redeeming skymiles for tickets

[Tiffany]

Hi,

My husband and I joined Delta Skymiles last Sept and by the end of this year we should have enough miles to be able to get both of our tickets with the miles for our 2002 trip.

Questions:
1. Does anyone have experience in dealing with Delta? Are the skymiles seats limited between Boston and Orlando?

2. We like to leave Boston on Saturday mornings and then return 10days later on a Monday afternoon does anyone have any ideas about seats avaialbe on those days?

We will proboly be traveling during Sept of 2002.

Any and all help will be appreciated.

 

[TravelSheryl]

All of the full service airlines limit the number of seats for frequent flier tickets. If you will have enough miles by the end of this year, you should have no problem at all getting seats for travel 9 months later.

 

[travelcoupons]

You just might not be able to get the flight/time that you want. Orlando is one of the more popular destinations, along with Hawaii. I usually end up flying into Tampa as there is usually a larger selection of open flights for FF-miles.

 

[Tiffany]

Thanks TravelSheryl,

So you think that as soon as we have firm travel dates and enough miles I should call Delta? I was not sure if Delta released seats for Skymiles that early? I guess it could not hurt to ask when the time comes.

Anyone else have any expercience with redeeming miles for tickets with Delta?

 

[Tiffany]

Thank you travelcoupons,

Do you have experence with Delta directly? We are willing to be flexable with our flights if we have to be. Example leaving mybe late on Friday instead of early on Saturday morning or something like that.

 

[TravelSheryl]

Yes, call when you have enough miles and your dates are firm. They allow FF booking the same time they allow you to purchase, which is 330 days out. That does not mean FF seats will be available on the particular flights you choose because they are capacity controlled. Also, just because a particular flight on a particular day may not be available when you first call, it could be at a later date. FF seats are subject to the same yield management as all seats.

And yes, I have redeemed FF miles on Delta.

 

[travelcoupons]

Tiffany,
I have only redeemed with Delta once. I have redeemed with Northwest several times...(Northwest has the ability to redeem online, so you can actually go through each day and see every available flight - a feature that I wish other airlines would adapt.) And yes, TravelSheryl is right, I have seen flights available many months ahead, then become unavailable and then become available again just a few weeks before the flight date.
Good luck..

 

[Beverly Lynn]

if you can I would also suggest if possible booking the ressies between 1-5 am right after they load the seats into the system. there are people that actually know this and they are on that phone at this hour getting those FTP seats. (I used to work 1030 pm until 630 am and it happened all night long. )

 

[Tiffany]

Thanks for all of the replies. The 1am till 5am thing I will have to checkout because I am a night owl. We are leaning to traveling on Thanksgiving Day in 2002 and we cheked Delta's site and that day did not appear to be a blackout day.

Anyone have any experience with traveling on Thanksgiving Day itself. I am thinking it would be slow because everyone else has traveled the day before. Am I wrong with this thinking?? Opinions wanted. We are torn between traveling in Sept or Nov into Dec in 2002. If we can get the tickets using our miles during one time frame and not another will definetly be a factor.

 

[Beckles]

Thanksgiving morning is usually pretty busy, but anything in the afternoon or especially the evening is usually pretty wide open ...

 

[Tiffany]

Thanks Beckles

 

[shoes99]

I just redeemed Delta Sky Miles this week for our pending DIS Convention in November. We had our choice of flights from Newark on Delta Express but DH only had 24000 miles in account so it cost $39.00 to purchase 1000 miles ($25 + tax).
We already received our e-tickets in the mail.
The reservationist was surprised that there were seats available to Orlando since she said it was a very popular destination ( no kidding).

 

[Tiffany]

Thanks good to hear shoes99.

 

[Beckles]

BTW, one other thing ... you don't have to have all the miles you need to make a reservation on Delta. They will hold the reservation for up to 30 days, so if you don't have the miles yet, but know that you will in the next thirty days, you can call them and make the reservation and ask them to hold it while you wait for your miles. Just make sure to call and have them convert it from a "hold" to ticketed in the thirty days!

 

[Tiffany]

Thanks again Beckles.

We are still torn between traveling in Sept 2002 or Nov into Dec 2002. If I am understanding the ticket situation correctly I will not be able to book tickets for Nov 2002 until Jan 2002 if our return date is in December 2002 so I know I will have enough miles by then for the two tickets(50,000miles) if I am reading my paperwork corretly.

Any other opinions on traveling on Thanksgiving day?