Delta SkyMiles are often referred to as “Sky Pesos” because low level (AKA saver level) awards are rarely available.  Delta advertises being able to book round trip domestic flights for 25,000 miles, but in reality finding availability at that price can be nearly impossible.

If you live near a Delta hub, things aren’t so bad.  From a Delta hub, 25K availability is sometimes available.  Even better, if you live near a hub it is possible to tack on free one-way awards, or do other tricks to get even more value.  I may write some follow up posts regarding those tricks in the future.  For now, though, I plan to show how to get good value even if you do not live near a hub.

Free Stopover

All of the major airlines allow free stopovers on international travel, but only Delta allows them on domestic flights^*.  You can use this to your advantage to get more value from your domestic awards.  Unlike other airlines, with Delta a single round trip award can include two destinations instead of just one.  Let’s look at an example…

* United allows a stopover if your award travel includes Hawaii

Example

Suppose you have a family of four and you live in Connecticut near the Hartford airport.  You want to take a trip out west with your family and you’d like to visit both Salt Lake City and Phoenix.  Like many families, your dates are not flexible.

Image courtesy of Great Circle Mapper

When I picked some arbitrary dates for this trip, Kayak quoted a price of $771 per person.  In this scenario, that’s more than you want to spend, so you turn to your stockpile of United, American Airlines, and Delta miles.

In general, United and American have far better saver level award availability than Delta.  They also allow one-way awards.  With either of these airlines, you could piece together this trip by redeeming three one-way awards (Hartford to Salt Lake City; Salt Lake City to Phoenix; and Phoenix to Hartford).  If saver level awards were available for all three legs of this itinerary, then you could redeem as few as 37,500 miles per person for this trip.  In reality, though, you are very unlikely to find saver level awards for four people for the entire trip if your dates are inflexible.  If just one leg of this itinerary priced at the high level, then the trip would cost 50K miles per person.  If all three legs priced at the high level, then the trip would cost 75K miles per person.

With Delta, we can take advantage of the fact that Delta considers Salt Lake City to be a valid waypoint between Hartford and Phoenix.  Given that, it is possible to include a free stopover there within a single round trip award.  While 25K awards are almost impossible to find, medium-level (40K) awards are almost always available (except during holidays).  So, the same trip that would cost a minimum of 37,500 miles with United or AA, would cost 40,000 miles with Delta.  As I mentioned before, though, since your dates are inflexible in this example, the price via United or AA is more likely to be 50K miles or more per person.  With Delta, you can almost have your choice of dates and times and still keep the total price to 40K miles per person.

Advantages of this approach

By accepting the fact that you will book medium level awards (40K each), there are some big advantages to using your Delta miles for a trip like this:

• You can pick the dates and times that work best for you.  While not every flight will be available at the 40K redemption level, you will likely find that most are available.
• You can save your United and AA miles for more valuable international trips.  If you don’t live near a Delta hub, you will most likely find it frustratingly difficult to find saver level international awards on Delta.  It is much easier with United and AA.  Plus, Delta miles can’t be used to book first class international travel.
• You can save your United and AA miles for simpler trips. If you have need of a one way trip or a simple round trip, you’re much more likely to find saver level availability on United or American.

Finding valid routes (new example)

The trick shown above works because, to Delta, Salt Lake City is a valid layover between Hartford and Phoenix.  To find out whether your desired destinations are valid, go to Delta.com and try booking a one-way flight between your home airport and one of your desired destinations.  Browse through the results to see if your other desired destination is ever used as a layover. 

For example, let’s say you want to fly from Hartford to Seattle and then later to Los Angeles before returning home…

Image courtesy of Great Circle Mapper

Go to Delta.com and search for flights between Hartford and Los Angeles.  If you scroll far enough through the results, you may find what you’re looking for.  For example, the following two flights route through Seattle:

So, given that Seattle is a valid route to LA, you should be able to use this trick.

Finding available dates & times

The way to book a two stop itinerary is to use Delta’s multi-city search.  The problem is that, when using the multi-city search, Delta does not tell you which flights are at the 25K, 40K, or 60K level.  So, it’s necessary to do some research first.  The trick is to plug in each leg as if you are booking a one-way award.  Look for one-way flights that price at 25K or 40K and write them down.  Do this for each part of the trip (i.e. Hartford to Seattle, Seattle to LA, and LA to Hartford).

Booking the trip

Once you have written down the dates, times, and flight numbers of the flights you want, you should now be able to book the trip.  Under “Book a Trip”, go to “More Search Options” (from other screens, this is called “Advanced Search”).  Select the “Multi-city” tab and enter in the flight dates you are interested in:

Then, carefully select the flights you wrote down earlier.  If all goes well, the itinerary should price out at 40K:

Tip: Make sure none of the one-way awards include a layover of over 3 hours. If it does, that flight will use up your one allowed stopover.

Tip: Avoid partner operated flights. The first time I ran through the above scenario, I chose an Alaska Airlines operated flight and the award priced out at 65K. In other words, it added a 25K award redemption on top of the 40K redemption. Not good. When I went back and replaced that flight with a Delta operated flight, the award priced out correctly.

Updated Tip: Sometimes an itinerary that looks valid will price out higher than expected (e.g. higher than 40K), if this happens to you, try the following:

• Look for long layovers in your itinerary (e.g. 3+ hours) and replace those flights with shorter layovers. It’s not clear why this helps, but this worked for me several times.
• Try to avoid mixing carriers. For example, book all Delta flights or all same partner flights (such as Alaska Airlines). It appears that mixing carriers causes the award to price incorrectly.

