Europe Archives - Page 3 of 7

Sep 26 2014

Sometimes it Pays to be Obsessive Part II: Staying in First Class after a Forced Downgrade

I was at a dinner the other night when a friend (and very good food blogger, coincidentally), told the group – “Oh Joe, he’s obsessed with miles and points.” At first I was like, woah, that’s kind of a strong statement – but – guilty. I’ve mentioned before how my semi-obsessive checking of award space has paid off in the past. I wanted to share my experience after a forced downgrade.

Our original itinerary had us going to Philadelphia first (gcmap.com)

I booked two round trip first class tickets on British Airways using US Airways miles back when they still weren’t charging fuel surcharges. Our routing was BOS-PHL-LHR-LYS on the outbound, and LYS-LHR-BOS on the return. Both transatlantic segments were in first class and we were super excited to take the trip.

Unfortunately, as these things go, I received a troubling e-mail from Award Wallet a month or two later.

Award Wallet alerted me to this unwelcome change

I called both British and US Airways – it turns out BA switched equipment and the PHL-LHR would no longer have first class. This kind of sucked because this equipment change was ONLY for our day of travel and we were pretty much locked in date wise due to childcare issues.

There were no alternative flights in first at the time, so I did what you should do when these kinds of things happen – I did not accept the change. Instead, I just left it as is and decided to wait and see if first class transatlantic (TATL) space would open up later. My one worry was that if I switched flights back into a first class cabin, US Airways would try to charge me the exorbitant taxes and fees (definitely over $500 maybe up to $1000 per person).

British Airways business class is still lie flat, but we paid for first and would prefer that

I was assured by a friendly agent that US Airways would do an even exchange (no extra money on my part). I took her name down in case I needed it, because the reality is many US Airways agents apply the rules differently. Booking awards with US Airways is a bit like the Wild Wild West, which can be a good thing (getting them to book a routing that is technically illegal because they don’t understand geography), or a bad thing (being forced to submit to a rule that doesn’t make common sense).

So, after not accepting the change, I, um, obsessively checked award space from Boston to London almost every single day for the next three months. So, yes, Jen, I guess I am obsessive. My reasoning? There are two flight from Boston to London every night, and I checked and saw a bunch of empty seats on Expertflyer.

When that many seats are open there's always a decent chance award space will open up — When that many seats are open there’s always a decent chance award space will open up

The odds that British Airways would open two of those seats were decent. My plan was to switch onto those flights (or really any TATL flights in BA F that opened up) if possible, or in a worst case scenario just suck it up and fly in business.

Well, yesterday was the day – I logged in at around 130 PM and lo and behold there were two seats on the direct BOS-LHR flight. I couldn’t call US Airways until 230 so I had to sweat out that hour – I’ve seen award space go bye bye in that time before. But being so busy lately, I needed to prioritize the more important things in life first.

As soon as 230 hit, I called up US Airways. I explained to the very helpful agent what was going on and she put me on hold to see if she could switch me to the new flights. My heart skipped a beat when she said “You realize you might have to pay taxes and fees on this new flight now and they can be pretty high on British Airways.” <deep breath> I calmly and confidently replied, “I was told when I had called before that it would be an even exchange since the downgrade was forced on us – could you please see if that’s still possible?”

Lyon - here we come in F! — Lyon – here we come in F!

She said she would check on it and put me on hold. I hadn’t even whipped out the previous agent’s name yet. I was on hold for 15 minutes – I actually thought that since I was on hold for a long time she was probably doing the even exchange (otherwise she’d have come back asking for my CC information or whatever). Indeed, she came back on, thanked me for waiting, and told me she had taken care of everything. Woohoo!

So now we not only have reinstated our seats in first class without having to pay anything (not that I thought we should have, it was gonna be a real dilemma if they had tried to make us to and I didn’t have time to hang up and call again), but we have one less segment and can leave directly from home!

