It appears as of (very) recently Alitalia award space is bookable on delta.com. It seems to display both transatlantic and regional award space, so this is really exciting news. Now, Alitalia might not be known for their charming onboard service, but their business class seat and food is among the best of any transatlantic airline based on what I’ve seen, and I hope to fly them soon.

One of my biggest frustrations with Delta SkyMiles isn’t actually their partners or their award chart, but rather the process of bookings awards with them. With other alliances all the airlines display their award availability to partner airlines in a straightforward manner, while with Delta award space in many cases has to be requested. If you’ve ever tried booking an Alitalia award with Delta you’ll really appreciate this change, as it often took me more than five phone calls before I found an agent that knew how to correctly request Alitalia award space.

Kudos to Delta! Between this and them adding Korean Air to their online search a few months back I’m quite a happy camper! Now if only their situation with Air France wouldn’t be a disaster.

(Tip of the hat to The Points Guy)

Posted on March 1st, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Awards, Delta, Other Airlines | 18 Comments »

  1. March 1st, 2013 at 11:13 am

    KR said,

    What kind of availability do they have in biz?

  2. March 1st, 2013 at 11:21 am

    Robert Hanson said,

    WOW,is 100K miles for one-way Business class JFK to FCO really the best you can do? No wonder they’re called Sky Pesos !

  3. March 1st, 2013 at 11:23 am

    Lantean said,

    @Robert Hanson

    the price for one-way or round-trip is the same.

  4. March 1st, 2013 at 11:35 am

    Steve said,

    They tend to release 3 seats in Biz on all of their flights. Availability has been great, but it’s getting tougher now that more and more people are realizing they have a great hard product and good availability to Europe. It’s an especially great option from the west coast now that AF and KL have had little to no availability. Don’t expect more seats to open up if they aren’t there, though.

  5. March 1st, 2013 at 12:24 pm

    Amol (@PointsToPointB) said,

    Their new updated business class looks amazing. Really want to try them out.

  6. March 1st, 2013 at 12:26 pm

    Nun said,

    Great. Now AZ availability will dry up!

  7. March 1st, 2013 at 12:57 pm

    lucky said,

    @ KR — I don’t find it to be quite good as Steve. They release three seats on some flights, but none (or one) on others. So it’s not amazing, though also not impossible to find Alitalia award space.

  8. March 1st, 2013 at 6:02 pm

    Beachfan said,

    Thanks for the heads up!

    Are they all 200k per RT from US to Europe in practice?

    What are there North American gateways?

  9. March 1st, 2013 at 6:04 pm

    lucky said,

    @ Beachfan — No, you can only book Alitalia awards at the saver level, so if you find space it’s 100,000 miles roundtrip. In the US they serve Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York.

  10. March 1st, 2013 at 6:15 pm

    Mitch said,

    @lucky @Beachfan They also fly to YYZ.

  11. March 1st, 2013 at 10:23 pm

    Kenny said,

    What’s the best way to find partner award availability to use Delta Skymiles?

  12. March 1st, 2013 at 11:30 pm

    Heather @ pass the dressing said,

    Aw man, I tried to search for a saver in Oct-Nov and I am coming back with nada. I wanted to piece together JFK-MXP; FCO-JFK tix for a bday trip for my Dad but it’s coming back pretty ridiculous and sometimes without availability on AZ. I am away and I don’t have Expert Flyer access (my friend checks for me), but I knew recently that AZ had low space on my dates. Things obviously could have changed, but if not, it looks like I am going to still have to go ahead and call. Oh well.

    In other news, the intra-Euro flights are priced at 45K round trip? Good price IYO?

  13. March 2nd, 2013 at 4:58 am

    Beachfan said,

    Well, I bet lax-fco is unobtanium, but its good to know that it’s 100k.

  14. March 2nd, 2013 at 11:04 am

    David said,

    Does DL.com show KQ availability? I found lots of award seats using FlyingBlue account, but none on DL.com

  15. March 2nd, 2013 at 11:41 am

    Mitch said,

    @David DL.dumb only shows DL, AF, KL (generally not bookable presently, unfortunately), AM, AS, VA, and KE. Now we’re seeing AZ, but it showed once before and then disappeared. I won’t get too excited about this until it continues to show for a couple of weeks.

  16. March 2nd, 2013 at 11:51 am

    lucky said,

    @ Heather — Yeah, availability is pretty weak far in advance.

    I don’t think 45K for roundtrip business class within Europe is an especially good deal. Intra-Europe business class is simply coach with a blocked middle and better service, so I don’t think it’s worth the premium in most cases.

  17. March 2nd, 2013 at 9:29 pm

    UAPhil said,

    Lucky, what is the best way to find availability for domestic Chinese flights on China Eastern or China Southern with Skypesos? Can you book a “double open jaw” (for example Shanghai-Guilin, then Xian-Beijing) on a single award?

  18. March 2nd, 2013 at 9:33 pm

    lucky said,

    @ UAPhil — It depends on the specific route, but I find between ExpertFlyer and FlyingBlue’s website, most things are covered. You can only do a single open jaw — a double open jaw would price as two awards.

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