# Very frustratd with Delta's FF program



## dougp26364 (Sep 15, 2011)

For the last couple of years both my wife and I have had over 30,000 FF miles in our Delta accounts. We take 3 or 4 flights per year and I always search for FF seats. During that time we've found flights on United twice and AA once but Delta never has anything under 40,000 miles. Using various programs, I should be able to get both our accounts over 40,000 miles in the near future. At that point, I'll use our miles and bail on Delta.

I am a price shopper but, I also keep FF programs in the back of my mind. If it's something I can't use and if prices are relatively close, I'll fly an airline other than Delta. I'm not certain how the downgrade of the FF program has effected Delta overall but, we had used them for two to four of our flights per year. This past year I don't believe we used them once and for 2012 I have no plans to fly them unless I can bump our accounts up over 40,000 miles. 

It's a shame because Delta generally has decent flight times that would work for us. But, all things being reasonably equal, I'll go with the better benefits almost every time.


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## MichaelColey (Sep 15, 2011)

You're not alone.  That's why many frequent flyers call Delta Skymiles "Skypesos".  They're easy to get, but hard to spend.  I had about half a million for a couple years.  I kept looking for ways to use them for a decent return (i.e. not a Medium or High redemption for a domestic coach flight!).  I booked on domestic First Class ticket at the low level (45k?) and after a couple years of looking (both for Hawaii and Europe First Class redemptions, with a lot of flexibility on dates), I finally found four First Class tickets to Hawaii for a mix of Low/Medium redemption levels (105k per ticket, I think?).  Wiped out my account, and I've never looked back.


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## Talent312 (Sep 15, 2011)

It may be hard to believe but there was a golden age when "Fly Delta Jets" was a respected moto.  In the 80's and the early 90's, one could score many good flights as FF flyer, and CSR's were genuinely interested in helping you use the program.

Nowadays, sonny, you have to walk 5 miles each way, in the snow, uphill both ways, just to get a sniff. <sigh> Its why I now throw my CC purchases into a hotel-program, instead.


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## presley (Sep 15, 2011)

Eh, I am starting to think about switching mine to a hotel program.  We used the regular AMEX, which the rewards are very minimal.  

We just switched to the Delta AMEX a few months ago.  So far, Delta hasn't had any flights we have wanted to take, so I recently cashed in my miles for AMEX gift cards.  I was pretty happy about it because the miles cash out much better than the regular AMEX membership rewards.

However, I am now thinking that Hilton Honors may be better.  I am still thinking/looking into it.


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## bogey21 (Sep 15, 2011)

Back when Delta was a great airline I accumulaated 3 million Delta Miles.  When they shut down their DFW hub I worked aggressively to use them up.  It took a few years but I got the job done.

George


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## MichaelColey (Sep 15, 2011)

I prefer the Starwood AmEx over the Hilton AmEx (although I have and use both).  The Starpoints have the advantage of transferring to a larger number of airlines (including American, which isn't an option with Membership Rewards) at a very favorable rate (you get 25k miles for every 20k Starpoints).


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## JoeWilly (Sep 15, 2011)

I have a Capital One Visa Signature Card.  I get two miles for every dollar I spend.  I just purchased two roundtrip tickets, could have purchased on any airline, no blackout dates, etc.  This is the first time I've redeemed miles on this card.  I could not believe how easy it was.  Once you show proof of tickets purchased, you have 90 days to redeem your miles and they credit your account for the cost of your tickets.  I did all of this with a phone call--didn't fill out any paperwork, nothing.  It was almost too easy.  I love this card!  Gone are the days of searching 365 days out for flights for me.

I have no affiliation with Capital One other than I'm a cardholder.


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## dougp26364 (Sep 16, 2011)

In the past I've had enough CS issues with AMEX to keep me away from them and, Cap One once issued a card in my name to someone else, then attempted to collect from me. I still get the occasional call from a collection agency who's purchased the bad debt for pennies on the dollar. Needless to say, I stear as clear from both as I can. Unfortunately, it appears that Cap One will be taking over HSBC, which is the bank for our Best Buy card. Now I'll be forced to decide if I even want to hang onto that card depsite the fact we often use their interest free offers to make purchases.