Final Thoughts

I share this anecdote to reiterate that in this game, it really does pay off to be obsessive sometimes. Jess and I don’t get to travel as much anymore now that Little M is around – so when we do I want to aspire to as high a level as possible. Right now we can still do that and it’s important to me to take advantage of the opportunities while they are still there. Never underestimate the importance of “gardening” your reservations.

Sep 16 2014

How to Plan Travel for Summer 2015 – Part 1

I try to avoid Asia in the summer - this picture doesn't indicate how ridiculously hot Hong Kong is — I try to avoid Asia in the summer – this picture doesn’t indicate how ridiculously hot Hong Kong is

It’s the time of the year to start planning our summer travels. Actually, you could say it’s even a little late for that, depending on your definition of summer. We usually travel in July so we’re a bit behind. Remember, most airlines open their schedules up 330 days in advance, so I can book travel up through August 11th right now on most programs. This post will outline my thought process for booking travel and hopefully give you some ideas for how you want to use your hard earned miles next summer! If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you’re likely not ready to book yet…get crackin!

Question 0: Cash or Miles?

If the answer to Question 0 is cash, you can pretty much skip the rest of this post. Right now is NOT the best time to buy cash tickets – prices will definitely drop some time in the next eleven months. If you don’t have enough miles to book that summer trip right now, you can build up those balances – chances are more than decent that space will open up closer in.

Question 1: When can you travel?

I find for most people this is the biggest determinant. Summer is usually a little better because people are more free to leave on Tuesdays and random things like that. Obviously, the more flexible you can be the better. Since award space is a function of airlines trying to fill every last seat, you’ll see the most availability on low travel days – Tuesdays and Saturdays for example.

The weather's a lot cooler in Peru — The weather’s a lot cooler in Peru

If you don’t have the flexibility and need to leave on weekends, it’s imperative that you make decisions sooner rather than later (or wait until the last minute next year, but then this article isn’t for you). Airlines are releasing less and less award space 330 days out, so you should try to be ready to go once your desired dates hit the 330 mark.

For us, we’re pretty flexible, if we can find anything for a 2 week trip in July we should be good to go. It’s Question 2 that is a bigger source of stress for us.

Question 2: How many in your party?

Oh, to return to the days when we were only looking for two seats. Little M will be two next year so she’ll no longer be flying on our laps in first. The added mileage cost plus the relative difficulty of finding three seats in first means we’ll probably be flying business next year – that’s if we’re lucky. It isn’t too hard to find 3 coach seats this far out, but a lot of airlines will only release two business class seats.

Another option we (and your family) could consider is splitting up the family by cabin. For example, a family of four could snag two seats in business and two in coach relatively easily and just switch off on the outbound and return (or however they like). Or if you’re particularly brave, one in business and three in coach. Of course that depends on the age of the children.

A third option for families with older children is splitting up the itinerary altogether – parent + child 1 on Flight 1 and parent + child 2 on Flight 2. I don’t really prefer this option because it’s a lot of moving parts (and we’re not there yet size/age wise), but it definitely makes finding award space a lot easier!

Question 3: What programs do you have miles in?

Obviously this question is going to go a long way to dictate where you will be going. If you have a ton of SPG points, the world is pretty much your oyster since you can transfer to programs in every major alliance. If you are rich in Ultimate Rewards, you are likely flying Southwest or United, etc. etc.

If you have a ton of miles in a specific program, then you’re locked into booking flights with that airline and its partners. Hopefully you have a large portfolio with decent balances spread across different programs, this will maximize the options available to you.

Lufthansa first class is probably too expensive these days - too bad — Lufthansa first class is probably too expensive these days – too bad

In our case, we have a ton of AA/US miles and a bunch of Membership Rewards and Delta Skymiles, so we are pretty limited. All our other balances are in recovery – we are slowly working to build them back to levels where we can use them to book for everyone. I find that it goes in cycles – you burn all your points in one program and then rely on other programs while you slowly rebuild your balance in the first. It’s like leaving a field fallow for a year so you can grow better crops the next year…or something.

