Delta Moves to Variable Pricing for Partner Awards

[levelnine]

While very few people here will collect Delta Sky Pesos for good reason, it is important to notice what is happening with Delta's program because it is leading the charge away from fixed-price awards — first on its own flights and now, it appears, on many of its partner flights.

Delta is the canary in the coal mine for frequent flyer programs in my opinion. It is the most profitable airline in the world and, if other US carriers start to follow Delta's move, it'll only be a matter of time before it spreads around the world.

We're seeing sky-high award rates using SkyMiles on many SkyTeam partner airlines – and in what's certainly not a coincidence, they're almost always matching exactly what Delta is charging for its own flights. For the last year and change, a one-way economy flight from the U.S. to Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) with KLM cost you 35,000 SkyMiles – or 120,000 SkyMiles in KLM business class.

Here's what you see now:



Ouch. That's an 83% increase for an economy award and a 175% jump for business class – overnight, with no warning. It's not like using 120,000 SkyMiles to fly business class to Europe before was a bargain but at this point, it's almost laughable. Delta gonna Delta.

Delta Kills Off (Almost) All Partner Awards with Exorbitant Prices

Delta has finally put the final nail in the coffin of using SkyMiles to fly its partner airlines with some exorbitant increases that put them in line with Delta flights.

thriftytraveler.com

 

[Mattg]

Looks like Australia-Europe is still 90,000 SkyMiles.

I wonder if this is just affecting flights on Delta's trans-Atlantic Joint Venture partners?

Still, it's concerning and a reminder that since SkyMiles has no award charts, prices can change any time without notice.

 

[levelnine]

I wonder if this is just affecting flights on Delta's trans-Atlantic Joint Venture partners?

From what I've read, some bloggers are suggesting it is only on some partners. For the moment, at least.

Partners affected include Virgin Atlantic, Air France/KLM, Korean Air and more.

Delta Air Lines: Looks like yet another SkyMiles devaluation

It seems that Delta has raised the prices on partner awards to approximately the same, stratospherically-high levels as its own flights

frequentmiler.com

 

[Tiki]

I am mostly collecting DL from the US Amex to use on Latam intra-South America in a couple years. So far they have not changed.

 

[Mattg]

From what I've read, some bloggers are suggesting it is only on some partners. For the moment, at least.

Delta Air Lines: Looks like yet another SkyMiles devaluation

It seems that Delta has raised the prices on partner awards to approximately the same, stratospherically-high levels as its own flights

frequentmiler.com

KLM, Air France, Virgin Atlantic and Korean Air all have Joint Venture partnerships with Delta FWIW. (Korean Air is obviously part of a different JV to the trans-Atlantic one.)