Delta SkyMiles Rage: 425,000 points for an empty business class seat – other passengers only pay 90,000 points!
Gary Leff August 27, 2024
Delta Air Lines will charge 425,000 SkyMiles for a one-way business class ticket from Atlanta to Santiago, Chile on April 17th.
Today is not a peak day. It’s not a day when the plane is full. It’s a day when they are trying to sell off their business class seats at low prices. They have all their inventory available and are selling the cheapest fares.
There are currently no seats reserved in the business class cabin.
And Delta is happy to offer award tickets for this flight on partner airlines, so if you’re an Air France-KLM Flying Blue member, you can book the same flight that Delta charges SkyMiles members 425,000 miles for for just 90,000 Flying Blue points.
Delta charges its members 4.7 times the miles that Air France frequent flyers pay for the same Delta flight. Delta doesn’t offer many saver awards on business class flights, but when it does, frequent flyers around the world can book these seats at a reasonable price, as long as they don’t use Delta miles.
Remember, Delta SkyMiles’ VP said they don’t even need to offer strong redemption value (“We’re not necessarily trying to play games with our customers.”) Customers continue to earn miles and use their credit cards, even though Delta SkyMiles is intentionally offering low value to its members.
The good news is that unless you’re tied to a Delta hub, you may not need to worry about SkyMiles status, and if your SkyMiles status doesn’t outweigh the value of the points you’ve accumulated, even if you do want to use your miles to fly Delta, you can easily earn better miles than the loyalty garbage coming out of Atlanta.
Luckily, Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue is a partner with all major transferable currencies (Chase, American Express, Citibank, Capital One, Wells Fargo, and Bilt), so it’s easy to save up your balance with Air France to take advantage of these flights — you don’t have to commit until you’re ready to book.
