There seems to be a flash mob battle between Atlanta based carriers. Last week I posted a link to Delta’s flash mobs in four locations, which were well produced, though can hardly be called “flash mobs” since only one of them seemed to be done in public.

Well, AirTran/Southwest seemed to have a flash mob of their own in Atlanta a few days ago, and damn, they’re good. You can check out the video here:

I especially love the beginning where “security” is called over paying for checked bags.

So which one do you guys prefer, Delta’s or AirTran/Southwest’s?

(Tip of the hat to Stef)

Since I have a couple of Delta SkyClub passes I don’t have a use for, I figured I’d have a little contest to give them away. I asked you guys to guess how many elite qualifying miles I’m projected to have by the end of February, and many of you were really close.

So far I’ve earned 70,210 elite qualifying miles, with plans to earn another 19,075 elite qualifying miles before the end of the month, for a grand total of… 89,285 elite qualifying miles.

And the person that got closest to that without going over is jason h, who guessed 89,104. Well done, Jason, I’ll be emailing you shortly.

I have two Delta SkyClub passes that expire on June 30, 2012, that I doubt I’ll have a use for. I’d like to give them away, so figured I’d have a bit of fun with it.

Whoever guesses closest to the actual number of elite qualifying miles I’m projected to have on American at the end of February without going over will get them. Just post your guest below by midnight Pacific time tomorrow (Sunday, February 12), and I’ll determine the winner at that point. Make sure you post with a valid email that I can notify you at if you win.

This definitely put a smile on my face.

Through March 31, 2012, Delta is offering a 75% bonus on the purchase or gifting of SkyMiles.

Delta ordinarily charges 3.5 cents per mile plus the 7.5% federal excise tax, for a total of 3.76 cents per mile. Through this promotion the cost is brought down to about 2.15 cents per mile. You can purchase a maximum of 60,000 miles per calendar year, so once you factor in the 75% bonus the real cap is 105,000 miles.

This is by no means a rate at which I’d buy SkyMiles just because. But if you have a specific redemption in mind, this is one way to top off an account that won’t totally break the bank. I’m waiting for them to bring back the 100% bonus on transferred miles, which was essentially an opportunity to purchase SkyMiles for roughly 1.1 cents each.

(Tip of the hat to Apu)

I hate to say it, but I think this is the biggest improvement to the Delta SkyMiles program in years. Even more frustrating to me than Delta’s devalued mileage currency is how incredibly incompetent their SkyMiles agents are. Up until now there was no way to search Korean Air award availability online, which meant the only way to find out about Korean Air award space was to call SkyMiles. I gave up on that last year after having at least a handful of agents that had never heard of Korean Air. So while Korean Air actually has decent award availability, I’ve found actually booking award tickets on them through Delta to be a royal pain at best and nearly impossible at worst.

Well, it appears as if ExpertFlyer (which is a subscription service that costs $99.99 per year or has monthly subscription options) has just started displaying business class award space on Korean Air.

To look up Korean Air award space, just log into your ExpertFlyer account and click on “Awards & Upgrades.”

From there type in the route you want, then select “Korean Air” in the drop down menu, and then select “Business – Award (O).”

Then the next page will display the award space. The number next to “O” displays how many business class award seats are available.

Award space is actually fairly good on Korean Air, especially now that you can find it without having to talk to a SkyMiles agent.

A few reminders:

• While you can redeem Delta miles for Korean Air business class, you can’t redeem them for Korean Air first class.
• Korean Air serves a ton of destinations in North America, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver.
• Delta does impose blackout dates for Korean Air redemptions, which wouldn’t be reflected on ExpertFlyer. According to this FlyerTalk post, the blackout dates for 2012 are as follows: January 1-8, January 20-25, March 1-4, May 4-6, May 18-July 1, July 14-August 26, September 28-October 3, and December 7-31 (put simply, the whole summer is blocked out)

(Tip of the hat to Gary)

Let me say upfront that I don’t think there’s any one airline that works for everyone. I think Delta is a phenomenal airline for domestic flyers — they have the most wifi of any airline, a great domestic upgrade program, and decent lounges, which top tier elites (Diamond Medallions) get complimentary access to. But then Delta is also one of the weakest airlines out there for international travelers, given that they don’t have useful systemwide upgrades for their top tier elites, not to mention their miles are among the least valuable out there.

