Delta Skymiles

[battymum]

Slightly off topic -
We are planning to fly delta SYD - MCO , MCO -JFK, JFK-SYD
How many skymiles would these flights earn.

Do I need to sign each of my family up for a skymiles account or do all the miles accumulate under the one booking name?

Hoping to earn enough for at least one flight to Honolulu.

 

[Travel Mum]

Battymum, I'm not sure how many miles you will earn but I've never heard of a frequent flyer system that let's you accumulate points/miles as a family. All the ones that I know of require each person to join and have their own membership number meaning the accummulate their own points. However, once earnt, some programs then do let you transfer points to other family members.

Are you any closer to booking yet?

 

[battymum]

You know I hadnt even considered it, we are not frequent travellers, but someone at work who travels frequently suggested it, although he travels as a solo, he goes home to Korea a lot and said average every 5th trip is free, so buying tickets for five family members might be worth enquiring.

I think you can transfer miles between family members with Delta, so I hope I can sign the kids up and transfer their miles to me.

Unless we can earn something significant on this trip its not worth bothering as I dont see us flying to US again anytime soon, although if we do we would probably go again, so Delta if you are listening......

Anyway I check flights every day, it seems the only fares available for booking at this stage are fully refundable at $2600 each - so still over our budget and I havent booked yet, sometimes I wish I hadnt started researching this trip so early...

I think the general consensus for best prices is around February.

 

[Tracy72]

We are in Orlando at the moment and I don't have enough time to go into it all. But we are home on the 24th Dec and we are in the process of doing your exact proposed itinerary. Want to tell u about joining delta sky lounges.

 

[battymum]

i'm intrigued -

 

[Oz-kateer]

We just did your exact proposed itinerary on Delta in Sept/Oct.

Each passenger needs their own frequent flyer account - you can't accrue miles for a whole family on one account.

For the trip we just did we all got the following each:

SYD - LAX 7487

LAX - MCO 2217

MCO - JFK 944

JFK - LAX 2475

LAX - SYD 7487

TOTAL: 20,610


It may vary slightly depending on how you are routed from SYD - MCO in the first leg (via ATL, for example) - in 2009 we accrued mileage between SYD and MCO thus:

SYD - ATL 9280

ATL - MCO 500

TOTAL: 9870 (as opposed to 9704 above)


To get a freebee flight you need to accrue LOTS of miles - if you wanted a free flight to HNL where were you planning on flying there from?

You CAN transfer miles between family members - so you could pile them all up into one account but beware - you have to pay to do it - so make sure it's worth your while to do so.... to transfer enough miles into an account to earn a free trip often costs as much as the ticket would have done if you just bought it. They're crafty like this - something for nothing is a rare show these days.

Just make sure you do your sums!

I was going to do this - heap a few of the kids miles together and get a couple of free tickets and pay for a couple - but it was no saving at all because of the costs of transferring the miles.

 

[Oz-kateer]

Just noticed batty that we are going at the same time in 2011 - almost to the day.

This will be our third year running going to the US at the same time.

I always book the tickets around April - for the last two years running this has been pretty cheap. I think in 2009 I ended up paying $50 per ticket more than when they hit their lowest in June.

Is the $2600 you're quoting a fully refundable fares class? If you want a refundable fare at the the moment the cheapest I can find is upwards of $3500 for adults - where'd you find $2600 fully refundable? What fare class is that? The only reason I ask is that I have enough frequent flier points for a business class upgrade - but the catch is that you have to buy a Y, B or M class fare (the refundable ones) and the cheapest I can find is $3500.

I'm watching the fares like a hawke (having to buy 5, even saving $150/$200 on each ticket is a lot of money) so if I see anything fab I'll flag you.

 

[battymum]

It was just a thought, but yeah would have to fly via LA to HNL from Sydney on Delta, so not really an option - and yes it would cost about 1c each mile to transfer, so that adds up.

Will probably sign them up anyway - you never know what you can do with them - actually just got a statement in the mail from some Thai Airways miles we have from a trip 3 years ago - wonder what I can do with those, they are expiring on the 31st.

I dont know what class the flights I am pricing are - just using the Delta website and there is a little box in the corner that says the tickets are refundable.

Please dont think I am a tightwad, every post I make seems to relate to saving money, but I want to get the most bang for our holiday dollars.

 

[battymum]

OzKateer did you make a trip report? I have been looking for one -seeing as though you did the same itinerary as we intend to.

What dates are you going next year ,we hope to fly out on 17th Sept and return on 8th October -

I like Delta as the schedule is much better, arriving in Orlando at 6:00pm rather than midnight, DH would prefer Qantas, (reputation I guess) -

Hopefully we will be at our resort 8:00 - 8:30 so get a good night sleep before hitting the parks the next day. I imagine you wouldnt get to the resort untill 2-3 in the morning with other carriers.

Although, as we live BlueMtns area it does mean a pretty early start to get to Syd airport by 6:00am.