Not to offend anyone, but I have a new favorite blog reader, and his name is Mac. He was the genius that pointed out the possibility of redeeming British Airways Avios points for travel on Aer Lingus in order to avoid fuel surcharges. Mysteriously Aer Lingus opened up business class award space on just about every flight the following day, and I’m still not sure whether that was a glitch or not.

Well, today Mac brings us another excellent observation on the “Ask Lucky” page of the blog, which I’ll break down here. Though in the meantime I think I owe Mac a steak dinner, and should really rename the “Ask Lucky” page to “Words of Wisdom from Mac” page.

Anyway, today’s discovery by Mac involves Delta SkyMiles. If you’re at all familiar with the program you’ve probably heard them referred to as SkyPesos before, and that’s for good reason — their redemption rates are ridiculous. That’s at least true if you’re trying to actually redeem miles for Delta flights. If you redeem on their partner airlines it’s not all bad news.

They partner with Air France to Europe, and they release a good amount of business class award space, which can easily be searched online. To Asia they partner with Korean Air, which also releases a good amount of award space. The challenge with Korean Air is that they don’t display business class award space online and they have a ton of blackout dates. For a while they displayed business class award space on ExpertFlyer, but unfortunately they stopped doing that. After all, knowledge is power, and the last thing Delta wants is for their consumers to have the power to redeem miles for flights at a reasonable level. Now the only way to book Korean Air awards is by calling up Delta SkyMiles, which is more or less a lost cause (“Korean Air, I ain’t never heard of them before!”).

But the one destination that has been a complete lost cause is South America. Delta doesn’t have any major partner airlines flying between the US and South America, and it’s very rare to find “low” level award space on Delta to South America, meaning you’re usually paying a minimum of 200,000 SkyMiles for roundtrip business class.

But there’s another option that’s actually very attractive, that can almost always get you saver business class award space to South America. Aeromexico partners with Delta, and they have a pretty good route network to South America. Before we get into the details of the strategy, let’s discuss the basics.

Aeromexico South America destinations and frequencies

Aermemexico operates the following nonstop flights out of their Mexico City hub to South America:

• Bogota daily on a 737
• Buenos Aires daily on a 767
• Lima daily on a 737
• Santiago 6x weekly on a 767
• Sao Paulo daily on a 777

Aeromexico’s business class product

On their longhaul flights (those destinations served be 767s and 777s) Aeromexico seems to have a pretty competitive business class product. You can read more about it here. While it’s not fully flat it does appear to be pretty comfortable, so I wouldn’t hesitate to fly it.

Finding award availability on Aeromexico

While you can book Aeromexico awards on delta.com (which is a fairly new feature) the best place to search for availability is on Air France’s website. You’ll need to be a member of their Flying Blue program first. Once you’re logged into your account you can click on the “Award Tickets” tab on the main page.

Once you click on that you’ll be redirected to the award search page. The key to finding Aeromexico availability is to search segment-by-segment. I’ll show you how to search for availability from the US to Mexico City later, though for now we’re just focusing on finding the longhaul award space.

Let’s assume you want to fly from Mexico City to Buenos Aires. Just enter the origin, destination, and class of service, and click on “Search.”

The results page will bring you a calendar view of the award space at the saver level. As you’ll see, award space is spectacular. I chose random dates in September, figuring it’s neither low season nor high season in South America, and got the following results:

As you can see, on the outbound from Mexico City to Buenos Aires, 19 of the 35 days on the calendar have business class award availability:

And on the return, 34 of the 35 days on the calendar have business class award availability:

And for a slight reality check of just how great that is, let’s check in with Delta for the same time period between Atlanta and Buenos Aires:

The “low” level awards are shaded green. As you can see, they only have two dates for the same time period on the outbound, and five dates on the return (and frankly, that availability is shockingly good for Delta).

Anyway, back to the Air France search tool. Once you’ve selected your preferred dates just click “Next, select flight,” and you’ll be brought to the results page. I selected September 8-15.

Not surprisingly the results page shows us the nonstop Aeromexico flights in business class:

So now you’re done with the Air France website. You can apply the same strategy to searching for any of Aeromexico’s other destinations in South America. Now it’s time to get to Mexico City.

Getting to Mexico City

There are a couple of ways to get to Mexico City. One way is on Delta, where you’re faced with the same issues you always are with Delta — they just don’t release a whole lot of award space at the “low” level. But Delta also partners with Alaska Airlines, so you can instead fly them from Los Angeles to Mexico City, and they release a ton of first class award space.

