Using Delta miles
Jul 1st, 2005, 08:13 AM
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Using Delta miles
Hi everyone,
I've got a question about redeeming Delta miles for international flights on their partner airlines.
If my husband and I considate our miles (using the 1 cent/mi transfer), we will have enough miles for tickets to Asia and South America. I tried booking a ticket to South America on their web site, but it says I'd have to get an award certificate and use that by phone or at a Delta office.
For those of you who have redeemed miles for these international flights, did you find it difficult or bothersome to make your reservations this way? I love booking tickets online and bypassing the rep.
Any feedback would help me a lot!
Thanks,
Linday
I've got a question about redeeming Delta miles for international flights on their partner airlines.
If my husband and I considate our miles (using the 1 cent/mi transfer), we will have enough miles for tickets to Asia and South America. I tried booking a ticket to South America on their web site, but it says I'd have to get an award certificate and use that by phone or at a Delta office.
For those of you who have redeemed miles for these international flights, did you find it difficult or bothersome to make your reservations this way? I love booking tickets online and bypassing the rep.
Any feedback would help me a lot!
Thanks,
Linday
Jul 1st, 2005, 08:18 AM
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You have to call the international partner desk at Onepass. But don't get a travel certificate. Just have the partner desk book the flights directly for you.
Can't do partner stuff online.
Patty on this board will probably have more specific suggestions for you as she's the Skymiles expert here.
Can't do partner stuff online.
Patty on this board will probably have more specific suggestions for you as she's the Skymiles expert here.
Jul 1st, 2005, 08:25 AM
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Oh, and I want to add that the phone agents at the Skymiles international partner desk is very professional and good. I am flying to Canada tonite on Continental with DL Skymiles, and everything went smoothly. I got an email confirmation even before I got off the phone with the agent.
Still, to help yourself in the process, investigate which of the Skyteam airlines and other DL partners have the flights you want to get to your destinations. And the alternatives.
Still, to help yourself in the process, investigate which of the Skyteam airlines and other DL partners have the flights you want to get to your destinations. And the alternatives.
Jul 1st, 2005, 10:03 AM
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Bad news - there's no way to bypass the reps
Good news - DL's partner award reps are great
DL's online reservations for international awards only support DL operated and not partner operated flights. They say that limited codeshares are also available online, but I haven't seen any of those show up in my online searches.
To check partner airline availability, you'll need to call DL and speak with one of agents at the partner award desk. They can check availability for you on all partner airlines. These agents are well trained and very knowledgeable. Don't even attempt to speak with any other department.
Keep in mind that a few of DL's partners do not provide 'live' access to their award availability. You mention Asia and I believe Singapore and Malaysia are two such partners. In this case, the process of looking for award space becomes more tedious as you have to construct a full itinerary first (and you have to choose exact flights, you can't just say I'll take any SQ flight from point A to point B on such and such date), then it's submitted to the partner airline for approval which takes anywhere from a few to 24 hours. If unsuccessful, you repeat the process until you find the award seats you need.
I think those 2 carriers are the main ones with this restriction. Other than that, the majority of non-Skyteam partners and I believe all Skyteam partners allow DL access to live inventory. I wish there was an easy way to check availability for all partner airlines yourself, but there isn't. One site that I use to check availability on some of the partner airlines is the NW Japan site - http://tinyurl.com/8k74d
If you get Japanese characters, just click 'English' in the upper right corner. This site lists availability for redemption of NW Worldperks miles on NW/KL (choose Standard), Air France, Continental, Korean, and Czech, among others. I've found that results aren't 100% accurate for DL Skymiles redemption but it's a good place to start. I would say my personal experiences with checking the NW site and cross referencing with DL's partner award desk has resulted in an 85-90% success rate.
As rrkwan said, check out all of the carriers and routing for your destination to familiarize yourself with the possibilities before calling. Think in flexible terms about your choice of dates, carriers, flight connections, and even origin/destination airports. Consider alternate nearby airports if that's an option for you.
