heathmd

My husband's aunt has 80K miles on Delta which she wishes for us to use since she won't be using them in the near future. We were think of going to Hawaii for our next vacation the end of April. So here are my questions:

1. Dose she have to transfer the miles to our account and pay the fee or can she buy the tickets for us?

2. I checked Delta online and it says that they have tickets for 70K, i think round trip. Delta by phone says that they have no flights to Hawaii for miles at that time. What is true?

3. Also, does anyone know who can get flights with miles for us, say a travel agent? Or do I just need to get tickets now for a year?

4. Can Delta miles be transferred to other airlines such as Continental or only there partner airlines?

Thanks for the info in advance.

gail

1. She can buy ticket for you - in fact, she can buy a ticket for anyone with her miles. she just can't sell the ticket or miles.

2. Did the site say they had tickets for Hawaii in general for this amount, or specifically for your dates. If the latter, just get the ticket on-line. If the aunt can not use internet for some reason, you can access her account and book ticket - you need her ff number, PIN (or establish one) and usually a credit card in her name to pay small fee assoiated with ticket.

3. Some travel agents will not deal with miles. Others will as a courtesy, especially if you are booking trip thru them.

Only partners.

Patty

1. She can reserve the award in your names. No need to ,transfer the miles to your accounts.

2. What you saw online for 70K, was that for one ticket or two tickets? If it's for one ticket then it's a Skychoice award (double the Skysaver mileage requirement). Skychoice awards have no capacity controls and are available on any flight which still has seats for sale. Good luck getting Skysaver seats to Hawaii. It's one of the more difficult destinations to redeem.

3. A travel agent may or may not be willing to do it. If they do, most likely there will be a service fee. A travel agent will not have access to any award inventory that you can't find yourself. If you're willing to pay a service fee, instead of a travel agent, try using Award Planner. They specialize in award redemption. Again they don't have access to anything you can't find yourself but they can do the legwork for you. You pay whether or not they're successful in getting you seats. You're essentially paying for their time spent working on your itinerary. I don't understand your second question.

4. Delta miles cannot be transferred to the frequent flyer program of another carrier, but you can redeem Delta Skymiles on Continental and Northwest flights so make sure the agents are checking award availability on those airlines as well.

heathmd

Thank you gail and patti for the information about the delta miles. The 70,000 miles was for 1 round trip ticket from NY to Honolulu on the net. We now have to decide if we want to spend all that money to purchase another ticket.

rkkwan

Don't spend the 70K on a Skychoice ticket. At least not yet. Like others have said, there's no capacity control with those awards, so no reason to book them this far out.

What you should do first is call back to see if there's any available seat at the 35K level on DL and NW.

If not, then buy ONE ticket for your trip; and check back often whether there's still 35K award to be claimed. Only spend the 70K if nothing comes through until later.