Song/Delta help

[EllenJ]

I just booked 2 of our 3 tickets to Fla for the week after Thanksgiving. My DH & DD had $20 vouchers which we used to reduce their fares to 158. I would like to use my miles for my ticket but the return flight does not qualify.

Does anyone have experience with having a flight become available to book thru miles?

I am probably better off just paying cash @178 for the flight now and be done with it and save the miles for another trip. My luck the price will go up tomorrow and I will be kicking myself.
Any suggestions?

 

[EllenJ]

Anyone have an opinion???

 

[debster812]

If I had to guess, I would say that all the seats that can be purchased for a reasonable amount of miles are gone. I would probably pay cash for this ticket, and save the miles for next time.

I know at peak travel times the 25K seats go VERY fast. Even the 50K ones too.

I would pay cash and save the miles this time.

 

[EllenJ]

Thanks, that is what I am leaning towards. I did check again today and they added a return flight but it is not the one that my DH & DD are on.
I hate the fact that I saved these miles and now I can't use this vacation. Oh well, I guess I will have to take another one.

 

[pumpkinboy]

I usually figure a penny a mile, so if a return ticket is under $250 it's a cash ticket, and if it is over $500 it's worth using the SkyChoice 50,000 mile option (Spring break time would be an example).

The 25,000 mile tix are very hard to come by for a desireable time and flight. For BOS-MCO the direct SkyMiles flights disappear within hours of their release at 331 days out. Sometimes some excess inventory gets added to the SkyMiles inventory, but at that point it is usually cheaper just to pay cash.

When I was reserving our flights for April vacation 2005, I had >100,000 SkyMiles at my disposal. But when I called at midnight 331 days out for a Friday night flight to MCO, there were only two SkyMiles tix available, and when I called back for the Saturday return, there was only one available. So we ended up with one SkyMiles return ticket at 25,000 miles, one SkyChoice return ticket at 50,000 miles, and two "discount" Song fares of >$600 each!

If you don't mind a connector however, or are flying out of an airport where you will have to take a connector (e.g. my parents fly from Portland, Maine), you might well get the SkyMiles tix you want at a reasonable time in advance.

Good luck.

 

[fac]

what is 331 days? is it a general rule that all airlines release the skymile tickets on 331 days?

thanks

 

[debster812]

Originally posted by fac
what is 331 days? is it a general rule that all airlines release the skymile tickets on 331 days?

thanks

fac--most 'old school' airlines release ALL of their flights 331 days out, all seats, all flights, but as pumpkinboy said, all the good cheap seats, and the 'cheap' miles seats go quick.

 

[fac]

Thanks for the quick response. I have never used my FF miles, no wonder when I checked it recently for travel in Aug, Nov, I was not able to get any ticket. I began to wonder whether those ticket ever exist. I checked June 2005 just now and it seems that they do have tickets.

BTW, EllenJ, I read an article a few days ago that it is possible that FF miles ticket be available in Last minutes, say the week of travel, but obviously we don't want to take this chance

 

[pumpkinboy]

Originally posted by fac
...BTW, EllenJ, I read an article a few days ago that it is possible that FF miles ticket be available in Last minutes, say the week of travel, but obviously we don't want to take this chance

This is correct: the airlines will generally release additional inventory to the frequent flyer inventory if they have lots of open seats that will go empty otherwise. Usually this happens in the last week or two before the flight, so fac is right, not something you can count on.

However, with careful planning (and lots of it), you can get a good flight using your SkyMiles. And there is always the option of using 50,000 miles for a flight, the "SkyChoice" award, which have very few if any restrictions.

But as I said, I usually figure a penny a mile, so a flight has got to cost me $500 before I would be willing to use the SkyChoice option. Other interesting options include flying first class for 45,000 miles, as sometimes first class seats will be open for award travel when coach seats are not (and first class fills up later too); if there is a flight where you are looking at spending 50,000 miles for a ticket, try out first class and you might save 5,000 SkyMiles. But remember, there are no first class seats on Song, so it would have to be Delta flights.