Delta is much-maligned in the travel hacking world – with their mileage currency commonly referred to as “Skypesos”. It used to be that they did not allow one-way awards at all, something that changed earlier this year, as one of the few positives of their Delta Skymiles 2015 changes.
Booking Delta with partners
So we are looking at taking a trip to Seattle next year. We have our transportation out to Seattle already taken care of, but I was looking to get flights back to Cincinnati. United and American availability is quite low, but I was actually (pleasantly!) surprised to see low-level availability on Delta!
Now that’s 3 different flights on the same day, and mind you that’s when searching for EIGHT tickets on the same flight! There are actually a few other 12,500 mile flights that involve red eye flights, and while I’ve figured out some of the tricks to be able to sleep on a red eye, I’m not sure I want to try that with the whole family! 🙂
I’ll also point out that these flights cost about $450 as well, which is (sort of) a redemption of around 3.5 cents per point, which is not bad!
Checking on Alaska Airlines
So having that availability on Delta is great, but it would be even better if I could use Alaska Airlines miles to book the tickets, just because I have a lot more of those, thanks to the churnability of the Bank of America Alaska Airlines card.
(SEE ALSO: My problems trying to apply for multiple Alaska Airlines cards)
(SEE ALSO: November 2015 credit card churn results: 140,000 points + $200 statement credit)
So let’s look at that same itinerary (SEA-CVG) and date on Alaska’s site
Keep in mind that on Alaska’s site, I am searching for only ONE ticket. I’ve filtered to only show the Delta flights, but there is not any availability using Alaska or American Airlines either. You can see the same 3 flights that had low-level availability on Delta (the ones leaving at 6:55 a.m., 8:55 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.), but on Alaska’s site, they now cost 25,000 miles!
I originally thought that Alaska didn’t have access to all of Delta’s awards, but then I checked Alaska’s award chart for travel on Delta
(emphasis mine)
Well… that stinks. Even though Delta now offers one-way awards, you still can’t book it on partners like Alaska. I wasn’t sure at first, since the Delta award chart went away, it gets a little harder to tell what the price “should” be.
Ever been bit by this? Let me know in the comments
- Ever been bit by no Delta one ways with Alaska miles? It stinks.
- Last Day for a Chase Amtrak transfer! Here’s where I’m going with my points – what about you?
- Would you rather transfer 60K SPG points, or 75K American Express points?
- Amtrak points for sleeper travel is DEAD… or is it?
- Where our family of 8 is going for 40,000 miles and $93 (it's further than you think!)
- Delta just SPLIT UP my family!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Just book a R/T ticket then.
But I don’t want to spend another 100,000 miles to go back to Seattle!! 🙂
(Not that it’s a bad place of course!) 😀
Thanks for the heads up. If you hadn’t mentioned this, I likely would’ve eventually been bitten on this.
Alaska has been really disappointing me with partner availability lately. Aeromexico awards have not been bookable since September with alaska miles! I am surprised that nobody has blogged about this. Maybe I’m an outlier but this had been a huge deal for me.
I have noticed quite a lot lately that Delta offers a considerable amount of domestic low level availability at the same time that American, in particular, has eliminated much of their availability. I don’t know whether it is a case of Delta increasing availability or everyone being scared away from them so that the space they have always offered being left open. However, I have been watching American more closely and know that they are eliminating availability because I have seen as many as 32 seats disappear overnight on 8 different flights for the same day. That isn’t just people booking the available space. In my opinion, given the lack of availability that is continuing to get worse, American may very well end up being the least valuable award mile before much longer. It also remains the most difficult mile to obtain among the big 3, with no transfer partners. Especially for travelers like you (needing 8 tickets) and me (needing 6), that is a potently bad combination.