skymiles--any hidden secrets..suggestions?

[ceoswis]

My family is booked on the Pride 5-21-06 for a cruise only. I am going to be using my skymiles for the first time for the airfare. I have heard so many horror stories about people trying to redeem these Delta miles. We are a family of four and I understand you might need to have several airports in mind if you want to travel together.Is this true? We will be trying to get to Los Angeles. What airports are near? Would those who fly with skymiles please give me some hints?

[3some]

The first thing to do is create a pin at the Delta site if you don't have one.

https://www.delta.com/skymilesnewpin/skymiles/enrollment/create_pin/newpin_main.jsp

 

Then you can use the Delta site to search for award tickets.

https://www.delta.com/awards/servlet/awardServlet?EventId=ENTER_APPLICATION

 

You can get tickets up to 331 days in advance, so on Jun 23 you should be able to search for 5/20/06. (My math may be off a day or 2). There are 2 awards - 25K for sky saver and 50k for sky choice coach (45k,90k first class). When you put in the dates, it will return flights that are available at each level for the class you've requested. Sky Choice gives you alot more choices and the ability to change your ticket without penalty. Sky Saver are the first to be taken. The airports in LA to search for are LAX, SNA (orange county), BUR (Burbank), and ONT (Ontario). You could also try SAN (San Diego) if you'll be renting a car.

 

I was able to get 4 coach and 2 first class (all sky saver) tickets to Anchorage and return from Vancouver 6-8 months in advance.

[GoSooners]

3some's advise is to the point. Once you have the pin number from Delta, you can choose your flights and assign yourself seat numbers. There is a small charge for using frequent flyer miles on Delta, and you can pay with your credit card. If you find the task of doing the booking difficult via the Internet then call the toll-free number and talk to an agent.

 

I have used Delta Skymiles for travel within USA and also for international travel, and have not encountered problems.

 

Good luck.

[VOLEYMOM]

It is a good idea to have several airports in mind. John Wayne airport in Orange County is not to far from Long Beach (if that is your port). It is listed as SNA. Also not sure if Delta flys into it but Long Beach is now getting to be a busier airport. If those all fail you can also try Ontario, (ONT) which is a drive but you could rent a car and return it at your destination.

The good thing about Delta is it is now in partnership with Continental and Nortwest airline. I personally think that the Continental website is easier to use. Good luck and start early.

[ceoswis]

These are all good ideas. I have a PIN to check my miles. Is this the same PIN?

I did not realize you could book your award miles on the internet. We are not sure if we are going to rent a car. I guess it will depend on how close we can get to the port. I did not know there were so many airports close to Los Angeles.

3some-- I plan on doing something 331 days out either by phone or internet. I was surprise to find you can get seats after 331 days. I thought they all went the first day.

[Setme2sail]

Yes your PIN to check miles is the same to book your travel. There is a link to book reward seats, but you must have enough in your account for all seat before it will show what is available. I always use sky miles and have never had any problems. But I will share a lesson learned. In May my DH and I flew to LAX. We each had cards with enough to purchase a ticket for each of us on our respective card. So I booked his flight and did seat assignment, then booked my flight on my card/account and did seat assignment. Then when we got to the airport our seats had been changed:( My husband was very upset because he had exit row seats to give him more leg room. When we inquired about the seat change we were told because our reservations were not linked together they did not know we were traveling together. I was told next time to call a reservation rep. to have the reservations linked. We always use sky miles for airfare, this allows us to take more cruises since we don't have to purchase airfare:D

[AppleValleyCruisers]

I don't want to be a fly in the ointment, but book early, early, early. From personal experience, I tried to use a travel voucher from Delta to book a RT flight from MSP to PHX back in January for a trip in November '05. I could easily get down there, but the return flight was the problem. I would have had to stay in PHX an extra 6 days to book a "free" return flight.

 

What does a travel voucher have to do with sky miles? I was told by the Delta Rep that a very limited number of seats on each flight are held for vouchers, sky miles etc. Once they are reserved, they are gone and no other seats can be booked using the above. Don't know if what the rep at Delta told me is true, but I thought I would pass it along.

 

Tim

[klfrodo]

One other thing to keep in mind is "What if my trip gets cancelled for whatever reason?" Trip Insurance will not reimburse you for "Sky Miles" usage. Will Delta? I don't know.

 

Also I found that when using your miles for a "free ticket", you don't earn miles for that trip. Anymore I always purchase the cheapest coach fare and then use my miles to upgrade to first class. This way I earn additional miles for my trip plus if I have to cancel the trip I'm not out anything.

[gypsyrose]

Do you get to pick your time of travel or do you have to settle for what is available? I have gone online and they do not show any travel times for next May. This is my first time redeeming and I am hoping it will not be a hassle.