Variations

Delta’s booking engine sees the above itinerary as a round trip in which the outbound is: Hartford to LA with a stop in Seattle; and the return is LA to Hartford.  If you can find saver level awards for all of your outbound flights, or for all of your return flights, then you can save miles, or fly first class for just a few more miles.  Here are two examples:

Example 1 (save miles): Suppose 25K saver level flights exist for both Hartford to Seattle, and Seattle to LA.  In that case, you can book the outbound at 25K and the return at 40K, and the entire award will cost you the average: 32,500 miles.  This only works if you can find saver level availability for the entire outbound or return trip.  Of course, if you find saver level availability for both the outbound and the return trip then the whole thing will cost just 25,000 miles per person (good luck with that, though).

Example 2 (first class awards): Suppose that saver level flights exist for the return (LA to Hartford), but only in first class.  First class saver level awards cost 45K miles.  So, if you book coach outbound at the 40K level, and then first class return at the 45K level, the booking engine will charge you the average of the two: 42,500 miles. In other words, under the right conditions, you can upgrade half your trip to first class for only 2,500 miles!

Conclusion

Delta miles can be frustratingly difficult to use, at least if your goal is to get good value from them.  The example above, though, shows that under certain circumstances Delta SkyMiles can deliver excellent value.

Some readers will point out that there exist even better options such as using British Airways Avios for short flights (4500 points for each short flight).  And, that’s true when the circumstances allow it.  The point here is not to argue that Delta SkyMiles are the best (they’re not!), but that there are ways to get good value from them. 

Just when I thought I had mastered Delta award bookings, I stumbled upon something new.  Please accept my apologies in advance for the massive headache you are about to get for trying to understand this…

Background

I recently booked travel that lands me in San Francisco in early February, so I needed to book a one-way home from there (to the Detroit airport).

United and AA allow one-way awards for half the price of round trip, so I could have looked to either one to book my way home.  Unfortunately, though, only Delta has non-stop flights from San Francisco to Detroit and I really wanted a non-stop flight for this leg.

Luckily, Delta had saver-level award availability for the flight I wanted.  Unluckily, while Delta allows one-way award redemptions, they charge as much as a round trip.  So, while United and American Airlines would charge 12,500 miles for this trip, Delta would charge 25,000 miles.  No thank you.

I could have transferred American Express Membership Rewards points to Air France’s Flying Blue program and then booked the flight from there since Air France does allow one-way awards at half price.  But I wanted to see, first, if I could use my Delta miles…

Free One-ways

Much has been written about booking free one-way awards on various airlines.  Usually, it works like this: you book a round trip award and then you tack on another one-way leg to your award either before your trip (toward your home airport) or after your trip (leaving from your home airport).  This is possible thanks to airlines that allow stopovers and open-jaws on award bookings.

For booking free one-ways, Delta is at once more lenient and more restrictive than other airlines.  They are more lenient in that they are the only airline (that I know of) in which you can book free one-ways on a domestic award.  They are more restrictive because your free one-way has to be a valid routing as part of the entire award.  For example, I could book an award in which I fly DC to Detroit as my free one-way, then months later fly Detroit to San Francisco round trip all for the price of a single round trip award.  This works because Delta sees this flight as originating in DC with a long stop-over in Detroit and then returning via Detroit with an open-jaw between Detroit and DC.  In other words, it works because it is perfectly valid to book a flight from DC to LA with a stopover in Detroit.  Detroit is a Delta hub that is roughly between those locations. 

There are (at least) two cases where you cannot book a free one-way on Delta.  One is where the total flight is not a valid routing.  For example, if you live near a non-hub airport such as Indianapolis, it can’t be done.  Take the example above, for instance.  There are no valid Delta routings from DC to LA via Indianapolis so Delta would price such an award the same as two separate awards, which is no good.

The second case that doesn’t work is where your desired free one-way creates an open-jaw that is longer than the round trip legs.  Take my example above, for instance. A free one-way from DC to Detroit as part of a Detroit to San Francisco award works because the distance between DC and Detroit is less than the distance between Detroit and San Francisco.  It wouldn’t work to go the other way.  That is, I couldn’t book a free one-way from San Francisco to Detroit as part of a later Detroit to DC round trip award.  That too would price as two separate awards.

Huh?

I know that if you’re new to this, none of what I just wrote makes any sense. It took me a long time to “get it” too.  If you want to try to grok it, you can read more details about Delta free one-ways from MileValue, here:  Free Oneways on Delta Awards.

A one-way for 12,500 miles

Let’s go back to my situation.  I needed a one-way flight from San Francisco to Detroit.  I had already booked a round trip award Detroit to DC (specifically, IAD) for Frequent Traveler University where I’ll be speaking.  So, I thought it would make sense to tack on a free one-way to that award.  The problem was that if I booked San Francisco to Detroit and then later Detroit to DC (round trip), the open-jaw between Detroit and San Francisco would exceed the distance between Detroit and DC and so the routing wouldn’t be valid.  Just to be sure, I tried booking the award that way.  As expected, the award priced at 50K miles instead of 25K.  In other words, Delta’s booking engine saw this as two trips. 

I wasn’t done, though…

Not long ago, MileValue wrote up a trick for booking free one-ways on US Airways.  The trick is to add a final leg to the trip (that you’ll never fly on) in order to trick the system into thinking that you have a single round trip award.  It occurred to me that this same trick would work with Delta.  All I had to do was book as follows:

• Feb: San Francisco to Detroit
• Stopover
• April: Detroit to DC
• April: DC to San Francisco via Detroit

If I could find saver level awards for each segment shown above, then I could book the entire thing as a single round trip award for 25K.  On the return, I would simply abandon my final Detroit to San Francisco leg.  There are a couple of downsides to this: 1) I would not be able to check bags because they would go on to San Francisco (this isn’t really a problem since I rarely check bags anyway); and 2) If something came up like bad weather in Detroit, Delta might try to reroute me a different way to San Francisco.  As much as I love that city, that might be inconvenient.  Anyway, I figured it was worth the risk.