Question 4: Where do you want to go – domestic or international?

In my thinking, where to go is the fourth thing I ask myself. The benefit of miles is you can get places in comfort while saving a lot of money – the drawback is if you’re dead set on a certain location you might find yourself out of luck. Miles are best used when you are flexible.

I always start by considering whether I want the family to go domestic or international. This is a question I am personally struggling with right now. In a lot of ways, going domestic is easier – shorter flights, less miles, etc., but going international is what I love to do. Depending on your answer to this question, you’ll start zeroing in more on what miles you should be using.

If you want to go domestic, the best value can be found in distance based sweet spots. KennyBSAT has an amazing primer (with routes) on these sweet spots, so check them out and see if you fall into any of them. If I can’t find a distance based sweet spot, I personally would rather pay cash and fly coach and save my miles for an international trip in a premium cabin.

The reason why I’m struggling this year is because the cost of international travel (in business) is a lot more now that we have to pay for our daughter – and who knows what she’ll be like as a 2.5 year old. I’m still leaning international though…

Question 5: What continent/state do you want to visit?

Once you’ve decided international or domestic, you kind of need to zero in on a certain region. With domestic it’s a little easier, you can just start your search by looking for award space on sweet spot routes from your hometown.

You don't get castles like this in the States — You don’t get castles like this in the States

For international, the continents you can travel to are going to be limited by your miles balances and the cost of travel. Since we have so many US/AA miles, our family can technically travel to any continent next year. Still, if we go abroad, we’ll probably stick to Europe due to the shorter flights (and the extreme heat in Asia). We’re not going to take Little M on a safari while she’s still prey sized and we’d want to do that if we went to Africa so we eliminated that.

Question 6: Where’s the availability?

Searching for availability is a post in and of itself, so I’ll hit on that next time. In the meanwhile, you might get lucky with the AA space KennyBSAT pointed out last week – I know I have a flight on hold!

Final Thoughts

If you want to travel on miles, start booking now! Hopefully seeing my thought process helps you crystallize yours – burn those miles and enjoy!

Aug 22 2014

Bavarian Summer: A Seat, a Bed, and a Toddler – and The End!

The Lufthansa 747-400 features a full bed in first class

Ahhh…the best part of writing trip reports is the last entry. Originally we were scheduled to take a similar flight to our outbound so I wasn’t going to write about it. However, we ended up taking Lufthansa’s 747-400 first class product – aka a seat AND a bed. I figured anyone who was thinking of taking an infant or toddler in LH F might want to see how that impacted things. So let’s finish this!

A view I don't get very often — A view I don’t get very often

After our time in the First Class Terminal, we were driven in a minivan to our plane. People get driven in all sorts of cool cars from the FCT to their plane – Porsches, Benzes, and GRAND CARAVANS. I found it pretty amusing, hopefully the dude who shared the car with us did too (he was really nice). We were dropped off at the bottom of the plane which was pretty cool – 747s are big mamma jammas.

This could be a long flight... — This could be a long flight…

I think Jess’ exclamation, “We’re flying upstairs!?” summed it up. While being in the nose of the plane would have been cool, it was pretty neat to walk up the stairs to the first class cabin in the “hump” of the plane – I’m not sure I’ve ever been up there myself. The first class cabin consists of four rows of two seats each, we chose the last two seats in an effort to minimize bothering others. The cabin ended up being full due to some weather issues in Frankfurt the day before, so I was a bit nervous as we got ready to take off.

For once M was cool with taking off with me instead of mom

It turns out it was silly for me to be nervous, for a couple of reasons. First of all – the cabin had SO much stuff for Little M to play with that she just had a great time for the majority of the flight. Opening drawers, closing drawers, putting stickers on the armrests, putting headphones on, putting headphones on me, and best of all – playing on the separate bed.