[phlydude]

I haven't used Delta but US Air has allowed me to cancel an "award reservation" and allowed those miles to be re-deposited into my account.

 

Something to think about is Southwest. I don't know if they fly from Knoxville but you might be able to get $200 r/t tickets for each of you which is IMHO better than spending miles on r/t to LA.

 

I would save those miles for another trip to Hawaii or the Caribbean....

[ceoswis]

gypsyrose--

 

I think you are looking too far ahead. I think 331 days out if the most they will go.

[gtalum]

I have had really good luck boooking Delta tickets. You just have to book them as early as possible. The other posters are right, it's 331 days in advance. You can book your outbound on the 331 day mark and then hold the reservation. You can then book the return on THAT 331 day mark and ticket the reservation. You should be able to do it for the 25,000 mile skysaver (or 40,000 for first class) option.

 

Edit: You have to call to do it this way, and that will incur a $5 per ticket fee. You may be just as well waiting for the 331 day mark for your return and doing the whole thing online.

[ceoswis]

Another question---all our miles are on my husband's card and I understand he can not get any miles for this trip but can the rest of the family get miles for travel? I assume he can buy our tickets with his miles..right?

[gtalum]

Another question---all our miles are on my husband's card and I understand he can not get any miles for this trip but can the rest of the family get miles for travel? I assume he can buy our tickets with his miles..right?

 

You can get tickets for anyone with thos emiles, assuming he has enough. :)

 

None of you will earn miles on those award tickets, barring some strange circumstances.

[Cruising89143]

I have had good and bad luck using my miles. The suggestion about booking as early as possible is good advice as there are not many seats available for miles on each flight and they go quick.

[swatts1]

If you book as early as possible you should not have much trouble. You can book for travel within the US on the website. I used my skymiles last summer for 3 of us to go to Europe. I called in Feb. and found out that I was REALLY late in booking for May. I won't make that mistake again, though we did get our flights. I wish you could book international on the website. Would be much easier.

[3some]

Delta does a "load balancing" of seats all the time. They initially allocate so many to the award and voucher bucket and they go fast at 331 days for the popular destinations. Hawaii, for instance, goes in about 3 seconds after the 331 day mark. But, if there's not alot of seats sold for a flight, they will release additional 'free' seat inventory closer to the departure time. It doesn't hurt to keep on checking. I was surprised when I was able to get the 4 coach seats for Aug/Sept flights in the middle of May.

 

If you have to cancel a flight, you can put the miles back in your account for a fee. I'm not sure what it is now for non-elite members, but the Delta site has all the relevant info. It's also a good practice to price a paid ticket. I won't use miles for a ticket that's under $400-600 (depending on destination). I'd rather accumulate more miles to use on an international bus class ticket than a 3 hour coach flight.

[Steamboatin]

We used our Delta Skymiles to fly on Air France and on Continental to get better seating, better scheduling, better free food and free wine and champagne.

 

So definetely also consider those airlines that Delta partners with.

 

Besides with the financial difficulity that Delta is having it is safer to be booked to fly on another major airline as good insurance should Delta become grounded or have to reduce their flights in any way for financial and legal reasons in the future.

[gtalum]

Besides with the financial difficulity that Delta is having it is safer to be booked to fly on another major airline as good insurance should Delta become grounded or have to reduce their flights in any way for financial and legal reasons in the future.

 

This is not really true. Tickets booked with miles on "partner" airlines are not paid for by the originating airline until after the flight is taken. If the originating airline were to go belly-up before you fly, there is no guarantee that those tickets will be there when you fly. That said, in the past every time an airline has gone belly-up someone ha bought their frequent flyer program and there hasnt been any trouble.

[Oren]

Is it 331 days from the day you want to leave from Home (the departure) and/or 331 days from the date you actually return home (the return trip)? Does anyone have experiance with this?

[dms_cruisers04]

Is it 331 days from the day you want to leave from Home (the departure) and/or 331 days from the date you actually return home (the return trip)? Does anyone have experiance with this?

Both. If you were leaving today, 331 days ago you could have put your departing flight res on hold, but you would have had to wait 7 days (if it was a 7 day trip, for example) before the 331 day mark for the return dates flight would have been available. Did that make sense?

[dms_cruisers04]

Another question---all our miles are on my husband's card and I understand he can not get any miles for this trip but can the rest of the family get miles for travel? I assume he can buy our tickets with his miles..right?

The level of your husbands elite status will also help toward what is shown as available for you. DW is Platinum and when we were booking our Destiny flights last year, we had a lot more options then my BIL did because of DW's level.

But as phly stated, if you can find a $200 flight into LA (and it's within the budget for the four of you) I'd pay for this one and get the miles. You can sign everyone up for Skymiles membership and later transfer miles to your DH's account if you choose. JAT