I have no doubt that the above listed trick would have worked if I had found saver level awards on my return from DC to Detroit and then Detroit to San Francisco on the same day.  Unfortunately, the only available saver level return from DC to Detroit was in the evening and there were no further flights to San Francisco that same night.

There was, however, a flight from Detroit to San Francisco the next morning.  I figured I would give it a try to see what the booking engine would do.  I plugged in the following:

• Feb: San Francisco to Detroit
• Stopover
• April 25: Detroit to DC
• April 29: DC to Detroit
• April 30: Detroit to San Francisco

To my surprise, the booking engine decided that this trip would cost me 37,500 miles.  In other words, it wanted to charge me 12,500 miles more than a single round trip award.

That’s pretty good.  I could definitely live with a 12,500 mile one-way Delta award for the dates, times, and flights I prefer!  Plus, since the final throw-away leg would leave Detroit the next day, there was much less risk of getting rerouted to San Francisco against my will.  So, I was ready to book the trip until I had another idea…

And a free one-way too

What if I want to go to San Francisco at some later date?  I do love the city, so it seemed like a waste to throw away the final one-way leg.  I wondered what would happen if I booked the final one-way from Detroit to San Francisco for a date far in the future?

I searched the award calendar and found a saver level one-way flight from Detroit to San Francisco for late November.  I then plugged in the following:

• February: San Francisco to Detroit
• Stopover
• April 25: Detroit to DC
• April 29: DC to Detroit
• Stopover
• November: Detroit to San Francisco

Again, the entire award priced out at 37,500 miles!  I now have booked two one-ways: San Francisco to Detroit and, much later, Detroit to San Francisco for an incremental cost of just 12,500 miles!  Since I have Platinum status with Delta, I can later change the date of the final leg for free as long as a saver level award is available.  This is critical since I don’t really know right now when I want to return to San Francisco.

Out of curiosity, I tried changing the final leg to go to LA instead of San Francisco, but that award priced out at 50,000 miles. 

Taking it further

I plan to test whether the trick I stumbled onto will work on international trips.  While this trick saved a total of 12,500 miles, I can imagine saving far more for international business class travel if the stars align properly.

It’s worth noting that I have no idea why this trick works.  I understand “traditional” free one-ways, but there’s nothing in my little brain to explain why Delta’s booking engine thought to charge 37,500 miles.  Maybe this is already a well known phenomenon and I’m just late to the game?  I’m hoping that someone more experienced than me with award bookings can explain it!  Anyone?  Gary?  MileValue?  Amol?  Lucky?  The Weekly Flyer?  René?  John?  Brian?  Bueller?

Once we understand why it works, it will be easier to figure out how best to take it further.

In the past few months I’ve had the pleasure of flying both Cathay Pacific and Delta international business class.  Which was better?  The answer may surprise you.  

Cathay Pacific

As I described in the post “So Long Alaska, and Thanks for All the Fish,” my family and I flew Cathay Pacific on an overnight flight from Vancouver to JFK in August.  We spent 25,000 British Avios points each for the one-way trip.

This is a picture of Cathay Pacific’s amazing seats.  To see more, view this interactive page. There, you can play with the seat controls and rotate the seat around for a better view.

My take:

• Seats: Amazing.  Due to the privacy of the herringbone style seating, as long as I was seated I felt like I was alone in my own mini suite.  This, along with the fully flat-bed, made it possible to get to sleep easily.
• In Flight Entertainment: Excellent.  Every seat came equipped with comfortable Bose headphones and 15″ screens.  Movie selection was very good.
• Food: Good, but not great. 
• Service: Disappointing.  Mostly, service was good, but I had to ask three times for an amenity kit that had been automatically distributed to all other business class passengers.  I really wanted those eyeshades!

Delta

Last week, my family flew Delta business class from Detroit to London, and then returned to Detroit a week later.  We spent 100,000 Delta SkyMiles each for the round trip flight.  Delta has several different international business class configurations.  We flew the Boeing 767-400.  Seats are depicted here:

This is a picture of Delta’s 767-400ER flat bed business class seats found on flights to and from London Heathrow.  Watch this video to get a great sense of the experience.  Hat tip to DeltaPoints for digging up the video.

My take:

• Seats: Very good.  The seats didn’t compare well to Cathay Pacific’s in terms of spaciousness and privacy, but were otherwise excellent.  The seats actually included a built-in massage capability, but sadly it didn’t feel very good at all.  I kept the massage off for the trip.
• In Flight Entertainment: Excellent. Every seat came equipped with comfortable noise cancelling headphones and 10.6″ screens. Movie selection was excellent.
• Food: Excellent.  The primary meals were multi-course affairs with appetizers, mains, choice of rolls and bread, and a choice of desserts.  If I were to be picky I’d say that the salad was a bit too cold, and the chicken was a bit on the dry side.  Otherwise, the food was really amazingly good.
• Service: Excellent.  Service was fast, courteous, and plentiful.

Which is better?

Lucky calls Cathay Pacific’s new business class a “huge winner.”  And, I don’t disagree.  The seats are amazing and have spoiled me for other flights.  That being said, while the Cathay’s food and service was good, Delta’s food and service was excellent.

