Delta has released details of their new awards program for 2015 onwards, for the most part these changes seem to be positive. But it’ll be impossible to really tell until we can see the award availability for the different levels.
Key Points From Press Release:
- One way award flights are now available
- Now possible to use a combination of miles & cash
- Medallion status not effected
- 44 Award level pricing changes, more than 95 percent of the changes reflect a decrease in the miles needed for Award Travel redemption by SkyMiles members
- Effective for new Award Tickets booked beginning Jan. 1, 2015
- Customers will continue to have access to every seat on every Delta flight as an Award seat with no blackout dates
- New five tier award structure
- In 2013 more than 271 billion sky miles were redeemed for more than 11 million award redemptions (average redemption of 24,636 miles per award)
- There will be now five different award levels
Delta’s stated aim was to “Improve ability for people to use their miles, especially at the lower award levels”.
Contents
New Award Charts
The 2015 award charts are available for US (excluding Hawaii) and Canada, the international award charts will be released later this year. You can view the new award chart by clicking here, we’ve also embedded them below. They also have the current miles required and the number of miles required under the new system:
Delta 2015 Award Chart For Economy
Delta 2015 Award Chart For Business & First Class
Price Increases
- Peak award (now level 5) within Canada and US including Alaska:
- Economy now 65,000 (used to be 60,000)
- Business/first class now 110,000 (used to 100,000)
Everything else is either the same price or cheaper.
One Away Awards
Delta will finally be offering one way awards. These will be half the price of a round trip award. This is good news for one way travelers, or those going an unusual route and it’s glad to see another airline hopping on board this train (even if a little late).
Miles + Cash Option
You’ll now have the option to pay with a combination of both miles and cash if you’re short on miles.
In Delta’s example they provided two options:
- 35,000 miles + $5 taxes
- 25,000 miles + $159
Which means that you can effectively purchase points for 1.54¢/$0.0154 each (($159 – $4) / 10,000), which is much cheaper than the 3.5¢/$0.035 they currently charge to purchase points.
Delta does state the above example is only for illustrative purposes only, but we believe it’s bound to be in the ball park for what they will actually charge.
Improved Search Features
- New award calendar
- Shows you the lowest fares for the dates you select
- Expanded search capabilities
- Easier to view how much the price of a flight is in miles or dollars
Our Thoughts
First of all, why doesn’t Delta introduce the improved search features straight away. Their awards booking portal sucks at the moment and the changes they’ve suggested are good ones (yes I want you to show me what the cheapest flight is, why wouldn’t I want that?). They’d be doing themselves and their customers a favor by introducing this change immediately.
I generally don’t use airline miles for flights, because almost all of my flights are paid for by work (and then tack on a few extra days or a week to turn it into a bit of personal trip at the end). When I do fly for personal reasons I usually know far enough in advance that I can fly using a saver award (now called a level one award). These saver awards have dropped by 5,000 points when flying to the Middle East & South Asia (currently 85,000 miles round trip, will be 80,000 miles come 2015).
My main concern is that Delta will now offer even less level one awards (formerly saver awards) and people will be forced into purchasing the level two and level three awards (formerly standard). Delta is also making things unnecessarily complicated, it’s now difficult not only work out how many miles you’ll earn per flight into the future – but also how far these miles will go with five different levels.
Delta would’ve done well to simplify the award chart and keep a non-revenue based earning scheme, while that would’ve kept consumers happy this will obviously be better for their bottom line (assuming there isn’t a significant consumer backlash).
I am glad that they’ve finally added one way award travel for half the price of a round trip ticket. But at the end of the day I will continue to not fly Delta unless my choices are severely limited.
If you book a peak award (now called level 5) you’ll pay 65,000 points whereas before you would’ve been paying only 60,000 points. Business customers will pay an extra 10,000 points.