Alaska Airlines has twice daily nonstop service out of Los Angeles to Mexico City, and has connections from many other cities to LA. The easiest way to search Alaska Airlines award space is either on alaskaairlines.com or ExpertFlyer. Since alaskaairlines.com is the free option that doesn’t require membership, let’s use that.

To search award availability just go to their award search page.

Just enter the origin, destination, dates, and be sure the boxes for “Award Reservations” and “Award Calendar” are checked.

The next page will bring you a calendar display. If you see a cost of 32,500 miles each way for first class, that’s the saver level, which should be bookable through Delta as well.

After you have your dates selected you can click “Continue,” which will show you the flights with availability.

Based on the flights I’m trying to connect to, the third option would work best for me, and now I know it’s available at the saver level.

One other option — flying Aeromexico to Mexico City

It’s also worth noting that Aeromexico serves many destinations in the US, including Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and more. They also release a decent amount of award space on their flights, so using the same method outlined above, you can search for their award space from the US using the Air France website as well. You can either search segment-by-segment to get the most accurate results (in other words, search availability from your US gateway separately from availability between Mexico City and South America), or you can search them all at once if you want to get the quickest results.

So you could instead search New York to Buenos Aires all at once, as follows:

As you can see it won’t return as many results. For the same outbound you only see three dates available:

While for the return you see 15 dates available:

If you select dates you’ll notice that the connections work out quite nicely:

Hey, options are always a good thing…

Putting it all together

Let’s recap, We know the Aeromexico flights are available at the saver level, and we also know the Alaska Airlines flights are available at the saver level. We used the individual airlines’ websites to search for the space even though delta.com will display their award space as well. The difference is that the above sites allow you to search for award availability off of a calendar, which opens up lots of options. But now that we know which flights we want, we’ll go to delta.com to actually make the booking. Let’s say we prefer the Alaska Airlines flights out of LAX over the Aeromexico flights out of New York.

Once on delta.com click on “SkyMiles” and then “Use Miles.” Then click on the first tab for “Award Ticket Reservations.”

Once you’re on the next page you’re going to want to click on the “Multi-city” tab. Why? Because if you just search flights between Los Angeles and Buenos Aires, delta.com will only present you with options that are more direct on Delta, which will likely cost double the cost (or more). By searching segment-by-segment we’ll be forcing them to give us the options we want.

Once you click “FIND FLIGHTS” you’ll be given options for each individual segment, so just pick the flights we chose above.

First from Los Angeles to Mexico City:

Then from Mexico City to Buenos Aires:

Then from Buenos Aires to Mexico City:

And then from Mexico City to Los Angeles:

Once you’ve selected each individual flight you’ll be brought to the results page, where you’ll see the low level cost of 100,000 Delta SkyMiles plus $66.95 in taxes.

And just to prove it actually works, here’s the above routing out of New York on Aeromexico the whole way priced out as well:

As a reminder, Delta allows one stopover and one open jaw on an award ticket. So if you want to stopover in Buenos Aires and/or fly out of one city in the US and return to another, you can do that on a SkyMiles award.

Anyway, hopefully some of you guys find this helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know! And a big thanks to Mac for bringing this to my attention!

In terms of the actual in-flight experience I’m convinced that Asiana is the best airline out there. I flew them a couple of years ago from Seoul to Frankfurt, and again this weekend on the same route. Like last time, my flight was more or less perfect. I’ll have a full report in the next week (I’m serious this time, the trip report is more or less ready to go), but in the meantime here’s a quick teaser.

The seats

Yes, the seat themselves are on the old side and by no means among the best out there, though they’re still very comfy.

The food

This is one of the places that Asiana shines. I’m convinced their food is among the best in the sky. It’s the only airline I’ve flown where they ask how you want your steak cooked. Now that’s the sign of a good airline!

The service and amenities

The food on Asiana is excellent, though it’s the service that really shines. The way I feel about Asiana service now is the way I used to feel about Singapore service, which I feel has slipped a bit over the past few years.

Another cool thing Asiana does is that they offer their first class passengers a choice of gifts towards the end of the flight. In this instance I selected an iPhone case.

Beyond that, their PJs and slippers must be among the most fashionable in the industry.

I was one top hat short of looking like a teacup monkey out of a movie.

One other really unique thing Asiana does if you’re flying first class is that they wrap your checked bag in plastic, and plaster it with a huge “FIRST CLASS” sticker. On one hand it’s totally awesome since it ensures your bag arrives undamaged, but on the other hand you do have to dispose of the plastic in baggage claim, which can be a bit of a pain if your bag is heavy.

