Delta from Atlanta

[GPSTraveler]

Well Amy,

My own father is in the "build my frequent flier status" camp, and it drives me bonkers. I have actually seen him purposely buy a higher bucket seat on Delta in order to build towards a better medallion status for the next year, although I don't understand a bit of it. He told me that some international flights can earn 1.5X medallion points vs 1X or something like that.

He is the type of person that refuses to "leave the home team" even if Airtran or someone other carrier has the best deal.

We have actually done a family vacation where we fly one airline and he flies another because of this stuff.

Still on the Delta topic... not strayed yet.

These "Sale" fares to Aruba still blow me completely away!

Could these competitve rates have anything to do with the American terminal at the AUA airport? Are all of these flights priced as Semi - Domestic, possibly?

[Arubalisa]

Originally Posted by GPSTraveler

Could these competitve rates have anything to do with the American terminal at the AUA airport? Are all of these flights priced as Semi - Domestic, possibly?

Delta's routine out of Atlanta for quite awhile now has been that they charge whatever the market will bear, about $605 during the week for 21 day advance purchase and less expensive fares on weekends because of Air Tran (and probably a lesser extent, Spirit Air). Those fares have been ranging between $400 and $500. Less than 21 days advance purchase, if the flights are fuller, they are charging about $800.

The $367.10 sale fare "may be" in response to an American fare sale, but I doubt it. American is charging $381.10 through Miami during a weekday.

In that they are not a weekday competitor for non-stop flights like Air Tran is on the weekends, I doubt it is a matching fare, more likely it is just Delta trying to fill seats.

The "T" class fare sale out of ATL must be ticketed by July 14, with of course blackout dates during the holidays. I have attached the fare rules for further details. Maybe it can help out someone who is really flexible with their travel dates. Some dates the fare is already gone so you will just need to keep shopping dates until you find the fare still available. I was able to find a fare out of ATL of $484 for 12/17 - 12/25. MUCH better than the $875+ that I have seen at other times.

Also as Amy stated, "NO HIP OR MILEAGE EXCEPTIONS APPLY."

[~Amy~®]

Originally Posted by GPSTraveler

Well Amy,

My own father is in the "build my frequent flier status" camp, and it drives me bonkers. I have actually seen him purposely buy a higher bucket seat on Delta in order to build towards a better medallion status for the next year, although I don't understand a bit of it. He told me that some international flights can earn 1.5X medallion points vs 1X or something like that.

He is the type of person that refuses to "leave the home team" even if Airtran or someone other carrier has the best deal.

We have actually done a family vacation where we fly one airline and he flies another because of this stuff.

I know all about the Medallion program with Delta. My husband is Gold Medallion and I am Silver Medallion. If you're Gold, you get double miles for you all of your flights and at Silver and I get an extra 25% of miles flown - but again, it doesn't matter which fare class we've booked to get these extra miles since it's based on your Medallion status not the fare class.

But....if you book a Y, B, or M fare (which is a full fare and is an outrageous cost), you also do get another bonus of an extra 50% of miles for that flight if you have Medallion status. For us, the full fares are not worth the extra 50% since the fares are exremely high (you could just purchase miles from the airline itself at a much cheaper cost.)

We both fly alot for work and will also fly Delta as much as possible (even if another airline is slightly cheaper) because of the frequent flyer miles. We also both get free upgrades to First Class when available because of the Medallion status (just got bumped up for free on our last couple of flights to Aruba at New Years and in May.) We accumulate our miles and use them for free flights to Europe which gives you the most bang for your buck/mile. Last summer we flew First Class to Paris using miles - those two seats would have cost us a total of $7000 if we weren't using frequent flyer miles.

So, if you learn how to use the system, it does save you money on future trips.

[Arubalisa]

Originally Posted by ~Amy~®

But....if you book a Y, B, or M fare (which is a full fare and is an outrageous cost), you also do get another bonus of an extra 50% of miles for that flight.

So I don't have to look it up , these are the fully refundable fares?

If so, one advantage of booking it, which in our case was probably a one in a million chance, was that when the fare for Business class dropped lower than the full fare, we were able to refund the coach tickets at no penalty and rebook the business class and get the refunded amount in cash.

We had booked over the holidays and at time of booking the fully refundable fares had been the only ones left.

Rule of thumb, if you DO have refundable tickets, watch the fares, and even if you don't check your seats to make sure the plane configuration does not change. This happened on our June trip. We were able to catch it fairly soon enough that we were still able to get two seats together and the third one row ahead.

[~Amy~®]

Originally Posted by Arubalisa

So I don't have to look it up , these are the fully refundable fares?

If so, one advantage of booking it, which in our case was probably a one in a million chance, was that when the fare for Business class dropped lower than the full fare, we were able to refund the coach tickets at no penalty and rebook the business class and get the refunded amount in cash.

We had booked over the holidays and at time of booking the fully refundable fares had been the only ones left.

Rule of thumb, if you DO have refundable tickets, watch the fares, and even if you don't check your seats to make sure the plane configuration does not change. This happened on our June trip. We were able to catch it fairly soon enough that we were still able to get two seats together and the third one row ahead.

Yes, those are the refundable fares.

I check my seats at least once a week from the day I book my flight. Saturdays are the days they will usually change the aircraft or adjust your departure/arrival times so I almost always check on Saturdays. We've had aircraft changes, too, in the past (not just for Aruba) and if you catch it quickly enough you can still get the seats you wanted/had (in our case, we always book the exit row seats.)