Nothing like a pretzel and some first class butter

Having a separate bed with a lap/infant is pretty clutch. What that meant was she could lay out all her toys on the bed and just PLAY. Yes, she’d run back and forth between Jess and my seat, but for the most part she didn’t have to be sitting on us, climbing on us, or any of that.

When she fell asleep, we just lay her down there and could still sit next to her and keep an eye out. The seat itself doesn’t recline to fully flat so parent and child can’t both sleep fully flat at once, but it was a daytime flight anyway. The biggest issue was that there was way too much for her to play with – she was completely overstimulated throughout the whole flight. That meant it was pretty tough to get her down for a nap.

Being able to sit on the bed together opens up a lot of options in terms of space for the toddler

Eventually, after Jess tried in vain for over an hour to get her to sleep, I just took M into the lavatory until she passed out. There was about 5 minutes of intense crying there, but thankfully all the other passengers in the first class cabin were awake (and the noise cancelling headphones + bathroom door did a lot, Jess said M was tough to hear with all of those barriers).

We once again survived the first class flight by dividing and conquering. Jess would watch M while I ate, then we’d switch, and the same if anyone wanted to watch a movie. We both managed to get through one movie on the seven hour flight, haha. We also used up almost every single “present” we had wrapped in “the bag” – the nice thing about the return journey is you don’t have to save any of your tricks!

Nothing like a little overstimulation on a 7 hour flight

All in all, I’d say having a seat and a bed is pretty awesome – especially if you have a lap child in tow. I realize that this isn’t something that people have the chance to do often, but if you are considering Lufthansa First Class with a lap infant, I definitely think the 747-400 product is better than the other new first class products. You just can’t beat that kind of space.

Final Thoughts

We had an amazing trip to Germany and Austria this summer. We climbed mountains, sang the Sound of Music, and ate some amazing food. In terms of summer trips, this one ranks high up on the list. If you’re thinking of visiting Germany, I say do it. For some reason it doesn’t get the press of Italy or France, but it’s a lovely country and we had an amazing time. Thanks for following along! Until the next trip…

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Other Posts in this Series

Introduction

Final Preparations for the Little One

Lufthansa First Class with a Toddler

Slow Days with a Sick Toddler

Sightseeing in and around Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Observations After a Week in Germany

Climbing to AlpspiX and Neuschwanstein Castle

Zugspitze and Mittenwald

Sound of Music Bike Tour in Salzburg

Lazy Sunday in Salzburg – not

Rainy Days in Berchtesgaden

Visiting Museums and Biking in Vienna

Food in Germany and Austria

Rating the Toddler Friendliness of Our Hotels

Lufthansa First Class Terminal – Good for Toddlers?

Aug 21 2014

Bavarian Summer: Lufthansa First Class Terminal Good for Toddlers?

I was super, super tempted to slice my own prosciutto at the Lufthansa First Class Terminal

On our way home, we had the chance to stop by the Lufthansa First Class Terminal in Frankfurt. Aka the building that in its entirety is a lounge. I gotta say, I think it was a bit too overhyped. Don’t get me wrong, it’s super cool – but I personally feel it’s only marginally better than the regular Lufthansa first class lounges. It’s a neat thing to have and experience, but the first class lounges are pretty spectacular on their own. I’m going to try to stick to the toddler-related aspects of the lounge; it’s been over-covered extensively elsewhere.

We kinda walked through the employee entrance...or something — We kinda walked through the employee entrance…or something (Wikipedia)

We arrived in Frankfurt from Vienna around lunchtime and our flight wasn’t until late afternoon so we had a good couple of hours to kill. It was a good thing too because finding the lounge was a bit of a pain. First of all, not every Lufthansa agent in the terminal seemed to know where it is and we received a few different sets of directions. Eventually, we exited baggage claim and turned left. After walking for ten minutes (with a Beco’d toddler and our carry on bags), we walked through what must have been the waiting area for taxis and car services and finally reached the lounge. Some nice Lufthansa agent saw us looking pitifully at the set of stairs leading up to the main entrance and let us in to the elevator downstairs.

