Frequent flyer programs on ALL the airlines are illusory these days. The OP is flying HIGH season. Any given agent at any given time can give the exact wrong info.
I really DO have to say that to count on mileage as small as that is naïve. It isn't a sin--just disappointing, I know but....

Oh, and waiting to see if Delta's fares go down because of fuel prices, etc.? Hilarious. They are making money on the price of oil these days.

> You can't even get Air France flights if you have Delta points

Christina (for not the first time) is absolutely wrong. In fact, using Delta miles, it's relatively easy to book AF tickets as long as you do so well in advance. That's because AF award seats are available to Delta FF members for several weeks <u>before</u> those award seats become available to Flying Blue (AF) members.

Good luck getting an award seat on Delta without paying a fortune in miles. As an example, if I wanted to fly from Boston to Paris next June 21 using Delta miles, I have 2 non-stop choices: the Air France non-stop which costs 62,500 miles, or the Delta non-stop which costs 125,000 miles.

DonTopaz: are those RT figures you have for the Boston > Paris June flights?

I'm not absolutely wrong I've tried a lot, I didn't just make that up. Maybe it's different out of Boston, I don't fly out of there. I don't try a year ahead of time, that's true, though. I do try within 6-9 months.

tuscanlife: sorry, those are 1-way business class prices.

Christina, it is absolutely wrong to state, as you did, "You can't even get Air France flights if you have Delta points." Especially when the opposite is true: getting AF award seats with Delta miles -- with the caveat that you need to get them 10-11 months in advance -- are among the more reliable long-haul FF award ticket availabilities. And if you're flying from DC (presumably Christina's home base), you have a choice of two different AF flights, in either economy (30k miles) or business (62.5k) on the date that I'd listed for Boston.

I called Air France as suggested. They told me they have no flights available for upgrade. I asked them to check June 1st just out of curiosity, since it is too early to book the July dates I want. This was from Atlanta.

So maybe it might be easy for DonTopaz to book an award ticket, but I'm having no luck with just the upgrade.

And Gretchen, I'm fully aware that my Delta mileage is low, which is why I'm buying the coach tickets with my Capital One Venture points, and only looking to use the Delta miles for the upgrade on the outbound flight. I want the flat bed seats so my kids will sleep.

In thinking about what you are trying to do, I googled and found this…..

http://milecards.com/15608/how-to-up...h-delta-miles/

SORRY!! I just looked back and saw that you want Milan…..not sure how I got Paris in my head….

Upgrading already "purchased" tickets comes with many restrictions.

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...de-awards.html describes a part of the current rule for international flights.

You cannot just upgrade from any economy class ticket. For your travel time period, June 1, 2016 and later, Delta tightened the eligible economy class to Y, B, M, S, H, Q, or K class. The K, the lowest tier, is still ~50% more than the lowest tier economy class.

There is also a target class availability requirement. Of the business class fare class buckets still open for a given flight, J,C,D,I, and Z, it used to be you can only upgrade on flights with "Z" class availability. Sorry, I can't find the current rule document.

See the pesky sentence, "All Awards are subject to availability"? Availability is not restricted to the existence of physical seats, but whatever the carrier chose to make "available" for different marketing purposes including mileage based upgrades.

Thanks socialworker!! I'll try it.