Which brings me to my client — let’s call him Bob — who lives in Salt Lake City and is a Diamond Medallion. He loves to fly and loves Delta, and despite being in what I’d consider to be an abusive relationship, has refused to even consider leaving Delta… up until now.

I help him book upgradable and award tickets a few times a year, and in a twisted way I enjoy his travel requests the most. You see, while booking awards through American and United can be quick and (financially) rewarding, it’s not really all that much of a challenge for me. Booking an award ticket through Delta is like pulling teeth, though I have a sense of accomplishment when it’s all done, especially on those nights where I have to argue with a SkyMiles agent for ten minutes about whether Air France is a Delta partner or not.

Anyway, this brings us back to Bob. Most of his travel is international, to both Europe and Asia. Like I said, despite my best efforts to the contrary, he has remained loyal to Delta up until this point. Ever since I first started working with him, he paid a huge premium for being loyal to Delta. He would use his systemwide upgrades on Air France by booking premium economy, and pay maybe $2,000-2,200 for an upgraded seat in business class. Funny enough using a Delta systemwide upgrade on Air France has long been cheaper than using one on Delta, given that they require higher fare classes to upgrade.

I was always quick to remind him of how much cheaper his business class seat would have been if he were loyal to American or United, where he’d pay at most $1,000 for an upgradable business class ticket. Unfortunately last June Delta changed the requirements for upgrades on Air France, no longer allowing the cheapest premium economy fares to be upgraded. Now the cheapest upgradable fare went from ~$2,000 to $2,500+. At that point Bob decided he would fly Economy Comfort instead, and just book the cheapest coach fares. I mean, $2,500 is awfully close to the cost of paid business class.

Asia is much of the same. Most of the time I convinced Bob to just book a SkyMiles award to Asia, given how high the upgradable fares were. Still, in those instances where he wanted to book an upgradable ticket, the fares weren’t that bad. An “M” fare was maybe $2,000-2,500, which, while expensive, is still not that bad.

Just yesterday Bob emailed me because he needed to go to Manila in a couple of months, and wanted the cheapest upgradable ticket on Delta. You see, with Delta constantly raising their upgradable fares, he no longer addresses me as “Ben,” but rather as “The Grinch” or “Bearer of Bad News.” The word “unfortunately” has become the word I use most frequently in our conversations.

So yesterday I was looking at fares for him from Salt Lake City to Manila, and was looking for the lowest “M” fare (the lowest fare that can be upgraded). Delta.com kept returning paid business class fares, and for a few minutes I couldn’t figure out why.

And after digging a bit deeper, it made sense — Delta’s cheapest “M” fare is more expensive than their cheapest business class fare, by about $300. So yes, Delta lures their top tier elites with systemwide upgrades, only to make the fares on which they’re more eligible more expensive than the paid business class fares.

I’m proud of Bob, because he took his first step towards correcting the problem — calling American and seeing if they’ll offer him some sort of challenge. Unfortunately they won’t till February, though I’m proud of him for taking the first step. Delta, I can understand you might not want to “give away” your business class to frequent flyers, but at the same time there’s a point at which something goes from being a semi-useful benefit to entirely useless, and there’s a certain point at which your frequent flyers won’t take it anymore.

Bob, here’s to never paying over $1,200 for a business class ticket again!

On a somewhat unrelated note, ladies, Bob is single. Could you possibly ask for any more loyalty from a guy than he has shown to Delta?