I have a Dinners Club card that allows use to accumulate miles at a rate of $1=1 mile in most cases. Right now this includes Delta. I also do a fare amount of online shopping and can use Delta's web site to accumulate miles this way. Soon enough I'll have both our accounts over 40,000 miles and then we'll be all but done with Delta, much like we walked away from USAirways so many years ago.

I won't say I'll never fly Delta again. If they're the cheapest by a good measure, I'm no fool. I won't cut my nose off to spite my face. In fact, a couple of years ago we flew USAir for a rare time when traveling to Barcelona, Spain, simple because the airfare was to good to pass up. I did not re-sign up for their FF program nor did we concern ourselves with FF miles as we knew we wouldn't be using them on a regular basis after that flight. With Delta it will be more of the same. In the past we flew both USAir (when it was America West) and Delta probably more frequently than any other airline. Both tanked their FF programs and made their airlines unattractive to us as even casual travelers. I can't imagine what it would be like to be a frequent business traveler having to deal with either company.


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## x3 skier (Sep 16, 2011)

One thing about Skymiles is they don't expire so you can continue to search indefinitely for non existent flights.  

That said, I never have used them for anything except business class to Europe. I manage to get low miles flights every year around Oct.  

Cheers


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## Conan (Sep 16, 2011)

I mostly use AA/BA/Iberia but recently, needing a ticket between the US and Scotland for next June and having some Amex Rewards points, I found my flight on Delta/Air France.

I paid 95,000 miles plus $328 tax and fees per roundtrip, but that included a free upgrade to business class on the return leg (not something I knew to ask for; it just came up as part of the booking). I think the fees included an extra $25 for talking to them on the telephone, but because it's an open-jaw booking I had no choice. And I voluntarily paid another $120 per person to upgrade the outbound leg to their premium economy seating.

That's more miles than I'm used to paying on AA, but I'm looking forward to the business class part of the travel.

The flight out includes a 1 hour 15 minute connection in CDG Paris; I hope my bags and I make it!


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## Pat H (Sep 16, 2011)

After a few years of not being able to find any Delta FF seats, I used them for magazines, WSJ subscirption and donated the rest to Make-A-Wish. I concentrate on AA & UA.


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## Carol C (Sep 16, 2011)

Conan said:


> I mostly use AA/BA/Iberia but recently, needing a ticket between the US and Scotland for next June and having some Amex Rewards points, I found my flight on Delta/Air France.
> 
> I paid 95,000 miles plus $328 tax and fees per roundtrip, but that included a free upgrade to business class on the return leg (not something I knew to ask for; it just came up as part of the booking). I think the fees included an extra $25 for talking to them on the telephone, but because it's an open-jaw booking I had no choice. And I voluntarily paid another $120 per person to upgrade the outbound leg to their premium economy seating.
> 
> ...



I have friends who flew from Calif to Paris via Atlanta on Delta and had their bags delayed for 48 hrs in both directions! This just happened last month. So I suggest you prepare for such a scenario...make sure you put essentials into large purse and backpack and a carry-on or two.


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## Carolinian (Sep 16, 2011)

Talent312 said:


> It may be hard to believe but there was a golden age when "Fly Delta Jets" was a respected moto.  In the 80's and the early 90's, one could score many good flights as FF flyer, and CSR's were genuinely interested in helping you use the program.
> 
> Nowadays, sonny, you have to walk 5 miles each way, in the snow, uphill both ways, just to get a sniff. <sigh> Its why I now throw my CC purchases into a hotel-program, instead.



I agree.  I remember my years as a DL mid-tier elite fondly - good availibility, those great SWU's, upgrades - until Rob Borden showed up and things started to go downhill.  The www.saveskymiles.com campaign got Borden fired and his ''enhancements'' reversed, but that proved only a temporary victory until management could regroup and start the program cuts again.