For the overnight flights, I had no trouble sleeping in the Cathay Pacific seat, but I did have trouble on the Delta flight.  I think the difference was mainly with the privacy.  On the Delta flight, seats were pretty wide open to the rest of the cabin, so I felt like I was trying to sleep in a room full of people (which I don’t do too often).  With Cathay Pacific, on the other hand, the seats were so private that I felt like I was in my own little room, and so was able to sleep well.

I would very happily fly either of these again at any time.  Both were great experiences.  If I could choose, though, I would fly Delta for daytime flights (for the slightly better food and service) and Cathay Pacific for overnight flights so as to get better sleep.  I know that Delta offers herringbone style seating on some flights, so I’m eager to to try those as well.

By the way, I’m not usually a big fan of cannoli’s but I got one on the Delta flight and it was amazing.  I can’t wait to get one again!

Delta dessert selection

I made the right choice.  This Delta cannoli was fantastic.

This year, I’m continuing my quest to maintain Delta Platinum status without flying.  Here’s my approach and how I’m doing so far…

Delta has four levels of elite status: Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond.  Each has increasingly better benefits.  In order to earn elite status, you need to earn “Medallion Qualifying Miles” (MQMs).  MQMs are different from the redeemable miles that can be traded in for award flights.  MQMs are a way of measuring how much you have flown Delta within a calendar year.  The more you have flown, the higher the elite status you can earn.  Silver requires 25K MQMs in a calendar year; Gold requires 50K MQMS; Platinum requires 75K MQMs; and Diamond requires 125K MQMs.  While it would be cool to earn Diamond status, Platinum gives you most of the same benefits for far fewer MQMs.

Unlike other airlines, Delta allows MQMs earned above each status threshold to roll-over to the next year.  Last year I ended the year with almost 100,000 MQMs.  As a result, I rolled over almost 25,000.  Also, unlike other airlines, Delta allows you to earn a huge number of MQMs through high credit card spend.

Mileage Running from home

As I’ve described before (see “Mileage running, from home“), my approach to earning Delta MQMs is to run up spend on my Delta Reserve and Delta Platinum credit cards.  The Reserve card delivers 15K MQMs after $30K of spend (within a calendar year) and then another 15K MQMs after $60K of spend.  Similarly, the Delta Platinum card delivers 10K of MQMs after $25K of spend (within a calendar year) and then another 10K MQMs after $50K of spend.  Altogether, by holding each of these cards (one personal, one business), I can earn 50,000 MQMs per year without flying.  My trick is simply to use those cards to make approximately $5K in Kiva loans per month.  Over time, the money is paid back to me without interest. Personally, I have so far lost only $13 through a single defaulted loan (approximately .07% of completed loans: far less than 1%).

Progress

I’ve already earned 25K MQMs from my two Delta cards this year and I’m very close to earning the final 25K.  Combined with a small amount of flying on paid flights, I’ll easily re-up my Platinum status for all of 2013. 

Next year and beyond

Next year will be a bit trickier since I won’t have 25K of MQMs to roll-over.  This is a problem because I can only earn 50K MQMs from my two Delta cards.  But, I’ll still have a number of options.  One easy one is to get my wife a Delta Reserve card.  The MQMs earned on that card can be transferred to others.  So, I can help her run up spend on her card, but then assign the MQMs to me.  In fact, it should be possible for my wife and I to setup a system where we alternate who receives the MQMs such that we each maintain Platinum status most of the time.  It’s complicated, but the trick is to earn Platinum status as early in the calendar year as possible.  That way, you then keep that status for the rest of the current year, all of the next year, and the first two months of the third year.  By alternating who earns Platinum status early in each calendar year, we should both be able to enjoy Platinum status most of the time.

Why I care

Platinum status comes with several perks, but the ones I care most about are free award changes and free same day confirmed changes (which are available to Delta Gold elites as well).  The combination of these two benefits make my Delta miles much more valuable than they would be otherwise.  Delta miles are infamously difficult to use at low award levels.  That is, it’s easy to use Delta miles if you’re willing to pay the medium or high number of miles required for an award, but they offer up very few awards for the lowest number of miles.  For example, round trip domestic awards cost either 25,000 miles (low level), 40,000 miles (medium level), or 60,000 miles (high level).  Medium and high level awards are plentiful.  Low level awards are rare.  However, the combination of free award changes and free same day confirmed changes make it possible for me to find low level awards on the flights I want.

Free Award Changes

Delta allows Platinum and Diamond elites to cancel or change awards up to 72 hours prior to you flight.  Let me give you a real example of how valuable this can be.  My family is flying to London this weekend, non-stop, on Delta’s lie-flat business class seats.  The flights were booked for 100,000 miles each (low level).  When I first looked into award availability, there were only two seats available at the low level.  Because I knew I could cancel without penalty, I went ahead and booked those seats.  A few days later a third seat became available for 100K, so I booked that too.  At the time of booking, we weren’t yet sure of our plans, but I went ahead and booked anyway because I knew I could cancel or make changes for free.  If I hadn’t had the ability to cancel for free, I would have waited until our plans were firm and until I could find 3 seats at once.  In other words, it is very unlikely that I would have been able to book all three of us at the low level.

Another reason I value free award changes is that it makes it possible for me to leverage tricks other bloggers have written about in which you can get a free one-way award with each round trip award.  For example, see this MileValue post.  I’ve done this trick several times now and I find that it really helps to be able to make free changes after the initial booking. 

