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We are trying to book International tickets using Delta FF miles for 2007. We have found seats for our outbound trip from Cincinnati to Amsterdam using their partner KLM, through Atlanta. In the past Delta has allowed us to hold the outbound portion for 2 weeks, then extend it, since our return is 3 weeks after our departure. We want to return from Vienna to Cincinnati. This year we are being told, that when using a partner airline, they are only doing a 2 day hold. The only way to keep this flight is to withdraw our FF miles within these 2 days, all 50,000 of them and "spend" them. If they can't book a return for us 3 weeks out, it's our responsibility to get home. They won't redeposit the miles into our account if they can't book a return.

This is very different than how they have booked tickets in past years. We have booked FF tickets for the past 7 years, and this is the worst policy we have seen.

Any suggestions?? My only thought now is to ask if we can't book a return, if we can pay the $50 penalty to redeposit the miles into our account. They didn't mention this option to us today.

Thanks for your help and any experience you may have had this year, I'd love to hear about.

Patty

Yup, that's the new award hold policy this year. It went into effect in Feb for partner flights and Apr for Delta operated flights. No more 2 week holds or extensions.

I believe the procedure is to ticket your outbound now and try to add the return in 3 weeks. The reissue fee should be waived when adding your return flight.

The redeposit information you've been given is wrong. All award tickets can be redeposited for a fee of $50 per ticket. What I don't know is if they'll waive this fee if you can't find a return flight in 3 weeks.

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Thanks so much Patty. I'm sure this is news to many of us. We were in such shock, my husband almost didn't accept the outbound. I convinced him to put it on the 2 day hold so we could decide what to do.

I suppose we need to research all the possible cities in Europe we can connect to on an inexpensive European flight, so we have a list of possible return cities.

The joys of FF award travel!

The good news was that they easily found us an overseas departure flight. The difficult time was finding a flight from Cincinnati to Atlanta. We had to accept an early morning flight. We plan on taking the metro into Atlanta and sightseeing for the day, rather than spending all day at the Atlanta airport waiting for the evening KLM flight.

The other interesting point was that they had flights for 330 days out and 331 days out so we had our choice.

Patty

You can waitlist other CVG-ATL flights (I believe you can waitlist up to 4 Delta operated flights) and if they clear, you shouldn't be charge a reissue fee. See Ticket Reissue/Rerouting on this page http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_...ules/index.jsp

As long as you can find a transatlantic flight on the return, getting the intra-Europe connection should be less of a problem. I don't know about Czech or Alitalia, but in my experience, intra-Europe flight availability on Air France and KLM is usually very good.

Here's a thread on Flyertalk that might help - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ferrerid=18562

It lists all of the possible transatlantic city pairs when redeeming a Skyteam award. Good luck!

bat

Hi patty:

Do you know if there is a comparable thread for USAir and Star Alliance?

Patty

bat,
I don't know of a similar thread for Star Alliance awards through US, but I don't pay much attention to US topics either. I just checked the stickies on the US board and they don't seem to have one that deals specifically with *A awards.

Depending on what you're looking for, this thread on the *A board might help - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ferrerid=18562

If you're looking for something more specifically related to US redemption rules, try searching or posting on the US board.

Is this for Tanzania next year?

bat

Patty:
Thanks as always. I have difficulty doing searches on flyertalk. I guess I need to spend more time familiarizing myself with it.

Re Tanzania--holding something right now but alas, I think that Europe may be the end trip. We will probably decide at the 330 day deadline--which is coming up.

As you know, this next trip is not my b-day trip. My next "big" one comes in 3 years--so what do you think? How much "research" can I do on the Africa forum in the next 3 years? I am thinking a s**tload!

Patty

bat,
This might be a stupid question but... are you registered? I believe you have to be registered to use the search function. After that you just have to play around with different wording combinations to get a feel for it. The search words have to have a minimum of 3 letters. Sometimes function goes down.

I can see one BIG birthday trip coming up in 2009 - Mahale, Katavi, Selous, Ruaha and maybe some gorilla trekking

I'm already thinking of where to use my miles next (with Africa trip planning done what else am I to do? ). I think I may be sated for a while after this next trip. Of course, I thought that before the last one and look where I'm going. Friends are starting to pick on my obsession. I know Mark wants to go to Europe too. I asked him to pick between Sri Lanka and Mongolia and he said how 'bout Rome?

bat

Thanks for the flyertalk search advice.

That is the trip pretty much! [including the gorilla trekking] Although it will be in 2010 actually--darn that sounds like a long time away.

I had an excellent itinerary worked out for Fred that was an all Nomad Selous, Serengeti, Katavi, Mahale trip--in Selous on his birthday, then the Serengeti camp as "filler" until the Katavi departure (envisioned a reunion with our guide) and finish with the chimps. But as you can imagine that is a very expensive trip--add plane fare from Europe and it is fantasyland.

Money aside, he thinks he wants to wait a little longer before returning.

Interesting that Mark is thinking about Rome--Italy is pulling Fred back.