I bailed to NW, comping my status over in the early Borden days and never looked back.  NW's ff experience exceeded the best days of DL, but regretably DL showed up on the horison to assimilate NW into the DL Borg.

Now DL SkyPiles is a joke, the Zimbabwe Dollars of the sky.


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## Carolinian (Sep 16, 2011)

x3 skier said:


> One thing about Skymiles is they don't expire so you can continue to search indefinitely for non existent flights.
> 
> That said, I never have used them for anything except business class to Europe. I manage to get low miles flights every year around Oct.
> 
> Cheers



Flights in shoulder and low season like October are easier to find than high season.  It also helps to use a partner airline.  Back when I was a DL elite, I would never have considered using miles for a shoulder season ticket, as the cash cost with a consolidator that time of year meant spending miles at about 1 cent per mile, which I regarded as too low.  I tried to get at least 2 cents a mile and always did in those days.


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## presley (Sep 16, 2011)

MichaelColey said:


> I prefer the Starwood AmEx over the Hilton AmEx (although I have and use both).  The Starpoints have the advantage of transferring to a larger number of airlines (including American, which isn't an option with Membership Rewards) at a very favorable rate (you get 25k miles for every 20k Starpoints).



Thanks for the head's up.  I did some comparing online last night.  It looks like Starwood AMEX was rated the best by 2 different sites that compared all the cards.  I'm still not sure if I should switch.  I'm more likely to fly Alaska or Hawaiin - so that makes me think that some type of cash back reward is a better fit.

Also, for future reference (meaning I don't have HGVC now, but may someday), are the Hilton Honors rewards eligible to be used for annual dues?  One of my thoughts with switching to a HH card was that it would offset MFs if/when I have HGVC.


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## dougp26364 (Sep 16, 2011)

Carolinian said:


> Flights in shoulder and low season like October are easier to find than high season.  It also helps to use a partner airline.  Back when I was a DL elite, I would never have considered using miles for a shoulder season ticket, as the cash cost with a consolidator that time of year meant spending miles at about 1 cent per mile, which I regarded as too low.  I tried to get at least 2 cents a mile and always did in those days.



Right now, I'd love to find even a shoulder season FF ticket. I can't even find off season seats.


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## x3 skier (Sep 16, 2011)

I always get a laugh reading about how great things were in the past. Sort of like me remembering when I was not bald, didn't need reading glasses and weighed 30 pounds less. I learned to live with it just like I learned to live with crummy FF programs like Delta and their atrocious award calendar.

Having 500000 in AAvantage, 350000 in Skypesos and 700000 in AMEX should take me through my traveling days and does offer a lot of flexibility. And after all I didn't really pay anything extra for them. 

I take life as it is, not as I would like it to be.  

If all I can get is Biz Class to Europe in Oct for 100000 miles evey year now, it beats paying for the seats to use for my TS in London. The fact I could get them for 80000 in June a few years ago is interesting but that was then and this is now. 

Cheers


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## thinze3 (Sep 16, 2011)

Being from Houston, we are more Continental people than anything else.  However, when we planned a second honeymoon to Europe last summer ('10), we rolled our Amex points to Delta and then bought a Marriott Travel package with more Delta miles.  We then used those miles on Air France business class seats without much of a problem.  By adding a 5 day layover in a connecting city, we managed to get extreme value out of our Delta FF miles.


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## derb (Sep 16, 2011)

MichaelColey said:


> I prefer the Starwood AmEx over the Hilton AmEx (although I have and use both).  The Starpoints have the advantage of transferring to a larger number of airlines (including American, which isn't an option with Membership Rewards) at a very favorable rate (you get 25k miles for every 20k Starpoints).



can you transfer 100K amex reward points from the amex plat card  to starwood.  Then transfer those miles to AA and get 125K AA miles??


