Delta to raise award ticket fees, passengers to give up on award tickets

by Grant Martin on

One of the most sensitive places that airlines have been pandering for extra money in has been in their frequent flyer programs. We’re well past the “I thought award tickets were supposed to be be free” argument in the airline circles — at this point, many travelers are just in hand-on-the-forehead mode, waiting to see how high fees will go.

Award tickets have always incurred a few fees. Taxes, most obviously, are always tacked on top of “free tickets” because the airline has no control over their imposition. But recently, “fuel charges” have started to appear, ranging in prices from 25$ for domestic tickets well into the hundreds for international fares.

While booking fees for award tickets have been around on some airlines (not all of them) for a while now, Delta just decided to up the ante and take an extra gouge out of frequent flyer’s pockets starting today:

  • For Award Tickets issued 21 days or more before departure date, no fee is applied.
  • For Award Tickets issued 8 to 20 days before departure date, a $75 fee is applied.
  • For Award Tickets issued 4 to 7 days before departure date, a $100 fee is applied.
  • For Award Tickets issued 3 days or less prior to departure date, a $150 fee is applied.
  • The fee is waived for Award Tickets issued from a Platinum Medallion® members’ account

For example, someone needs to fly to Milwaukee this Sunday from Atlanta because his or her mother is sick. Market price? 258$ Book an award ticket on Delta? “Free” plus 150$ in taxes. Net saved, 158$ 108$. You tell me if it was worth saving up that 25,000 miles.

Are frequent flyer programs dying?

by Grant Martin on

With all of the recent cutbacks in the airline industry, frequent flyer programs are taking a beating. While passenger loyalty rewards are a great perk to air travel, any freebies given away by the carriers cut into the bottom line — a mark that has fallen under intense scrutiny over the last six months.

To mitigate some of the loss from award mileage and ticket redemptions, airlines are making it harder and more expensive to use to earn and use your miles. Just last month, Delta Airlines instituted a fuel surcharge for booking an award flight; now in addition to taxes that you pay for that ticket you’ll have to pony up up to fifty dollars for the privilege of booking it. Others, like American Airlines, are increasing the number of miles that you have to redeem for certain tickets and charging an additional fee to upgrade your seats into a higher class.

All of these changes are provoking industry analysts to worry about the future of frequent flier programs. George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog.com, points out that some alternative reward credit cards are now more beneficial then keeping a miles card. Others, like Clark Howard point to the devaluing mile and wonder if it’s even worth accruing miles at all, saying “Don’t waste any effort chasing frequent flyer miles, which are like fool’s gold.”

Is the situation really this dire?For the casual traveler, it may be. Those of you who only fly once in a while and slowly earn miles up to a free ticket every five or ten years may see their award programs changed or their miles devalued from under their feet — such is the nature of business in a tight, evolving industry.

But for the acute traveler, there are many many reasons to still keep banking miles. Elite status, the key to getting upgrades, better seats and more miles is still a huge part of any mileage program and is still worth attaining. And there are still many uses for your miles — even if those avenues are harder to approach. Patience, timing and strategy play a critical role in making the correct award booking and with the right perspective it’s still possible — if not easy — to find award tickets.

If you want to bore down into the nitty gritty of making your miles work for you, here’s a tip: think about how much you travel and think about how much time you want to devote to working the system. If mile accrual is an every-so-often occurrence and you’re having a hard enough time finding a chance to cook dinner, you might want to relax, have a couple of bottles of wine and ask your neighborhood geek to look into your miles situation.

Alternatively, if you’re a 150k mile/year earner with some time at the airport lounge, orient yourself with Flyertalk, Airfarewatchdog and your local airline’s website. You’ll quickly learn how to best apply your miles.

Just don’t stop plugging your frequent flyer number into your reservations — trust me, it’s worth it.

Delta institutes fuel surcharges on award flights — who is next?

by Grant Martin on

One of the perks of having a frequent flyer number used to be earning enough miles for a free ticket. Free being a relative term, because we still had to pay some taxes. Domestically, this was about five dollars, while internationally this could be up to fifty or a hundred. No big deal, I always had a few empty cans to return.

Not any more on Delta. Citing fuel costs, the Atlanta-based airline is now going to charge a 25$ fuel surcharge for domestic award bookings and 50$ for international itineraries.

“But Grant,” you say, isn’t an award ticket supposed to be FREE?

Yeah, that’s what I thought too.

These sort of shenanigans are what we in the community call “devaluation of miles” and are indirectly a product of downsizing in the industry. Airlines want you to use fewer of miles, so they make them harder and more frustrating to spend. Fewer award tickets = more revenue tickets = more cash on hand.

Devaluation is another reason that many passengers in the Delta/Northwest merger are a little concerned. While both CEOs claim that our miles and status are secure, neither will profess to if they’re secure in value as well. Sure, you have 100,000 miles, but our new Deltwest airline charges 150,000 miles per award ticket. With a 200$ fuel surcharge.

Expect more of the same petty fees to show up across other carriers as they scramble to raise extra cash — my guess is that this will be picked up by the other legacies pretty quick.

Delta’s fuel surcharges go into effect August 15th, so book your award travel before then.

Frequent Flyer Fare Sale on American et al.

by Grant Martin on

Several of the major carriers are currently in a frequently flyer mile fare war among short hop tickets. As many of you know, a normal frequent flyer ticket costs 25k miles or more. But as many more of you know, most of us have far less than that in our accounts.

In this case, many tickets (depending on the carrier) are about 15k miles. I just booked a ticket from Detroit to New York for a grand total of five dollars in taxes.

If you know your plans well enough in advance, book early. American Airlines, for example, charges an extra $50 in fees if you book inside of a 21 day window prior to departure. You’ll also want to check the market price for your ticket; since the price of mileage tickets has gone down, so have the cash tickets. It may be better worth spending the $130 on the airfare and earning the miles against blowing your load on a cheap mileage ticket.

But for those of you who earn miles at a snail’s pace or have 15k stranded miles in a random frequent flyer account, take this opportunity to get away for the weekend and visit some friends in New York for dinner.

American’s fare sale is here while other carriers have similar pages. Travel between September 1 and February 29th.