Upon exiting the elevator, we were met by an agent who led us through security. This was a huge help because at that point we were really losing grip of all of our bags. She also booked us a sleeping room where we immediately put M down for a nap. When she woke up, the three of us took lunch in the First Class Terminal restaurant. Apparently it’s catered by DO & CO which means something to Jess? Not to me though. There was a buffet set out but the highlight was the burrata and coppa from the “mozzarella bar” (it’s made to order). Jess was only ordering for herself but we ended up getting two orders delivered to our table.

The rest of our time at the FCT was spent trying to entertain Little M – we did this by splitting time with her, museum style. We spent a lot of time in the sleep room – that way M was contained and not too loud for everyone else. Nobody was on the waiting list so I didn’t feel bad hogging it. Jess spent some time in the lounge chairs which she said were way more fun than they looked – unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures because I was busy drinking Macallan at the bar with my daughter.

Quite possibly the funniest and most horrifying aspect of the First Class Terminal experience involved the infamous Lufthansa ducks. Little M is obsessed with water as you may have gathered from this trip report. Well she was calmly observing this nice fountain in the FCT when she was approached by a lounge attendant with a duck (her like, fourth Lufthansa duck of the trip I think). This was all well and good until the attendant was all, “Do you want to throw it in the water?” Me: “Noooooooooo!”

For the record, I did not encourage this

It was too late, the attendant had already thrown the duck in the water. After a few minutes playing with the duck in the water, the attendant left us with a child who wanted to do nothing except throw ducks into this beautiful fountain. It was super cute and also super embarrassing.

Why look at planes when you can look at buses

Anyway, overall the FCT was a great way to prepare for our flight home. M took a bath, we both showered, I drank some wine and scotch, we ate some great food, and who doesn’t want to be driven to their plane in an awesome car. In our case, said “awesome car” was a minivan.

Sweet, sweet ride. — Sweet, sweet ride to our plane.

Final Thoughts

The Lufthansa First Class Terminal is a pretty cool place, once you can find it. I wouldn’t say it’s toddler friendly, but I wouldn’t say it’s a bad place for toddlers either if your toddler is relatively well behaved. There is enough to distract them (not including the fountain) and if you can score a sleeping room it’s great for a nap. I’m glad I went, and I’d go back if I’m ever in Frankfurt on LH F, but I don’t think I’d reroute just to visit the FCT in the future – Lufthansa’s regular first class lounges are good enough. A gummy bear is a gummy bear in any terminal!

Other Posts in this Series

Introduction

Final Preparations for the Little One

Lufthansa First Class with a Toddler

Slow Days with a Sick Toddler

Sightseeing in and around Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Observations After a Week in Germany

Climbing to AlpspiX and Neuschwanstein Castle

Zugspitze and Mittenwald

Sound of Music Bike Tour in Salzburg

Lazy Sunday in Salzburg – not

Rainy Days in Berchtesgaden

Visiting Museums and Biking in Vienna

Food in Germany and Austria

Rating the Toddler Friendliness of Our Hotels

Lufthansa First Class Terminal – Good for Toddlers?

Aug 18 2014

The DIY Guide to Booking Award Tickets – Part XIII: Booking an Award Ticket on delta.com (Advanced Techniques)

You don't have to restrict your trip to just London using Skymiles — You don’t have to restrict your trip to just London using Skymiles

People have different opinions when it comes to booking award tickets with frequent flyer miles. I, for one, love booking award tickets and enjoy the challenge that comes with doing so. Booking award tickets are like puzzles to me and I love solving them. Other people hate booking award tickets, consider them too much of a hassle, or even go so far as to believing their frequent flyer miles are completely worthless. I’ve decided to put a guide together for those of you who fall in between – people who want to book award tickets themselves but feel like they need some pointers. This guide will assume some basic knowledge, namely, that you know how to log in to your frequent flyer account and check your mileage balance. Other than that, the guide is here to help you through the process – hope you find it useful! Feel free to refer to the index at the bottom of the page for other entries.