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## Carolinian (Sep 16, 2011)

What is significant for the here and now is that it is much easier to score high season award tickets on other airlines than it is on DL.  That means it is better to earn them on other airlines than spend money buying tickets on DL.  I merely point out that DL was not always this bad.  In fact, quite the contrary.




x3 skier said:


> I always get a laugh reading about how great things were in the past. Sort of like me remembering when I was not bald, didn't need reading glasses and weighed 30 pounds less. I learned to live with it just like I learned to live with crummy FF programs like Delta and their atrocious award calendar.
> 
> Having 500000 in AAvantage, 350000 in Skypesos and 700000 in AMEX should take me through my traveling days and does offer a lot of flexibility. And after all I didn't really pay anything extra for them.
> 
> ...


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## Ken555 (Sep 16, 2011)

Conan said:


> The flight out includes a 1 hour 15 minute connection in CDG Paris; I hope my bags and I make it!



Doubtful.

I recently flew AF LAX-CDG-DUS. I also had a 75 minute connection in Paris, and long story short I had to take the next flight to DUS (ending up with ~4hr between flights). 

While in CDG I spoke with a helpful AF rep (I was flying business, fwiw) who told me I should never have been allowed by Delta to book such a tight connection. I was told the minimum should be 90 minutes but even that is doubtful, and really should plan on 120 minutes or more. 

This was my first (and hopefully last) time connecting in CDG. The time involved to walk from the arrival gate to the European connection gate took 50 minutes, and that included passport control that had no line whatsoever. Given a line of any length, and I can easily see it taking another 30+ minutes. You simply don't have enough time. Check now and know alternative flights from CDG to your destination, and I'd suggest calling and rebooking. Fwiw, Delta seems to book these tight connections and AF doesn't.

As added info, I returned from Rome and my early morning flight was canceled by AF. They offered to put me on an Alitalia fight to CDG but the AF rep did not look comfortable guaranteeing that I would have sufficient time to make the connection (and I should have had at least two hours). Luckily, they simply rebooked me on a nonstop Aliatalia to LAX instead.

Good luck!


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## Larry (Sep 16, 2011)

My wife and I both have stopped using Delta because we can never get ff miles for the dates we want at the saver level. In the past I had to change my dates of travel and pay for extra nights in hotels before a timeshare vacation because of Delta in order to get one ff ticket.

We both still have a little over 25,000 miles so I just checked for two FF tickets to Vegas at 331 days out and all they had were tickets at 32,000 or 40,000 miles and they were not the best itineraries for us.

So I checked the same dates for AA ff tickets and no problem with direct flights for the exact dates and times I wanted for 25,000 miles each.

Since I always use AA for ff tickets I am saving them for a more expensive trip so now I need to wait so that I get at least the additional miles to get to 32,000 miles and then I am done with ever using Delta again. 

Watch, once I get to 32,000 mile level none will be available and I will need to get to 40,000 miles and so it goes with Delta.


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## MichaelColey (Sep 16, 2011)

presley said:


> I'm more likely to fly Alaska or Hawaiin - so that makes me think that some type of cash back reward is a better fit.


Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian are both 20k -> 25k transfers from SPG, so it's definitely a good fit for you.


derb said:


> can you transfer 100K amex reward points from the amex plat card to starwood. Then transfer those miles to AA and get 125K AA miles??


Can you transfer Membership Rewards -> Starwood for a 1:1 ratio?  For some reason, I'm thinking it's 2:1 or 3:1.


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## Ken555 (Sep 16, 2011)

As for Delta's ffp, read this story...

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/16/travel/frequent-flier-complaints-northwest/index.html?hpt=hp_bn12


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## JeffW (Sep 16, 2011)

I like perhaps others have a decent Skymiles balance.  There were trips when I was racking up 30k miles on $400+ tickets.  Add in bonus offers AMEX offered, and both myself and my wife's Skymiles balance just swelled.  I wonder if perhaps the easiest way for Delta to compensate for what was probably being way too generous in the past, was to require more miles in the future.  

I like others am continually disappointed that awards on Delta cost so much.  I just priced out comparable itineraries from the East Coast to Hawaii (HNL).  On United, not much difficulty getting the least expensive flights (40k miles).  On Delta, I surprising found some at 52k miles, but in the past, they tended to be at the 65k level.  Even though I have a lot more DL miles than UA, do I want to spend 50% more miles for basically the same flight (coach).

