Flying on Delta SkyMiles

[bubbasmom99]

I have enough SkyMiles to purchase 2 roundtrip tickets but there are 4 of us... the cash price for the remaining 2 tickets are much higher than I would prefer. Should I book the SkyMiles tickets now and hope for lower fares later, risking that we will have to split up? Or should I wait, and risk that I might lose out on using the SkyMiles? We will be traveling the 1st week of December, and the outbound flight is a red-eye, which I'm sure will have plenty of availability. The return flight is a late afternoon on a Sunday, which is probably the busiest....

Thanks!

 

[Eeyore1954]

Booking tickets with frequent flyer miles is getting more difficult as airlines limit availability of these "free" seats in order to make more money. I would recommend booking these tickets now and then watch the rates for the other two seats you need.

 

[Beast fan]

Is that all that's available for your free flight? I just checked the Delta website and saw some prices (you didn't state your departure date from CA, so I assumed Monday, Nov. 30) around $258, but they leave MCO between noon and 2p.m.

IMO, I would book the free flights now and see what happens with the other 2.

One time, DW had a FF flight on NWA out of DTW (to SAV), but the cheapest flights (by about $70 each) was out of TOL (about an hour away). So.... she took (then) DS 1.5, with him as a "lap baby"and flew out of DTW on NWA, and I took (then) DS4 and flew out of TOL on Delta. Bottom line is........ including the extra car expense and extra parking (at TOL, long term rates are cheap), we saved about $70.

Good luck!

Dave

 

[madoug]

If you call Delta skymiles reservation number, they can reserve your free tickets on hold for two weeks without charging you the miles. Towards the end of two weeks, you could try to double book the two sets to extend the hold another two weeks, or you could have the tickets booked or released.

However, if you book your mileage award tickets on line, you get 1000 miles bonus!! Book my two skymiles tickets for 4/26-29 for a 19th anniversary trip. These midweek tickets would have cost over $500 in cash..

 

[undertheradar]

Take the seats while they are there. Delta has cut back on these seats and you must get them while they exist. Book the other 2 tickets and watch for reduced fares. Contact Delta when the fare drops and get a flight credit. We are travelling in June and needed 1 seat with skymiles and could not make it work out of LAX. $ of us are flying on Song and wife is flying into Melbourne next morning on Delta. Return flight we are all together. The FF staff is less than helpfull when searching for a flight that all can use. We bought 4 seats and were only trying to get 1 FF seat, Delta couldn't find a seat out of LAX, John Wayne, Burbank, Santa Barbara, San Diego or Ontario. Delta's excuse, it is June and many people fly on FF at this time. I should add that we searched arriving at Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Melbourne, and Ft. Lauderdale. There aren't many seats to be claimed, so take what you can get now.

 

[justhat]

We were just looking at flights from EWR to MCO for our honeymoon (6/6-6/20) and the only skymiles flights were SkyChoice, which require 50,000 miles, not the regular 25. We found flights for 25,000 miles departing and returning a day later, but it kept saying there was an error when we tried to find availability. Anyone have any luck getting the SkySaver flights?