Anyone else a huge fan of Asiana? They release plenty of award space on their Los Angeles/Frankfurt to Seoul routes, so if you want to try them in first class it’s not all that hard to do.

Delta SkyMiles are referred to as “SkyPesos” for a reason. In most instances they’re worthless for award redemptions on Delta, though their partner Air France does release quite a bit of award space. While they’re not the best airline in the world, at least it seems SkyMiles are relatively useful for travel to Europe, since they release nine business class award seats on many flights.

However, the past few days I’ve noticed that Delta seems to be blocking a majority of the space Air France releases. I’m finding this space both by using Expert Flyer and Air France’s Flying Blue website, which in the past have matched the award space that Delta has access to.

I’ll assume it’s a system glitch, but I see virtually no award space, in particular in business class.

For example, take a look at these Air France flights from Paris to Washington Dulles, where both flights have at least nine business class award seats:

However, when you go to delta.com, they only show coach space for those flights:

I’m going to assume this is a system glitch as opposed to something intentional on the part of Delta or Air France, though I hope it’s fixed soon. In my experience there’s no way to get around the “blocking,” even by calling the SkyMiles award desk (not that they’re usually that helpful).

Anyone else running into similar issues?

A month ago I wrote about a change which I considered to be the greatest improvement to the Delta SkyMiles program in years. The change was that Expert Flyer started displaying business class award space for travel on Korean Air. If you’re familiar with Delta SkyMiles you probably know that the best way to redeem SkyMiles is for travel on their partner airlines, including Air France and Korean Air. Air France is a great option, as they’re good about releasing award space and it’s easy to search award space online.

Korean Air is a bit trickier, though still incredibly useful, at least in theory. They have tons of destinations in the US and are great about releasing award space. There are just two problems. The first, more minor problem, is that they have blackout dates. The second, bigger problem, is that it wasn’t possible to search Korean Air award space online, and you had to put yourself at the mercy of SkyMiles agents. As I’ve written about many times before, SkyMiles agents are absolutely the most clueless agents in the industry. Even when the inventory is known to be available, it can take several calls to get an agent that can actually “see” the flight.

This is why I was overjoyed by the change. I could find the space that I knew to be there and then call up Delta to book it. Now, it still wasn’t an easy task. On one occasion I tried to book a ticket for travel on Korean Air and had to call 11 times (!!!) before I got an agent that saw the space, and that’s after waiting on hold for 10 minutes each time as the agent requested the space. But still, the “game” of booking award tickets on Korean Air went from a wild guessing game to a game of “hang up and call again.”

Suffice it to say I was rather sad to see this disclaimer today on Expert Flyer:

So it appears it’s no longer possible to search Korean Air award availability on Expert Flyer, with the exception of intra-Asia flights. This does make me wonder, though, was this Delta or Korean Air’s doing?

And with this change SkyMiles depreciated just as quickly as they appreciated last month. They’re once again more or less useless for travel to Asia, while still quite useful for travel to Europe on Air France.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Expert Flyer adding the functionality to search for Korean Air business class award availability. This was hugely useful, given that previously one had to call Delta to ask about award availability when trying to redeem SkyMiles for travel on Korean Air (which was a nightmare, to put it lightly).

Anyway, Expert Flyer has now added the ability to search for business class award space on Iberia and Icelandair.

Iberia award space can presently be searched via the British Airways and Qantas websites, though both are a bit clunky to use, and at times not especially accurate. You can find a tutorial on searching OneWorld award space using those websites here.

However, Expert Flyer is a much easier way to search award availability on any given route for a week at a time, so I’m really happy to see this new functionality.

Iberia display option

At least nine business class award seats!

Given how hefty British Airways fuel surcharges are, this is a great alternative for transatlantic travel using American AAdvantage miles.

The functionality to search Icelandair business class award space was also added. This isn’t quite as useful for a few reasons.

First, they have a very limited number of airline partners. Chances are that the only way you’ll redeem miles for travel on Icelandair is through Alaska’s Mileage Plan program. They do have pretty good award rates for travel on Icelandair, as follows:

80,000 miles for travel from the US to Europe in business class with a stopover in Iceland is pretty tough to beat.

The second downside, however, is that business class on Icelandair is more like a domestic first class seat than an international business class seat, with only 39″ of pitch (only a couple more inches than domestic first class). Still, award availability is excellent in business class, and the ability to visit both Iceland and Europe on a single award is tempting.

Beyond the ease of searching award space on the above airlines, also keep in mind that Expert Flyer lets you set availability alerts. So now if an Iberia or Icelandair flight doesn’t have award availability, you can set up an alert so that Expert Flyer will email you if space opens up.