Compounding it is Delta's alliance, SkyTeam, effectively has no other US airlines.  Originally, they were Delta, Northwest, and Continental.  NW and CO provided some good balance to DL.  But when Delta decided to buy Northwest, Continental left for Star Alliance (United and USAirways).  I do searches on them, and between CO, UA, US, odds of availability are pretty decent.  With DL/NW (now just Delta), there's no alternate airline that might back some availability.  

Maybe once United and Continental complete their merger, they'll be more like Delta and Northwest.  Then maybe DL won't look as bad!

Jeff


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## x3 skier (Sep 16, 2011)

*Be Wary of Short Connections at CDG*



Ken555 said:


> Doubtful.
> 
> You simply don't have enough time. Check now and know alternative flights from CDG to your destination, and I'd suggest calling and rebooking. Fwiw, Delta seems to book these tight connections and AF doesn't.
> 
> Good luck!



I am flying to LIS via CDG on a paid Biz Class flight on Air France from JFK to LIS. They have me making a 1:40 Connection in CDG which I am leery about but checking the recent history, the connection departure is usually 45+ minutes late and the JFK-CDG arrival is usually an hour early. 

I agree that 1:30 for a connection in CDG is pushing it and if I didn't have about a  later backup to LIS, I would have passed on the original plan.

Maybe its a Skyteam Rule regarding connection times as it was booked via Air France. 

I really dislike CDG even more than Heathrow but they do have a nice lounge for Biz Class if IIRC.

Cheers


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## Talent312 (Sep 16, 2011)

> ...The flight out includes a 1 hour 15 minute connection in CDG Paris; I hope my bags and I make it!



They might. You won't.
IMHO, foolish to try that at this notorious airport.


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## Ken555 (Sep 16, 2011)

x3 skier said:


> I really dislike CDG even more than Heathrow but they do have a nice lounge for Biz Class if IIRC.
> 
> Cheers



The biz lounge for the EU flight was rather blah, IMO. Drinks, packaged snacks, etc. It was in an open air room above the general waiting area, so loud as well. They did offer free massage, though... 

I understand the international (long haul) lounge is much nicer, but I didn't see it on my flight since I had to go straight to the departing terminal.


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## Conan (Sep 17, 2011)

Talent312 said:


> [your bags] might [make the 75 min connection]. You won't.
> IMHO, foolish to try that at this notorious airport.



I phoned Delta and they won't budge on charging a penalty to change the booking.  They have SkyMiles availability on a 1 hr 55 minute connection via Amsterdam rather than my 75 minutes via Paris but they want $150 per person to make the change.

I'm going to leave it as is for now.  There's a good chance the schedule will change between now and then, and the connection can only get better since the 75 minute connection they sold me is the legal minimum.


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## Bunk (Sep 17, 2011)

This may not work for you but Delta has a program through September 30 in which you can double the miles transferred at a cost of 1 cent a mile and $30 for every 30,000 miles transferred.
We were able to book 3 non stop tickets for Christmas week (flying out Saturday December 24) JFK to PVR on frequent flyer miles for a cost of about $2,200, which is much less than any non stop airfare I've seen, and I wound up with about the same # of points as when I began.
This worked for us because we were looking for prime travel and non stop.  Because those fares were so high, I found the 70,000 miles for each round trip was cost effective.

Here is the link:
http://www.delta.com/skymiles/buy_transfer/transfer_miles/transfer_miles_lto/index.jsp


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## Talent312 (Sep 17, 2011)

Conan said:


> I phoned Delta and they won't budge on charging a penalty to change the booking... I'm going to leave it as is for now.  There's a good chance the schedule will change between now and then, and the connection can only get better since the 75 minute connection they sold me is the legal minimum.



If there is a substantial change, you may be able to switch to alternate flights w/o penalties.
I suggest that you read up on their policy so you can quote it back to them.

But if you're stuck w-the 75 min. layover, have a list of later flights handy for the missed connection.


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