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Please School Me on SkyMiles and Credit Cards
Killgrimage
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I have a American Express Delta SkyMiles card with 53K miles on it. My original plan was to take my family (Hubs and Child, or maybe just one or the other) on a cool vacation some day where we can fly somewhere first class there and back. I consider flying first class part of my "bucket list" of things to do before I die, but I'd like to do it as cheaply as possible so I figured my advantage is time. I am willing to wait and accrue miles until I have enough to pay off a few first class seats.
This was before I realized that they have a 250$ cap on how many miles you can use on one ticket. Awesome! So now I need advice. If I can't build up my miles to basically pay for my trip completely, then I see no point in keeping this card. Either I figure out a workaround so that I can use my miles the way I want to, or I cash out the miles and move on to a different card that gives me better miles/rewards
Therefore:
1) Is anyone more knowledgeable about the SkyMiles program who could help me out? I'm no travel expert, so I don't want to do anything rash (like cancel my card) until I know for sure it's a good idea.
2) Can people recommend better cards? I have excellent credit, and Amex recently upped my limit. I have no worries about being accepted to another card program.
3) Can miles from *any* airline be used the way I want? Or do all airlines have a cap? If so, any ideas about how I can get a first class trip on the cheap?
This was before I realized that they have a 250$ cap on how many miles you can use on one ticket. Awesome! So now I need advice. If I can't build up my miles to basically pay for my trip completely, then I see no point in keeping this card. Either I figure out a workaround so that I can use my miles the way I want to, or I cash out the miles and move on to a different card that gives me better miles/rewards
Therefore:
1) Is anyone more knowledgeable about the SkyMiles program who could help me out? I'm no travel expert, so I don't want to do anything rash (like cancel my card) until I know for sure it's a good idea.
2) Can people recommend better cards? I have excellent credit, and Amex recently upped my limit. I have no worries about being accepted to another card program.
3) Can miles from *any* airline be used the way I want? Or do all airlines have a cap? If so, any ideas about how I can get a first class trip on the cheap?
Killgrimage on
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Posts
Method 1 is to convert the miles to a cash value (I want to say it is either a 100:1 or 1000:1 points:$ ratio) and apply that to your ticket. This is handy when you don't have enough miles to use for Method 2. This is the program with the $250 limit and is unique to the Skymiles Amex within the Skymiles ecosystem.
Method 2 is the traditional Skymiles reward method. Delta calls this "Award Travel" and the conversion is governed by this chart: http://dmn.delta.com/skymiles/direct/charts/us49/
Double the values shown there for round-trip and accept the fact that you will never see a trip available in the "Low" cost category :P.
I'll be the first to admit the Miles program is confusing to say the least. You would think that link is the Award Mileage Chart but it's not. I have no idea how you go to that link. Does the linked chart mean I can buy a whole ticket with my miles?
To get to that chart, I went to delta.com/skymiles , clicked "Skymiles Award Mileage Chart" on the left, then clicked on North America. That chart would be the price (in miles) of each leg of a round trip ticket. You'd pay like $5 for security fees and stuff, but the fare would be paid with your miles. You should also be able to login there and see your Skymiles balance and book award travel directly.
I live in Atlanta, so I think they teach this Skymiles stuff in school here :P
Yeah it's kind of a weird thing.
Based on your goal of flying first class to check it off your bucket list, i'll try to give you some tips from my experience (sorry for the length, this is my hobby lol):
1 - Book early. Award miles are best used far in advance. Basically Delta has the low/medium/high mileage rates for award miles. The way it works is each flight will have some small number of low award bookings available, a larger number of medium, and an even larger number of high. So if you are the first people to book on the flight you can get the low rate, but if you wait, even a few weeks or months, you will likely miss it, especially to a popular destination. Airlines open their schedules about 11 months in advance (i.e today I could book a delta flight as far out as 1 February 2013), you want to be booking that day or week if possible. Whenever I book award travel I do it for long planned vacations that I can realistically book 10-11 months out.
2 - Beware the "miles to upgrade" plan. Before I got into flying lots and using mileage I thought this was a great idea too, buy the economy ticket and then use miles to upgrade. The problem is that you are just "requesting" the upgrade, not getting it automatically, so you could still show up for your dream first class vacation and find out that people have bought out all the seats and you're in your coach seat. Also in the last 3 years or so airlines have introduced a host of rules for different flight codes, so they won't let you just book a super cheap fare under a discount code then upgrade it; upgrades are prioritized to economy people who bought a full fare, and then if anyone else is left they can maybe get one with miles and a $$$ co-pay.
3 - Fly internationally - All First class is not the same. Airlines generally reserve their best and newest planes with the fancy lie-flat seats and widescreen TV's for longer international flights. I obviously don't know your vacation goals or what you are thinking, but if you save up these miles for years and use them to fly first class for 5 hours or whatever from NY to San Francisco, I can guarantee you you will be disappointed- you'll get a slightly wider seat, a drink before take off, and an average to crappy meal.
4 - Fly a foreign partner - Last and best tip. Many foreign airlines, particularly nationally sponsored airlines, offer a first class product that is lights years beyond what you will get on a US carrier. In the United System you can book "star alliance awards" to use your miles to travel on a foreign carrier, or you can just use the miles on a code-shared flight that is operated by a foreign carrier. Looking at delta's partners I can't say I know too much about most of those airlines, but I'd guess for instance that Korean Air (affluent first world Asian country that caters to white collar business) would have a very strong First Class experience. So you might want to look for a flight that is code shared to Delta (i.e. it has a Delta flight number) but is operated by Korean Air. Doesn't really help you if you don't want to go to Asia though; I would guess Air France (france duh) or KLM (netherlands) would also be superior to Delta's product if you are going to Europe.
BTW a5ehren, I just looked at my post and when I said "but you think you would make it less confusing" I meant you as in Delta, not you. You have been very helpful!
I'd very roughly rank airline niceness products like this:
Top tier - Singapore Air and the big Middle Eastern Carriers (Emirates, Qatari, Saudi Air, Etihad) These are the ones that even offer the first class suite (your own room) as opposed to a seat. Unfortunately I think only Singapore Air is in an Alliance, the rest are independent. You won't want to get off the plane if you are in first on one of these.
2nd tier - Asian carriers from affluent countries. ANA, Korean Air, Air Malaysia, Cathay Pacific, Thai, etc - Only exception I can say from experience is JAL (Japan airlines), their coach seats were awful.
3rd tier - Western European carriers and Aussie stuff. Lufthansa, KLM, Air France, etc - also Qantas and Air New Zealand.
4th tier - US major carriers.
I really only have lots of experience with tiers 2 and 4, and I don't know enough about flying to South America or Africa to really throw any ideas about airlines from there on here.