Free Same Day Confirmed Changes

Another trick I’ve begun using is taking advantage of free same day changes.  Let’s say I can find a low level award for the day I want to travel, but it has bad times and/or awkward routings.  That’s OK.  I now know that I can book that flight.  After booking, I can continue to look for better options (you never know if a good one will pop up) and I can change for free up until 72 hours before the flight.  If no better options appear, that’s OK too.  On the day of the flight, I can switch to a better flight by calling no more than 3 hours before departure of the more desirable flight.  As long as the better flight isn’t full, I can make that change.  Once when I did this, it almost backfired.  The more desirable flight was full, so they couldn’t confirm the change.  However, they did put me on standby for the flight and I got on it without trouble.

Wrap Up

I live near a Delta hub, so I’m a Delta loyalist out of convenience.  I wouldn’t recommend going to the lengths I do to become a high level Delta elite unless you’re in a similar circumstance.  Other airlines offer better value for the miles  earned.  That being said, I’m happy with the approach I’ve taken.  By making $110K in Kiva loans per year I’m helping out people who need the money, I’m earning high level elite status, and I’m earning 150,000 redeemable Delta miles per year.  Not bad!

Every couple of weeks, I get an email like this one inviting me to earn up to 65K United Miles for signing up for the Chase MileagePlus Explorer card:

In reality, I see this as a 55K signup offer.  You get 50K after spending $1000 and another 5K for adding an authorized user.  The final 10K requires $25K in spend per year.  That’s not really part of the signup offer – it’s really just the card’s standard big spend bonus.  Still, 55K United miles is a great offer.  If you haven’t received this offer (but want to), I recommend signing up for United’s MileagePlus loyalty program.  Then, follow this advice by dabearz73 on Flyertalk:

Found a way to trick United to get the 60K bonus rather than 40K

---

First login to your United Mileage Plus account on united.com.
Most see an offer for 40K for signing up to the Mileage Plus Explorer card. Rather than clicking on that link, click on the link below.
https://www.theexplorercard.com/MPEl…NS9_XXD_110719
As long as you are logged in and have not previously clicked on the 40K link, the 60K offer will pop up in a new window. If you click on the 40K link you need to log out and log back in.

Even though dabearz73 describes the offer as a 60K bonus (which was the offer at the time), the trick above works for the 55K/65K offer.

There’s no question that this is a great sign-up offer, but is this card worth keeping after the first year?  Let’s compare its perks to a few other popular airline cards:

Which ones are keepers?

• US Airways Dividend Miles: If you value Star Alliance miles, then this one is a no-brainer.  For only $89 per year, you get 10,000 bonus miles.  That’s like paying less than a penny per mile even if you do not use any of the card’s other perks.  To me, the award discount and $99 companion ticket are just icing on the cake.  I’d recommend to everyone interested in collecting miles that they get this card for the sign-up bonus and then keep it for the annual bonus regardless of whether the other perks get used.
• Gold Delta SkyMiles: For anyone certain to use the companion pass each year, this card can easily pay for itself (although I would then recommend you move up to the Platinum Delta SkyMiles card).  This is also a good card for people who fly Delta regularly, but not enough to earn elite status (since elite status also results in free checked bags and priority boarding).
• AAdvantage Select Visa or Amex: If you fly American Airlines regularly, but not enough to earn elite status, then this card should be a keeper.  Otherwise, I’d only recommend keeping this card if you plan to redeem AA miles.  If so, the 10% rebate can easily be worth the $95 annual fee.
• United MileagePlus: I see this card as a keeper only if you fly United regularly, but not enough to earn elite status.  Otherwise, it seems unlikely that the benefits of the free checked bags, 2 club passes, and primary car rental insurance will get used often enough to justify the $95 annual fee.

Summary

In general, if you fly a particular airline often, but not enough to earn elite status, then it makes sense to carry that airline’s branded credit card for priority boarding, fee checked bags, etc.  Ironically, the one card that doesn’t offer free checked bags (the US Airways card) is the only one I’d recommend for everyone since its annual 10K mile bonus is alone worth the annual fee. 

Recently I was asked what I thought about the United MileagePlus card.  My response was that it’s a good card, but not as good as the competition.  Since I don’t fly United often, I don’t see much reason for me to keep the card after the first year.  I much prefer the annual perks of the US Airways card.  And I think that Delta’s companion pass, and AAdvantage Select’s 10% award rebate are both good reasons to consider keeping those cards.

What about you?  Do you think the United card is a keeper?

Last Friday, The Traveler’s Loophole reported “Earn 40 Delta Skymiles per dollar for Pet Supplies ~ Awesome Deal!”   Then, on Monday, Deal’s We Like reported “Deal Alert: Get 40x Delta Miles at PetCareRX!!!”  Yes, I do believe all those exclamation points are warranted.  40X is an amazing deal.  If you need pet food, flea & tick products, etc. you can’t beat a 40 miles per dollar return.  Even if PetCareRX is more expensive than where you would otherwise shop, this could be worth it to you depending on how highly you value Delta SkyMiles.  If you believe the Fair Trading Price of Delta SkyMiles is 1.29 cents each, then 40 miles per dollar can be thought of as a 51.6% rebate!

Buying Miles

Whenever I see a deal like this, I try to look for a way to leverage it to buy miles cheaply.  The idea is to buy items that can be easily resold for as little loss as possible.  In December, for example, I bought and sold cameras from Sears as a way to buy Ultimate Rewards points for .79 cents each.  In February, I bought and sold headphones and watches from Nordstrom in order to buy British Airways Avios (I actually made money on that deal, so the Avios cost me nothing!).  And, in June I bought and sold tablet computers from Sears in order to buy Southwest points for less than .4 cents each (and I earned a Companion Pass!).

