yestravel

Interesting about when the ff seats are loaded. What AA agents told me is that all seats are not all always loaded into the system at once. So a particular day's ff seats might show up a day or so after other seats show up. They said that their airline partners may release seats at a different time than when A releases theirs. They couldn't give me exact information on when partners released tickets. I will say as I looked for seats for our trip, I noticed that one day there was no availability and the next there might be seats available. So everyone's advice to keep checking online and thru the agents can pay off.

gracejoan3

I know Delta does not load them all at the 331 days out. You can check online and even call them. Actually, for whatever reason, Delta seems to try to book your FF seats on a partner airline..at least when you are trying early.

Gardyloo

Especially in the current revenue environment I'd expect fewer seats to be released to award inventory early in the window rather than later, when the airlines' revenue management departments can have a better idea of pending sales. Award seats on tough routes (in my experience) will tend to show up toward the beginning of the 330 day window, then more or less vanish, then reappear at the 60- to 90-day window, if at all.

powellretired

Gardyloo, we have Delta FFM, and hope to travel to Nice from JFK or Newark. Paris is our back-up.

Thanks All for all the information.

ellenem

The Delta website now uses this really handy system. When you choose the use mileage option and choose your dates and destinations, you get a calendar that shows all the available FF seats for about a month surrounding your dates. I was traveling off season, but was able to book my tickets just 6 weeks out.

gracejoan3

Yes, the change in the Delta site is much betteer. It is copied after the Air France site. The A/F site is so good in showing the surrounding dates and costs for those dates.

Therese

Note that's Delta's seach tool for award travel is not without its problems. In addition to listing only Delta and some SkyTeam partners (noted in my post above), it frequently labels itineraries which are only partially SkySaver as entirely SkySaver. So you click on one of the blue-tagged days expected to see TATL flights for 50K, only to find that some or most (or even all) are more than 50K, typically because one of the legs is SkyChoice. So it can take several tries to come up with true SkySaver awards. Tedious, but it does give you lots of options.

Patty

The DL award calendar is extremely flawed. Don't get your hopes up just because the calendar show Skysaver. And searching by schedule vs searching by price can often produce different results. I actually find it easier to use the NW site to search, then go to the DL site to confirm what I've found or book. The NW site won't show extra elite availability for DL operated flights, but the extra availability is only for coach which I never redeem.

gracejoan3

Yes, Delta does have its problems..far too many of them!! I have often found Air France to work better. In fact, it was thru A/F that I booked my flights for Sept/Oct this year. At the time, they were cheaper when compared with DL...and the flights I were flying were DL rather than A/F..so, who knows..they don't, that's for sure!!

scatcat

I just tried to book my departure only June 2009 flight to AMS and was told they are no longer allowed to book and hold the departure segment until you book the return segment. The agent said this was a fairly new rule. I booked this September trip by having Delta to hold the departure date until the return date was available. No more-bummer

Areala

to beau....

How on earth did you get europe tickets for 50,000 ff

I have citi-rewards and delta skymiles and both were charging much higher,...

Whose points did you use for your continental flight?

Thanks,

gracejoan3

I also used 50,000 Delta miles for my 4/14/09 - 5/13/09 trip. I go DL shuttle from AVL to ATL, Air France from ATL to CDG and my return is Cont. CDG to Newark and Cont. Newark to AVL.

I made my reservations on 6/16/08.

Therese

Areala, as beau is not a particularly frequent poster here I'll go ahead and answer this question.

He managed to get transatlantic tickets for 50,000 miles because he looked for them (or possibly because they just happened to be available on the dates he first chose). If you look for specific dates and find that Delta does not offer 50,000 mile awards you need to either change your planned travel dates, or wait a while and try searching again in hopes that 50,000 mile seats become available.

Delta will generally show you all of the availability (unless you limit your search) for a particular date, including awards that mix SkySaver and SkyChoice segments (yielding a final price that's higher than 50,000 miles), with the exception of availability on some of their SkyTeam partners. So just keep searching until you find what you want.

Keep in mind that what you want may not be available, ever. If Delta knows that they are sure to sell all of the seats on a particular flight on a particular date, they are not going to offer any award seats at all, even for 100,000 miles.

In order to find all of the availability, you may need to call Delta. Ask specifically to speak with the partners awards desk, and be willing to be flexible with how and where you end up. Your "gateway" flight to Europe is typically the hardest to find, so if the agent knows that you're willing to fly to Copenhagen or Prague en route to Rome rather than to Rome directly he/she will be able to give you more options.

Don't necessarily shy away from accepting convoluted multi-stop itineraries if you're booking many months in advance, as it's highly likely that one of the flights will be changed such that a connection is "illegal", in which case the airline will re-route you, almost always to your advantage.

