I do know that code share partners cannot be booked online. I do have Delta out of BRU, and I'm not sure from JFK-FRA (probably Lufthansa, but I haven't bought the tickets yet, so will go over the carriers then) and Alitalia out of FRA-MXP.

JFK-FRA will be on Delta (Lufthansa is Star Alliance).

thanks, spygirl.

Trvl Xperience:

As Patty knows from my post on the US board, earlier this month I didn't book the SkySaver flight we wanted and they reverted to SkyChoice. They did open back up this morning as SkySaver and we took quick advantage of it - now being the proud owners of cheap mileage flights to New Orleans.

My point being, don't give up. Keep watching the flights daily and if you have time check often in between.

Good luck!

I always have this suspicion that DAL is trying to hide something when I use their online reservations. It is really stupid to make finding a skysaver trip so difficult as it is at their online reservation site. It least they finally started showing you the lowest fare of the day. I guess they lost me when they had such a cumbersome site that you had to enter every time slot of the day to see the best fares and there were hundreds of dollars difference in the fares depending on the time of day.

I love SWA. It's very simple to redeem and I really like the cattle call loading because I would rather pick who I sit by than where I sit. Seems I always end up in a middle seat with Delta since I am not Medallion. (that is another thing that rubs me wrong with them--they have all these classes of customers and all it means to me is someone is getting a better deal than me). I have 250000 FF miles with them but try my best to fly SWA.

Uh Mikeem100-using Southwest miles to Lubbock or Vegas is way different than trying to get miles to Rome in high travel season,wouldn't you agree?