For this deal to be worth it, I think the goal should be to buy Delta SkyMiles for about three quarters of a cent each.  If the miles end up costing as much as a penny each that’s still a good deal, whereas if they cost as little as half a cent each you’re golden!  An example may help make this clear:

Suppose you were to buy a $200 flea collar (a really good one!) and sell it for $160 on EBay.  You would earn 8000 miles for your purchase.  EBay fees would cost you about $19, and you would spend, let’s say, $6 more for shipping.  Your cash loss then would come to $65.  In other words, you would have paid $65 for 8000 SkyMiles.  Your cost per mile = $65 / 8000 = .81 cents each.  That’s just slightly above the target I suggested (.79 cents) so I see that as a good return.

Finding Stuff to Sell

This is the hard part!  I try to find items that sell for around the same price as Amazon.com, but prices at PetCareRX appear to be a lot higher.  Read the comments in Deal’s We Like post to see what others have found.  Unfortunately, according to Delta Points, the PetCareRX Deal of the Day items don’t count for SkyMiles.  Rats!  I’m still looking…  As of this writing, I haven’t found anything yet that I’m willing to gamble on.

Details

• Go through this link to PetCareRX to get the Delta deal.  If you go directly to PetCareRX you won’t get SkyMiles for your purchase.
• A maximum of 20,000 SkyMiles will be given per order.  That means there is no reason to buy more than $500 worth of stuff in one order.  Note that there is also some confusion about whether you’ll get points for more than one order.  Luckily, Deals We Like captured a screenshot of her Live Chat with PetCareRX in which they confirmed that one could earn more SkyMiles by making more orders.  I’ll still caution you, though, that the rep may have been wrong. 
• The offer is good “for a limited time”.  I couldn’t find any details at either Delta.com or PetCareRX that defined the end of “limited time”.
• Deal of the Day offers at PetCareRX might not qualify.  They appear to qualify, but Deals We Like was told “no” by a rep.  Buy these at your own risk and make sure to take a screen capture that shows the miles you will be awarded.

This weekend, long-held vacation plans were thrown out the window.  Not one, but two itineraries now compete to replace the original. 

Months ago, I booked a European vacation for my family.  Our itinerary had us flying into Paris and returning from Amsterdam.  I was proud that I had found business class seats in the summer at the cheapest rate Delta allows: 100K miles per person round trip.  I used SPG and Club Carlson points to book fabulous looking hotels.  I downloaded “learn to speak French” iPhone apps with the best of intentions (I will open those apps one day!).

Recently, Mrs. Miler and I noticed that our return from Amsterdam butted up closely to our son’s departure to away-camp.  Would it be too much for him, we wondered, to return from Amsterdam and then set off for camp almost immediately afterwards?  Luckily, as a Delta Platinum elite member, I can make award booking changes for free.  So, I started looking for alternative return dates.  Unfortunately, but predictably, all available options would have cost us a huge number of extra miles.

Starting Over

When I ran out of Delta options, I realized I didn’t need to stick with Delta at all.  I have tons of Ultimate Rewards points that can be transferred for free to United Miles so there was no reason I couldn’t cancel the Delta flights and book United / Star Alliance flights instead.  As I thought about it more, I realized that not only could I cancel the Delta flights for free, but I could cancel the hotel reservations for free as well.  In other words, we could go anywhere in the world our miles could take us.  There will be plenty of opportunities to visit Europe in the future. If better options were available now, I realized, we were free to take them!  But where should we go?

Vancouver and Beyond

A month or two ago I read from a blog (sorry I forget which one!) that a great use of British Airways miles was to fly business class between JFK and Vancouver on Cathay Pacific.  I ran a quick search and found that award seats on those flights were wide open!  One thing led to another and soon Mrs. Miler and I found ourselves shopping for an Alaskan cruise (in part, thanks to Rick’s recent post).  With help from MileValue and Scottrick (more on that in a future post), we soon had flights booked from Detroit to Anchorage for the start of the cruise, then post-cruise Vancouver to NYC, stop-over, and finally NYC to Detroit.  Except for the final leg, all is booked in first or business class and all of it is fully (or mostly) refundable. 

Or Asia Pacific?

Early on Sunday, Gary from View from the Wing posted that United was pricing award flights to and from Hong Kong at only 4 miles per award!  I jumped online and booked our first class flights to Hong Kong.  The total fare came to 12 miles and $346.50.  I booked a similar trip in February to coincide with our son’s winter break.  I also booked a trip for my mom and her husband.  Of course, I don’t think United will really honor these tickets, but I had to try!  You can’t beat an international round trip first class award for 4 miles per person!  If the tickets are really honored, then I’ll look into adding on additional flights to get to wherever we want to go in the region.  Singapore? Myanmar? Philippines?  We’re open to suggestions!

Where to?

We’ll wait a few days before booking the Alaskan cruise to see if the Hong Kong tickets will be honored.  If United does honor the tickets, we’ll cancel our newly booked award flights to Anchorage and NYC.  We can always try again next year…

I’ve met only one out of two goals, but have managed to rake in over 1 million points and miles anyway…  

In January, I wrote about “my strategy to buy Platinum and a million miles.”  The  basic idea is to put a huge amount of spend on my Delta Reserve and Delta Platinum credit cards in order to earn 50,000 MQMs (medallion qualifying miles).  Combined with roll-over miles and actual flying, that will be enough to get me to the 75,000 MQMs required for me to maintain high level Delta Platinum status.  For details of why I want to do this and how this can be pulled off, see my recent post “Mileage running, from home.”

The plan I wrote about in January was to pump up spending by taking advantage of shopping portal mega-offers: buy merchandise in order to get lots of points, then sell the merchandise for as close to the original buy price as possible.  By doing this well, it’s possible to maximize points earned and pump up credit card spend, while minimizing my out of pocket costs.  At the time, I didn’t know what shopping portal bonuses might be offered nor did I know if there would really be enough to make this plan viable.