In my last post I shared some tips I’ve learned over the years about booking flights on delta.com. Today we’ll look at a few techniques that can really help you stretch the value of your Delta Skymiles. This “advanced techniques” post assumes you are comfortable with the strategies outlined in the past post and will just focus on the cold, hard results. Delta’s Skymiles program has a pretty generous policy when it comes to stopovers and open jaws. That’s right, Delta is generous. Wow.

We haven’t covered this yet although I’ve covered it elsewhere – a stopover is generally defined as a stop in a connecting city for longer than 24 hours. An open jaw is when you depart from an airport other than the one you landed in, when you return to a different airport from where you started, or both! Here are some simple examples:

Stopover: A => B (hang out for longer than 24 hours) => C => A. You fly through B to get to your final destination, C, but hang out there for awhile before continuing your journey.

Open jaw: A => B // C => A. For this open jaw, you’d find your own way from B to C (train, drive, whatever), but fly back home to A from C. It’s actually easier to visualize open jaws using maps.

This is an "open jaw" (fly into LHR, fly out of CDG) [gcmap.com] — This is an “open jaw” (fly into LHR, fly out of CDG) [gcmap.com]

Another open jaw - you fly out of Boston, but ultimately return to ATL [gcmap.com] — Another open jaw – you fly out of Boston, but ultimately return to ATL [gcmap.com]

Here are some ideas for how you can extend your trip, and thus the value of your Skymiles, by utilizing Delta’s allowed open jaw and stopover.

Extension 1: Visit more places in Europe

This is probably my preferred extension. Remember Delta allows both an open jaw and a stopover. This gives you the opportunity to visit 3 cities for (almost) the price of one. How? Well, in the example in my previous post I just did a simple trip to London (which of course wasn’t simple thanks to delta.com). But let’s say you wanted to go to Paris – you could stopover in London along the way. Suddenly you’ve increased the number of destinations you’re hitting from one to two.

You can stopover on any city on the way to your destination as long as it’s a legal routing. How do you know a routing is legal? If you can have a layover in a city on the way to your destination according to delta.com, you can have a stopover there. I took the liberty of doing a bunch of segment by segment searches – London is indeed a city you can connect through to get to Paris. Thus, it would be legal on Delta to fly from Boston to London, stopover, and then continue on to Paris before returning to Boston. The great thing is, this costs the same as the Boston to London round trip ticket.

A legal itinerary on a Delta award ticket [gcmap.com]

But why stop there? Remember, Delta allows a stopover and an open jaw. That means you can hit a third city and still not pay any more miles. The only caveat here is you’d have to find a way to get to the third city on your own, but there are plenty of ways to do that (plane, train, car, boat, whatever). What this means is I could fly back to Boston from Amsterdam and it would still be the same price. That’s right, I could do London, Paris, and Amsterdam, all for the same cost in miles plus whatever it costs me to get to Amsterdam (hitchhike?)

It is no less annoying to search for and book this award ticket on delta.com than it was to book the Boston to London round trip. BUT – it’s also no MORE annoying. You use the same exact techniques; search segment by segment, fly economy on short haul if you have to, and then string everything together using a multi-city award search. I don’t normally link to the same post three times but seriously, if you need a refresher: here. I went through all the steps and you can see my results below (I built it the same way I did the last itinerary, business on the outbound and economy return). As you can see, it’s the same number of miles and just a shade more in taxes and fees.

