January 27, 2010

What to do with those nearly useless Delta Miles

Gary posted a Reader email about “What are delta miles still good for”,

other than what’s already mentioned in the article, I added in comment section “Delta Award miles allows one open jaw and one stopover on any award tickets, even within Asia. I was able to price LAX-CDG-PRG(stopover)-CDG-SEZ(destination)//CPT-AMS-LAX all in Business for120,000 each and bookable online on Delta.com”

Another reader asked how did I make it happen, I am now writing a detailed instruction, hope to clarify some questions. In order to book above award, you need to do following:

1 sign up an account with Expert Flyers, a paid award inventory search site, $9.99 per month with 5 days free trial. Then use EF to search award inventory on AF from LAX-PRG, once u find ur date,  write down flight number and time then plug LAX-PRG into Delta.com award multi city search segment 1.

2 use EF to search award inventory on AF from PRG-SEZ, after u find date, write down flight number and time then plug PRG-SEZ into Delta.com award multi city search segment 2.(Note: flight from CDG-SEZ is AF code, operated by Air Seychelles, but bookable on delta.com)

3 sign up account with Air France, then search award flight from CPT-AMS on KLM, AF website offers calendar search function. after u find seat, write down flight number and time, DON’T plug into Delta.com award multi city search segment 3 yet.

4 also use AF site to search award seat from AMS-LAX on KLM one day after ur CPT-AMS departure date due to time different or two days after, no more than 2 days! After u find seat, write down flight number and time,  plug entire CPT-LAX into Delta.com award multi city search segment 3. you will see seats show up, sometimes even with long layover, but still consider as connection.

5 click search, select all flights u write down, price it, you will see 120,000 miles total in business class.

The reason I ask you to do exactly above because

1 Delta website doesn’t show or incorrectly shows AF inventory using Round Trip search

2 AF site doesn’t show award seats for CDG-SEZ since it’s operated by Air Seychelles.

3 without EF, Delta site  shows award seats from CDG-SEZ(and all other locations from Europe to Africa) only if BOTH direction available, so if ur outbound is available, return is not, delta website will not show anything for both directions

4 AF site doesn’t show award from CPT-LAX directly, has to break into one by one.

5 NWA site doesn’t support KL flight from Africa to Europe on calendar.

One more to add:If you just want a simple trip, AF site maybe enough, but delta site may not show, call NWA Singapore or China to book! People are nice and no phone booking fee

with above instruction, you can do it for many others destinations such as stopover in AMS, then go to MRU, return from JNB. or stopover in CDG, then go to MRU, return or TNR, CPT, JNB. However, there is one trip you can not book on delta.com, which is open jaw return from SEZ. You can open jaw to SEZ, just not return, I guess it’s a technical problem with delta.com. well, they have too many technical problems anyway!

Now, let me explain a little bit more using website to book Intra Asia stopover+ open jaw. This time is using nwa.com(don’t know how much longer)

1 use nwa.com china or japan english site because nwa asia site still shows seat for KE and CZ.

2 select multi city award search and plug in flight one by one.

3 select flight u want, price it, you will see 20000 econ/40000 business if routing is permitted.

4 for intra Asia flight, DON’T use Delta website(even all on NW) or Delta call center to book. Delta still charges fuel surcharge for flight on CZ, but no such charge on NWA.com.

5 If you have to call, call NWA China or Singapore(both Singapore call center), they don’t charge phone ticketing fees

I hope I have made clear enough to save u guys some delta miles.

Posted by Troy under Delta, General Frequent Flyer Advice | 2 Comments to Read