There are plenty of 50,000 transatlantic awards out there, you just have to find them. And don't get in a swivet about lack of availability for high demand flights---every ticket that the airline can sell is revenue that the airline can use to stay afloat, thereby insuring the value of your miles. If you can't use them for this trip you can use them for another one.

mhyde1

Theresa, I hope you didn't get all of those trips, you and your husband, on 95,000! Wow, you are lucky. For two of us to travel from Tampa-Rome three months out, is 100,000 each. I think it took several days and several phone calls to get it. It was with Delta.

Therese

No, mhyde1, the 95,000 mile award ticket (ATL to CDG, CDG to NRT, and finally NRT to MEX) is just for me. My husband is separately ticketed (also at the SkySaver rate) on a round trip ATL-MEX. We're on the same direct flight home from MEX to ATL.

And luck didn't have much to do with it---I deliberately chose a travel period that is low demand for air travel (January) and also low demand on my time at work, so that I could get away for an entire three weeks. I was willing to take all sorts of alternate routing, and even willing to change some of my destinations (Vancouver rather than Mexico City, for example---my goal with my last stop was that it be in North America, so as to minimize jet lag on my return and also permit my husband to join me, as there's no way on earth he's ever going to go to Japan, at least not on holiday with me).

I'd originally planned to ticket my trip as a RTW award, which is 140,000 miles in coach, but the agent pointed out that it was only 95,000 miles if straight ticketed, so that's what I did.

You are paying 100K for RT ticket to Rome because you wanted specific dates and/or specific flights. You get what you pay for. I just happen to be cheap.

Patty

To add to Therese's advice, if you've booked a convoluted itinerary, you can waitlist more direct Delta operated flights if there are any (you can't waitlist partner flights). Award waitlists are still allowed (even if some agents may tell you otherwise) and there's no reissue fee when the waitlist clears. You may also want to keep an eye on availability opening up on your waitlisted segments as I've had waitlists that didn't auto-clear. I usually book whatever's available at the time and between waitlists and schedule changes, I almost never end up flying the same itinerary that I originally booked.

Areala

Thank you Therese,
I think I am beginning to understand it. I am just not sure how to go about it. I had booked 3 open jaw tickets Tampa to Paris then Rome to Tampa for Sept 7 thru 26th for two tickets I used my Citi Rewards points and that cost me 220,000 points for both tickets. I then used my Delta points for the 3rd ticket and that was only 89,000 points. Unfortunately I did not have enough points on Delta to buy all 3 tickets with them. However I booked them first and got the flight and then with Citi Rewards I was able to choose the exact same flights so the 3 of us could travel together.
I booked in March, so perhaps I should have waited. Oh well, next time I will try the other way and see what happens.

Therese

Areala, I'm not familiar with Citi Rewards Points, but they may not be equivalent to SkyMiles, and may well work more like "pay with miles". So the more expensive the ticket, the more points it costs. You mention that you were able to book the exact same flight with Citi as you'd already gotten with Delta SkyMiles, so presumably they're not limited in any way, so you were paying for that convenience. Hunting around might well have gotten you a less expensive award from Delta, but the cost of the tickets from Citi wouldn't necessarily have changed (and could have been more expensive).

One of the ways to optimize use of miles for family travel is to be willing to split up the family. On one occasion that meant routing myself and my two children on a very convoluted route while putting my husband (who is a bit of wimp when it comes to air travel) on a direct flight. The original convoluted booking was made months in advance, and in the end we all ended up on the direct flights, both coming and going (inbound due to schedule changes, outbound due to careful planning and an obliging gate agent). But had we ended up on the original convuluted route I was going to be happy with that situation as well.

mhyde1

Therese, do you mean that for 95,000 miles, you travel around the world plus your husband's flight, too. How far in advance did you book your travel? Saraho, did you use your Delta ff miles to fly Continental? How many miles did you have to pay?

Therese

No, mhyde1, my husband was ticketed separately, at 30,000 miles for the SkySaver coach ATL-MEX round trip. So my mini-round the world for 95,000 miles and his round trip at 30,000 miles puts the total at 125,000 miles.

Fees + taxes for my ticket (including the $25 charge for booking by phone) was $188, and for my husband's ticket was $62.

I booked well in advance, almost as soon as it was possible to do so, but that wasn't because I was worried about availability but because I was eager to plan the trip.

And as per Saraho's post above, yes, she used Delta miles to book a ticket on Continental. The amount of miles charged is the same no matter which SkyTeam partner you're flying with, so assuming she got a SkySaver coach ticket she paid 50,000 miles.

This scenario is not unusual in the least. At the moment, in fact, most of the SkySaver award tickets that I've found on the Delta search engine have actually been on partners' equipment: Air France, KLM, Northwest, Continental. Booking with other partners generally require that you call Delta (and pay the $25 fee for the pleasure). I don't necessarily mind the fee in those instances, as I'm generally trying to do something sort of complicated or need to get four tickets at once (which often requires complicated routing).

Delta flights to these destinations are typically coming up as SkyChoice awards. Because I live in Atlanta, and Delta operates many, many direct flights from here, these flights are much more desirable, and the price reflects that fact.