Many people know that Delta members cannot book one-way awards with SkyMiles unless they want to pay the full round-trip price. But what many don’t know is that you can book Delta one-way awards at reduced mileage. It is possible.
The trick is it takes a few steps to complete, more so than just booking with Delta Sky Miles through Delta’s website. The fees are the same or less and you’ll have access to the same great Delta inflight product, even the Flat-Bed seats on the internationally configured planes that fly domestic routes.
The trick involves using Flying Blue miles to book the Delta award. We’ll illustrate how to book the award assuming one does not have any Flying Blue miles in an account.
Transfer American Express Points*
The first step involves getting enough Flying Blue miles in your Flying Blue account. A domestic U.S. First Class one-way award will require 25,000 Flying Blue miles or 12,500 Flying Blue miles for a domestic U.S. coach award flight.
Assuming you want a one-way First Class award, simply log into your American Express Membership Rewards account and transfer 25,000 Membership Rewards points into your Flying Blue account. 
If you don’t have any American Express Membership Rewards points, consider checking out some of the latest credit card bonus offers.
Confirm Transfer Of Points To Flying Blue*
The transfer is instant. If you were already logged into your Flying Blue account, log out, and log back in to see the new balance.
Verify Points Transfer Complete – Log Into Flying Blue*
Next, log into your Flying Blue account and verify the miles were deposited. Same rule applies above if you were already logged in. Simply log out and log back in to see your new balance. 
Search Delta Availability On Air France
Finally to the good part. I would actually recommend looking for award space before completing the transfer step above. Simply select one-way award and search for availability on your desired route. You can see in the example below that award availability looks pretty good on the JFK to Atlanta flight where the internationally configured 767 operates with Flat-Bed seats. 
Complete Your Award Booking
The Delta one way award will only cost half the amount of miles by using Flying Blue miles instead of Delta SkyMiles. The best part is you can even book the Flat-Bed seats like the one on the JFK to Atlanta route in the newly configured 767 with Flat-Bed seats. 
Bottom Line
Many folks don’t know that you can book one way awards on Delta. The only problem is you have to have American Express Membership Rewards points to transfer to Flying Blue or already have Flying Blue points to book the one way award.
*Optional if Flying Blue members have the requisite amount of Flying Blue miles already in their account.
Related Posts
- Booking Delta’s one-way 90k business class award to Asia
- Delta 767 with new lie-flat Business Class review
- Delta 767 Flat-Bed Business Elite – Another Day Another Domestic Flight With International Business Class
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You don’t mean “Transfer American Airlines Points” in your section title, but “Transfer American Express Membership Reward Points,” right?
Hi Carol – Corrected. Thanks.
Or if you’re stuck with Delta miles, try this:
http://boardingarea.com/viewfromthewing/2012/12/30/reducing-the-cost-of-delta-skymiles-one-way-awards/
Lots of tricks to save cost…particularly if you need an international one-way award. DL points are so easy to come by, it is a sin to waste Amex points on them.
I recommend finding the flights first THEN transfer points. This only works if the lowest level is available.
This post strikes me as somewhat pointless at least, a thinly disguised shill for a credit card sign-up at worst . . . so you can use Amex points on a Delta partner to fly Delta metal one-way . . . so what?
Find a creative way to make use of the relatively useless Delta miles in my account . . . that would be worthwhile.
Currently there’s a 35% bonus on transferring Amex points to AF-KLM FB miles, so if you do this timely, it’ll cost you less points.
Useful post, thanks for sharing.
Why when i am searching for JFK-LAX it is only giving me the option to search for coach tickets ?
Sruly – I had same issue. Click through an you could see Business Class.
Where does it give you that option ?
I cant seem to find it.
Search for coach, look at calendar, pick day with coach availability to see business. The easiest way is to search one-way at Delta.com and then go book the one-way using Flying Blue miles.
I tried a bunch of different dates that have economy availability and when I click through it does not show me any business seats ?
It doesn’t work at all. In fact on the first page when you choose origin and destination, if both are in the US, the bottom of the page switches to economy only. Your results were coach only (12500). I don’t know how you got the flight as business.
Does the same work for Alitalia? I need a one way MAD-FCO. Delta rt is 25k (on Alitalia) ; Alitalia prices it out at 15k. Would AirFrance be 12.5k?