Sunday, July 12, 2009

Hip Hip Hooray for Delta Award Travel!

Frequent flyer mile junkies have long bemoaned Delta's program saying it's far too easy to amass hundreds of thousands of miles and much too difficult to actually spend them on award travel.

I must say that I agree with part one of that statement. It is very easy to earn frequent flyer miles from Delta but unlike some others, I've had great luck redeeming them for long-haul travel and last-minute getaways.

We were able to book award tickets to Istanbul and back from Athens for our upcoming Seabourn Odyssey cruise. I originally booked a nonstop to Turkey but could only get a connecting flight on the way home from Greece. I kept checking Delta's award calendar and, finally, the nonstop flight we wanted opened up. I called Delta's SkyMiles number and in just a few minutes locked in the better itinerary. Thank you Delta! You just saved us six hours!

Delta SkyMiles reps are terrific and have always been friendly and helpful when I've called. That's why I'm not afraid to continue to build my SkyMiles account.

Here's part of my strategy to keep my Delta SkyMiles balance high:

Register for all promotions. Visit Delta.com frequently and register for all promotions, even if you don't think they apply to you. You never know when a last minute business trip will crop up. (For example, Delta is currently offering 2,500 bonus miles per segment flown between NYC and BOS.) In 2008, I earned over 200,000 bonus miles from these types of promotions.

Apply for the American Express Delta SkyMiles credit card and receive up to 25,000 bonus miles.

Shop at Delta's online mall: SkyMilesShopping.com. This mall tends to have the best deals as far as miles earned per dollar spent. However, I always check several loyalty malls before making a purchase.

By following this simple strategy, you can earn tons of miles in no time. Which frequent flyer program is your favorite and why?

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