Results so far: shopping portals

So far this year, I’ve only taken advantage of two shopping portal mega-offers: Nordstrom 36X through the British Airways shopping portal, and Sears 15X through the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Shopping portal.  See “Weekend Update” and “Sears 15X: Frequent Miler’s almost final results for details.  My Southwest points still haven’t moved from pending to available, but I’ll assume that they will soon.  In total, these two shopping sprees led to a combined 269,000 points.  In order to reach 1 million points over a year, I would need almost twice than number of points in 6 months so I’m pretty far off from that target.

Results so far: credit card spend

Across both Delta credit cards, I need to spend $110,000 this calendar year in order to get all 50K MQMs.  So far I’ve spent $56,000, so I’m right on target!  Except for the shopping portal mega-offers described above, most of this was achieved through 1X spending: Kiva loans, gift card churning (buying gift cards at a discount and selling for little or no loss), and personal spend.

Beyond 1 Million

Even though I haven’t earned a half million points so far via shopping portals, I have already earned slightly over 1 million points and miles this year.  Thanks to Club Carlson’s generous promotions, a few credit card sign-ups, Ink Bold 5X spend, and other tricks, the points and miles keep rolling in.

Reader goals and results

Do you have mile earning goals?  Elite status goals?  What are they, and how well are you doing so far?  Do you have any great success stories to share?

High level airline elite status comes with many valuable perks such as free domestic first class upgrades (when available), elite security lines, waived fees (such as free checked bags, and free changes to award bookings), improved availability of award seats, and more.

I used to earn elite status the old fashioned way: I flew often for work and vacation; I stuck to one airline as much as possible; and sometimes I paid for trips that could have been booked using miles just so I could earn more elite qualifying miles.

Now that I’m on my own work-wise (see “Up in the air”), earning elite status the old fashioned way is no longer viable.  I no longer have someone else paying for most of my trips.  As a result, I’m now more motivated than ever to use miles instead of cash.  And, when I use miles I give up the opportunity to earn elite qualifying miles.

I currently have Platinum status with Delta.  Detroit is my home airport and a major Delta hub, so I expect to continue to fly Delta most of the time.  Should I give up my elite status?  I really don’t want to.  My favorite perk of Delta’s Platinum status is the ability to make award reservation changes for free.  To me, this perk makes my miles much more valuable.  I can book travel speculatively whenever I see good award redemption options, and I can change the reservations whenever my actual plans become more clear.  Since I first obtained Platinum status last December, I’ve used this perk about a dozen times.  No, I’m not willing to give it up.

As background, MQMs stand for “Medallion Qualifying Miles” and are Delta’s version of what most other airlines call EQMs (Elite Qualifying Miles). MQMs are completely different from the regular kind of Delta SkyMiles that can be redeemed for travel. MQMs can’t be traded for anything at all. Instead, they are used to earn elite status. Delta requires 25000 MQMs per year to reach Silver status, 50,000 per year to reach Gold status, 75,000 per year to reach Platinum status, and 125,000 per year to reach top level Diamond status.

My goal is to keep Platinum status, so I’ll have to accumulate 75,000 MQMs this year.  A great feature of Delta’s elite program is that MQMs earned above the amount used to reach your level of elite status roll over to the next year. Last year I managed to earn close to 100K MQMs, so almost 25K rolled over to this year.  I need to earn at least 50K MQMs this year to maintain my status.

Mileage running

Most people handle my dilemma by mileage running.  The idea is to look for cheap fares and crazy routings that result in a very low cost per elite qualifying mile.  A great mileage run is considered to be one in which the cost per MQM is 3 cents or less.  It is not easy to find deals like that, however, so one should expect to average about 5 cents per MQM.  Some of the cost of doing this is offset by earning not just elite qualifying miles, but redeemable miles as well.  

If I were to mileage run for 50,000 MQMs, I would expect to pay about $2500 in airfare altogether.  In exchange, I would earn about 100,000 redeemable miles, worth $1290 in Fair Trading Prices.  Along the way, I would also have many trips to the airport, many parking fees, and many adventures both good and bad.

I’ve dabbled in mileage running before.  See, for example, “Mileage Run Shopping: Buying 162,000 Miles for $500.”  I don’t mind flying just for the sake of flying, but I don’t love it either.  When opportunities arise to mix a desired destination with a mileage run (such as with “The Family Mileage Run”) I’m much happier.  I’ll probably continue to do a few of these each year, but I’d rather not make this the primary means for achieving my goals.

Mileage running via credit card spend

An alternative to mileage running is to earn elite status through high levels of credit card spend.  There are two Delta branded credit cards that reward you with MQMs for meeting high spend thresholds: The Platinum Delta SkyMiles card, and the Delta Reserve card.  With the Platinum card, you get 10,000 MQMs after $25K in spend (within a calendar year), and another 10,000 MQMs after $50K in spend.  Similarly, with the Reserve card, you get 15,000 MQMs after $30K in spend, and another 15,000 MQMs after $60K in spend.

American Express limits each individual to one personal Delta credit card and one business Delta credit card.  One person can sign up for both the personal and the business Reserve card and earn as much as 60,000 MQMs per year (on top of the 10K MQM sign-up bonus for each card).  The Reserve card is expensive, though.  At $450, the card is arguably worth it’s annual fee for it’s lounge club benefits, MQM earning potential, and free companion pass (starting in year 2).  However, one would be hard pressed to argue that the benefits of a second card are worth as much since the lounge benefits are duplicative. 