Application Links:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
• American Express Premier Rewards Gold card
• American Express Gold Business card
• Delta Reserve American Express
• Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card
• Starwood Preferred Guest Business American Express card
• Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard

Reader Tiffani asks the following question on the Ask Lucky page of the blog:

Hi to my fellow Tampa Bay area person. I’m interested in the Sapphire Preferred card and I can’t find anywhere if I can transfer miles to either American or Delta.

If I can’t do it with that card, which card is the best one for me for each airline?

I have Delta status, someone else in my family has American status so we are looking at two different cards.

For a long time now the Chase Sapphire Preferred card has been my go to credit card for everyday spend, as I outlined here. Unfortunately in the process I somewhat neglected other credit cards, like the ones that would suit Tiffani’s travel patterns and elite status better. Admittedly the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is pretty Star Alliance centric on the airline front, since the best transfer partners are Continental and United. While they’re also transfer partners with British Airways (One World) and Korean Air (SkyTeam), their award charts aren’t as lucrative as their US alliance counterparts for the most part, so I wouldn’t suggest using the Chase Sapphire Preferred card as a means for earning One World or SkyTeam miles.

With that in mind, here are my picks for the best cards to earn American and Delta miles:

Best card for earning Delta SkyMiles:

There’s no doubt in my mind that the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card is by far the best card for accruing Delta SkyMiles. The card accrues Membership Rewards points at the rate of three points per dollar spent on airfare, two points per dollar spent on gas and groceries, and one point per dollar spent on everything else. Furthermore, if you spend $30,000 on the card per year, you earn an additional 15,000 Membership Rewards points. Also keep in mind that Membership Rewards points are much more valuable than Delta SkyMiles, since they can typically be transferred to Delta at a premium. For example, Membership Rewards is presently offering a 30% refund (equivalent to a 43% bonus) for points transfers from Membership Rewards to Delta in increments of 50,000 points.

I’m not a huge fan of Delta miles, though if your goal is to earn them, this is the card to use to earn an insane number of Delta miles per dollar spent. When you factor in the category points bonuses, the annual bonus for spending $30,000, and the transfer bonuses, you can earn an average of close to 3-5 Delta SkyMiles per dollar spent.

As an example, I put roughly $30,000 on the card this year, and for that earned about 60,000 base points (I had a lot of airfare, gas, and groceries on the card), plus the 15,000 point annual bonus, for a total of 75,000 base points. If I had transferred those to Delta while they were running the 50% transfer bonus recently, I would have earned around 112,000 Delta SkyMiles, which is nearly four SkyMiles per dollar spent.

If you’re looking for a business credit card to earn Delta miles, I recommend the American Express Gold Business card, which offers three points per dollar spent on airfare, two points per dollar on gas, and one point per dollar on everything else. Since the card also earns Membership Rewards points, you can earn huge bonuses when transferring those points to Delta. This card also comes with a sign-up bonus of 50,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $10,000 on the card within five months. While that’s high minimum spend, that’s a fairly good sign-up bonus by American Express standards, given that they’ve hugely reduced the amount of their non-targeted sign-up bonuses as of late.

The only other card worth considering is the Delta Reserve American Express. The key benefits are that the card comes with SkyClub access and earns you 15,000 bonus Medallion Qualifying Miles if you spend $30,000 on the card annually, and 30,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles when you spend $60,000 on the card annually. That being said, the card comes with a $450 annual fee, and if it’s redeemable miles you’re after, the card is less than stellar since they don’t have many category bonuses.

Best card for earning American AAdvantage miles:

I hate to say it, but American’s credit cards are downright boring, especially now that miles earned through them no longer count towards million miler status.

The only one of their co-branded credit cards that you should even be considering is the Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard. The card comes with an Admirals Club membership, 10,000 elite qualifying miles when you make $40,000 worth of purchases in a calendar year, priority check-in/security/boarding, and a free checked bag. That being said, the card comes with a $450 annual fee, so is only worth considering if you value each of the above benefits.