Setting up an availability alert

Even more reasons to get an Expert Flyer account!

Thanks Iberia for the pre-boarding and priority seating (and the gracious, charming, and polite ogress agents at check-in)!

As a matter of fact, here’s a video of the one that checked us in:

While “all is well that ends well,” there’s a pretty cool video taken of an Airphil Express Airbus 320 overrunning the runway in Kalibo, Philippines. The video is only about a minute long and can be found here:

Then there are the following videos (slightly less interesting, though still worth watching):

Fortunately it looks like everything was okay, though you have to wonder:

a) Why did the pilot only make the “prepare for landing announcement” so shortly before landing? The flight attendants were reminding passengers to fasten their seatbelt as the plane was flaring.
b) Why didn’t the pilot do a go around? The runway is around 7,200 feet which is fairly long, so they must have only touched down about a mile down the runway.
c) Why didn’t they evacuate the aircraft? If the brakes were so hot that they felt there was the risk of a fire (hence the spraying), why wasn’t the plane evacuated prior to that, given that it probably took quite a while for the “rescue” vehicle to arrive?

Obviously this is a case of hindsight being 20/20 and not actually knowing the circumstances, but those are the questions that immediately come to mind.

Being an airplane and miles junkie, one of my goals is to fly every Airbus 380 first class product there is. So far I’ve flown Qantas and Lufthansa on the A380 in first class, and I have plans to fly Emirates and Air France Airbus 380 first class as well in the near future.

Lately I’ve been looking at how to efficiently redeem miles for Korean Air’s Airbus 380 first class, and I realize it can actually be a pretty darn good deal. Korean Air is transfer partners with Ultimate Rewards, which is the points currency of the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Ink Bold credit cards. Points can be instantly transferred at a 1:1 ratio to Korean Air.

Korean Air actually has surprisingly reasonable first class award redemption rates. For example, first class from the US to South Korea costs only 160,000 Korean Air miles, which isn’t half bad.

While it’s not cheap, the real beauty of it is that Korean Air has phenomenal first class award space, even on the Airbus 380. In looking at award space on ExpertFlyer, almost every single date has 2-5 first class award seats on most of their to and from the US.

The thing to watch out for is that Korean Air has blackout dates, and if you want to fly during those dates you’re going to pay a 50% premium. The blackout dates are as follows:

With quite a few Star Alliance airlines more or less not releasing first class award space in advance, the relative value of an award like this increases. Good luck getting saver first class award space for 3-5 people to Asia on the same flight just about anytime of year through one of the “mainstream” programs. It ain’t happening.

So this really does tempt me, given that 160,000 miles is most definitely a reasonable first class redemption rate.

Anyone else tempted?

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)

Through February 29, 2012, American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 25% transfer bonus to Air France/KLM’s Flying Blue frequent flyer program. The bonus is built into transfers, meaning the 25% bonus posts immediately and can be used an unlimited number of times.

Generally speaking Flying Blue isn’t a program I would transfer Membership Rewards points to (despite the high degree to which Membership Rewards points been devalued recently). But there are a few instances in which transfer could prove to be a great value.

Air France just about has the best transatlantic business class award space, especially over summer. While Star Alliance and OneWorld have virtually no transatlantic award space over the summer, many of Air France’s routes still have excellent space. For example, Washington to Paris has tons of business class award space, sometimes even nine seats per flight.

But if you’re redeeming for a roundtrip ticket on Air France you’re generally best off transferring your Membership Rewards points to Delta SkyMiles, given that they don’t impose fuel surcharges on award tickets, which can be roughly ~$500 roundtrip. The downside is that Delta doesn’t allow one-way awards, while Flying Blue does. So while you do pay fuel surcharges, you’re only paying 40,000 miles for a one-way business class ticket to Europe, which is a pretty great deal, especially over summer. Given that most airlines other than Delta allow one way awards nowadays, I’ve found myself transferring Membership Rewards points to Flying Blue for clients quite a bit, as they mix and match between alliances on a single trip.

Furthermore, Flying Blue runs promotional 50% off awards, whereby business class roundtrip to Europe is only 50,000 Flying Blue miles on select dates/routes. Through this promotion the price is lowered even further, to only 40,000 Membership Rewards points. That’s a spectacular deal for business class to Europe.

As you can see, this includes routes like Washington and Detroit to Europe on Air France, or New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles to Europe on KLM.

This promotion won’t (and shouldn’t!) work for everyone, though it’s certainly worth keeping in mind.