Instead of carrying two Reserve cards, my strategy is to carry the $150 Platinum card (business) and the $450 Reserve card (personal).  With each card, I get a free companion pass which can arguably make up for the combined annual fees.  By spending $110K ($50K on the Platinum card and $60K on the Reserve card), I’ll earn 50,000 MQMs each year. 

Redeemable miles too

The Delta Reserve and Platinum card big-spend bonuses include redeemable miles along with MQMs.  So, once I spend $110K, I’ll earn 50,000 extra redeemable miles.  Plus, when I achieve Platinum status, I’ll take 20,000 redeemable miles as my Platinum Choice Benefit. In all, I’ll earn at least 180,000 redeemable miles: 110K from base credit card spend, 50K from big-spend bonuses, and 20K from achieving Platinum status.

Achieving big spend

To many, the idea of spending $110,000 across two credit cards each calendar year may sound impossible or insane (or both).  I’ve found, though, that for me it’s not too hard.  I constantly look for opportunities to spend money via credit card and get most (or all) of it back.  For some ideas, see “Top 10 ways spend a lot of money (and get most of it back).”  My goal is to average $9200 per month across both cards.  As the end of each month nears, I check my spending and simply make Kiva loans to make up the difference.  I use the KivaLens web app to make bulk lending as easy as possible (see “Minimum spend requirements? Kivalens to the rescue”).  This works for me because I have enough money in savings to pay off my credit card bills each month even when Kiva loans have not yet been repaid.  If you do not have enough in savings to do the same, I do not recommend this approach!

At what cost?

I often use 2% cash back credit cards as comparison points for schemes like these (see “The Cost of Credit Card Points”).  If I were to spend $110,000 on a 2% cash back credit card instead of my Delta cards, I would earn $2,200.  So, it’s reasonable for me to say that $2,200 is my cost for 50,000 MQMs and 180,000 redeemable miles.  Is that a good deal?  I think so.  I’ve previously argued that MQMs are worth about 3 cents each (see “How much should you pay for Elite Qualifying Miles?”) and that SkyMiles are worth about 1.29 cents each (see “Fair Trading Prices”).  At those rates, the value of 180,000 redeemable miles and 50,000 MQMs comes to $3,822 – significantly more than $2,200.

Related posts and links

• Join Kiva: http://www.kiva.org/invitedto/milepoint/by/FrequentMiler
• An analysis of the Delta Reserve credit card
• An Analysis of the Platinum Delta SkyMiles credit card
• Preparing for Miles
• How much should you pay for Elite Qualifying Miles?
• Minimum spend requirements? Kivalens to the rescue
• Top 10 ways spend a lot of money (and get most of it back)

This past weekend I flew to Washington DC for the Star MegaDO Launch Party.  You can read about the party here and here.  I’m not going to write about the MegaDO or the launch party – at least, not today.  Today’s post is a different kind of trip report:  Frequent Miler Laboratory style…

Experiment 1: Buy flight to one airport, fly to another

The launch party was held at the Crystal City Hyatt, a stone’s throw from Washington National Airport (DCA).  From Detroit, flights to DCA were quite expensive, but flights to Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) were cheap.  I had the crazy notion that I might be able to do a same day confirmed change so that I could fly to DCA instead of BWI (since the airports were in the same general area).  If I had bothered to do 10 minutes of FlyerTalk research ahead of time, I would have known the results…

• Result: FAIL
  I have Platinum elite status with Delta, so on the day of the flight I called their Premium Service number.  The woman who answered was very nice and she even tried to make the change, but told me that the system wouldn’t allow it.

Experiment 2: Use iPhone GPS for driving directions

To get to DC from BWI, I rented a car.  I could have taken Amtrak (Marc doesn’t run on weekends) and then the metro, but the round trip combined costs would have been higher than the car rental.  I could have brought my old trusty Garmin GPS along, but I wanted to see how well my iPhone could do instead.  A while ago I had downloaded the free MapQuest app which gives spoken turn by turn directions.  Time to give it a spin!

• Result: PARTIAL FAIL
  On the plus side, the MapQuest app had clear, loud, spoken directions.  However, there were a few big negatives: 1) It doesn’t show a driver’s perspective view of the upcoming turns (or I didn’t figure out how to make it do so).  Sometimes “make a slight right” is hard to interpret when there are multiple options; 2) I had no way of mounting it in the car so I could see it; 3) It routed me directly through the heart of DC instead of going around (as Google Maps would have routed me).  This last one was the real killer since it plopped me right into a mass of traffic and traffic lights.  In the end, I did get to my hotel, so it wasn’t a complete failure.

Experiment 3: Free parking

One downside of driving was that the hotel I had booked (the Radisson) charged $20 per night for parking.  Luckily, a friend on Milepoint told me that the nearby Crystal City Shops had free parking on the weekends.  I drove past the Radisson, turned left, and turned left into the free parking.  No hassle, no cost!

• Result: SUCCESS
  

Experiment 4: Club Carlson Gold Status benefits

Last year, I asked Club Carlson for a status match based on my Priority Club Platinum status.  For that, they granted me Gold status.  In one prior stay at a Radisson, I didn’t get any special treatment for this status, but I was curious if this stay would be different.

• Result: SUCCESS
  When I checked in, I was upgraded to their “Penthouse Suite”.  On the elevator, I pressed “P” to go to the penthouse level where there were a number of suites.  My suite had a living room, bedroom, two bathrooms, and separate shower and hot tub in the master bath.  Very nice.  On the other hand, it had the same crappy pillows presumably found in the rest of the hotel and I forgot to bring my travel pillow…

Here’s a grainy photo of the suite’s living room:

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