For the rest of us, the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card is the way to go. The card offers one Starwood point per dollar spent, and those points can be converted 1:1 to American. Best of all, when you transfer in increments of 20,000 points, you earn a 5,000 point bonus, meaning you’re essentially earning 1.25 American miles per dollar spent. Beyond that, there are occasionally transfer bonuses from Starwood to American. In the past couple of years they have offered 25%-35% bonuses on top of the 1.25 miles per dollar, meaning you can earn close to 1.7 American miles per dollar spent if transferring while they’re running one of those promotions.

Starwood also offers the Starwood Preferred Guest Business American Express card, for those with a small business, which has the same benefits. Of course you also have added flexibility by using the Starwood card, since you can instead use those points on hotels, or if you prefer, transfer them to other airlines. Both of the Starwood cards come with a 25,000 point sign-up bonus after spending $5,000 on the card within six months.

Given that none of American’s co-branded credit cards offer bonus miles on spend categories other than American Airlines purchases, using the Starwood American Express is a no brainer.

Any questions? Anyone have different opinions on which cards are best for an American or Delta flyer?

Full disclosure: I receive a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through some of the above links. As always I will only provide a referral link if it offers the best publicly available sign-up bonus.

Check out my weekly column over at TravelSort.com. This week I share how I plan on redeeming the Delta SkyMiles I purchased through their recent transfer promotion, whereby they offered a 100% bonus on transferred miles.

Through December 16, 2011, Delta is offering a 100% bonus on transferred miles. Transfers cost one cent per mile, plus a $30 per transaction processing fee. You can transfer a maximum of 30,000 SkyMiles in a single transaction. That means transferring 30,000 SkyMiles would cost you $330, and would get you 60,000 miles in the second account (a net gain of 30,000 miles). That’s an amazing 1.1 cents per mile.

The fine print is that you can transfer a maximum of 150,000 miles out of a SkyMiles account per calendar year, and a maximum of 300,000 SkyMiles into a SkyMiles account per calendar year. Of course you can have multiple family members take advantage of the offer. The major restriction is that accounts need to have been been open for at least 10 days before taking advantage of this offer, and must have earned at least one mile before taking advantage of the offer.

This is the second time this year that Delta is running this promotion. They offered the same promotion in August and September, and as I mentioned at the time, I intended to take full advantage of the promotion.

Keep in mind that if you don’t currently have any Delta SkyMiles you can build your balance to take advantage of this promotion by transferring points from American Express Membership Rewards using the current bonus, which is a 30% refund of Membership Rewards points, the equivalent of a 43% bonus.

When it comes to most promotions for purchasing or transferring miles I usually have the same general advice: only take advantage of the offer if you have a specific use for the miles in mind.

So I’m about to make a bold statement. A really bold statement. You guys ready? I recommend speculatively buying SkyMiles at this rate. Are you in shock? Yeah, I can’t believe I said it either.

I hate to admit it, but as a relative matter, Delta SkyMiles are getting more and more valuable by the day. One of my biggest complaints about SkyMiles is that you can’t redeem them for international first class. Well, given recent events, including Lufthansa no longer releasing first class award space in advance, that competitive disadvantage isn’t as major of a point anymore.

Nowadays I’d actually say that SkyMiles are best positioned for a lot of different types of trips, including:

• Business class to Europe on Air France
• Business class to Tahiti on Air France/Air Tahiti Nui
• Business class to Mauritius on Air France through Paris
• Business class to India/Middle East on Air France
• Business class to Australia on V Australia

So seriously, how can you go wrong here?

This translates to an $1,100 business class ticket (plus tax) from Los Angeles to Paris on Air France:

This translates to a $1,650 business class ticket (plus tax) from Los Angeles to Tahiti on Air France:

Don’t have any plans over the holidays and hate your family and/or in-laws? SkyTeam still has plenty of award space to Europe over the next few weeks. Forget British Airways’ $2012 business class sale, this is nearly half the price.

And there really is a lot of award space. I randomly just typed in Seattle to Amsterdam, for example, and take a look at the amount of low level award space:

So if you’ve got the money sitting around, this is one of those things that just can’t be a bad investment, in my opinion.