Original itinerary, 92,500 miles per person and (click to enlarge) — Original itinerary, 92,500 miles and $214 per person and (click to enlarge)

Adding Paris and Amsterdam still costs 92,500 miles and just $4 more (click to enlarge)

This is what I would call a great value. It’s also the kind of thing you usually can’t pull off with cash tickets. You can spread the flights out over the course of a year if you’d like – hey, take a year off and go explore Europe! Backpacking from Paris to Amsterdam could be fun! The fact that you have a year to complete your itinerary plays into the second extension you could make to the original trip.

Extension 2: The “free” one-way

Free one-ways are misnamed a bit. They’re not really free – you give up the chance to hit multiple cities in Europe. But what you gain is the ability to take care of half the flights of your next (usually domestic) vacation. The concept of the free one-way is relatively simple: You take your regular round trip award flight, but you tack on one more flight before or after that round trip award. So you are either tacking on a return flight from somewhere to your hometown before the main trip or tacking on an outbound flight from your hometown to somewhere you want to go after the main trip.

We added a "free" one-way to our Europe trip (in blue) [gcmap.com] — We added a “free” one-way to our Europe trip (in blue) [gcmap.com]

I’ll use an example from my own experience. As you know, we just got back from Germany and Austria. Well, in a couple weeks, as part of that same award ticket, Jess and I are flying from Boston to Los Angeles for a wedding. We essentially knocked out half the flight cost on a trip we were going to take anyway. That’s why people call these “free” one-ways.

Example of a "free" one-way, adding a flight to Atlanta after the main trip [gcmap.com] — Example of a “free” one-way, adding a flight to Atlanta after the main trip [gcmap.com]

How does it work, technically? Well it only works smoothly in programs where you are allowed an open jaw AND a stopover (in other programs you can get it done, but with complications). Delta is one such program. Here is the example I did for this post: BOS-LHR-BOS-ATL. I took the same round trip from the original itinerary to and from London. However, a week later, I searched for a one way flight to Atlanta. Then, using the multi-city search, I tacked it onto the original itinerary (by starting from scratch). It came out, once again, to the same price in miles and a little more in taxes and fees. That’s because you technically use your stopover in Boston and then use your open jaw to end somewhere different than where you began. Tricksy.

Again, only $6 more expensive - cheaper than any cash flight you'd ever pay — Again, only $6 more expensive – cheaper than any cash flight you’d ever pay

So, you can go to London and back, and then later, take that trip to the Coca Cola factory you’ve been dreaming of (or go visit your in-laws, or whatever you need to do in Atlanta). There are some combinations of cities and destinations for which this doesn’t work, but in general, if the routing seems to make sense (aka you’re going in generally the same direction), Delta will allow it. It takes work, you need to search segment by segment again, but hey – you generally don’t need to talk to a phone agent. So if you don’t want to gallivant around Europe (or don’t have the time), but know you need to get somewhere else in the USA within a year – try to tack on the flight!

Final Thoughts

Hopefully this post gives you some ideas about how to stretch the value of your Delta Skymiles even further. Some creativity can yield some pretty big dividends. Plus, I saved the best for last – all these tricks work for domestic award itineraries on Delta as well (unlike every other program I know of). That really increases the value of domestic award redemption on Delta, even in premium cabins (which usually are a bad deal domestically). Take my word for it – play around with Delta’s award booking system and get used to it – there are gems to be had.

Index

Part I: Know Why Award Tickets Exist

Part II: Know Your Award Types and Charts

Part III: Know Your Airline Alliances and Partners

Part IV: Using Wikipedia to Determine Alliance Partners

Part V: Using united.com to Search for Star Alliance Award Space

Part VI: Using ANA to Search for Star Alliance Space

Part VII: Searching for Award Space Segment by Segment

Part VIII: Searching for Oneworld Award Space on aa.com

Part IX: Searching for Oneworld Award Space on ba.com

Part X: Using Wikipedia to Determine Airline Routes

Part XI: Searching Skyteam Award Space using Air France/KLM’s Flying Blue Website