I posted a similar response in another thread about Skymiles yesterday. Here it is in case I forgot anything today - http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34644224
DL currently holds award reservations for 14 days. When you call back to issue the award, you'll either get an eticket or paper ticket depending on the partner carrier. You don't need to get an award certificate. People redeem award certificates as 'insurance' if they know a certain award is going up in mileage requirement but don't have travel dates yet. The certs are good for one year and can be redeposited for a fee if unused.
Good luck!
Good news - DL's partner award reps are great
DL's online reservations for international awards only support DL operated and not partner operated flights. They say that limited codeshares are also available online, but I haven't seen any of those show up in my online searches.
To check partner airline availability, you'll need to call DL and speak with one of agents at the partner award desk. They can check availability for you on all partner airlines. These agents are well trained and very knowledgeable. Don't even attempt to speak with any other department.
Keep in mind that a few of DL's partners do not provide 'live' access to their award availability. You mention Asia and I believe Singapore and Malaysia are two such partners. In this case, the process of looking for award space becomes more tedious as you have to construct a full itinerary first (and you have to choose exact flights, you can't just say I'll take any SQ flight from point A to point B on such and such date), then it's submitted to the partner airline for approval which takes anywhere from a few to 24 hours. If unsuccessful, you repeat the process until you find the award seats you need.
I think those 2 carriers are the main ones with this restriction. Other than that, the majority of non-Skyteam partners and I believe all Skyteam partners allow DL access to live inventory. I wish there was an easy way to check availability for all partner airlines yourself, but there isn't. One site that I use to check availability on some of the partner airlines is the NW Japan site - http://tinyurl.com/8k74d
If you get Japanese characters, just click 'English' in the upper right corner. This site lists availability for redemption of NW Worldperks miles on NW/KL (choose Standard), Air France, Continental, Korean, and Czech, among others. I've found that results aren't 100% accurate for DL Skymiles redemption but it's a good place to start. I would say my personal experiences with checking the NW site and cross referencing with DL's partner award desk has resulted in an 85-90% success rate.
As rrkwan said, check out all of the carriers and routing for your destination to familiarize yourself with the possibilities before calling. Think in flexible terms about your choice of dates, carriers, flight connections, and even origin/destination airports. Consider alternate nearby airports if that's an option for you.
I posted a similar response in another thread about Skymiles yesterday. Here it is in case I forgot anything today - http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34644224
DL currently holds award reservations for 14 days. When you call back to issue the award, you'll either get an eticket or paper ticket depending on the partner carrier. You don't need to get an award certificate. People redeem award certificates as 'insurance' if they know a certain award is going up in mileage requirement but don't have travel dates yet. The certs are good for one year and can be redeposited for a fee if unused.
Good luck!
Jul 1st, 2005, 10:19 AM
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I also wanted to add that if you get stumped, try searching (you may have to register first) or posting on the Skymiles board at flyertalk.com - I've seen some creative award routing suggestions posted there that I wouldn't have even thought of.
Jul 1st, 2005, 12:23 PM
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As far as I know, there's currently no restriction for summer award redemption on AF/KL for 2006. This year's blackout was announced in May and there's been a lot of speculation about why but no definite answers. To my knowledge, there has never been an AF (KL just joined Skyteam last year) blackout in previous years.
I would definitely try to book these tickets as early as possible. Many were able to redeem flights on AF/KL for travel in summer 2005 before the blackout was announced (existing reservations were honored but no flight changes were allowed). It was those who needed to book in May or later for travel Jun-Aug that were locked out of AF/KL as choices (of course, it's very likely that there would have been no award space for them anyway).
Your guess is as good as mine as to what will happen next year. Good luck!
I would definitely try to book these tickets as early as possible. Many were able to redeem flights on AF/KL for travel in summer 2005 before the blackout was announced (existing reservations were honored but no flight changes were allowed). It was those who needed to book in May or later for travel Jun-Aug that were locked out of AF/KL as choices (of course, it's very likely that there would have been no award space for them anyway).
Your guess is as good as mine as to what will happen next year. Good luck!
Trending Topics
Jul 1st, 2005, 01:46 PM
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Delta's Statement: "As a result of high Award Travel requests during the peak summer travel season, we are no longer accepting award reservation requests for travel on Air France and KLM for the travel period June 1 through August 31, 2005."
