Delta Award Sale From Just 2,000 Miles; Comparing The Mileage Values

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Delta is having an unadvertised sale on award tickets.

In general Delta’s miles closely follow the cost of a ticket, though there are exceptions such as when I booked Delta One suites to Amsterdam for just 98K miles round-trip.

That has meant that it’s tough, though not impossible, to get values above 1 cent per mile on Delta flights.

But award rates have dropped to as low as 2,000 miles for a one-way ticket. Of course airfare is also down, so I compared the mileage and cash rates on several routes to see if there are bargains to be had. That’s calculated by taking the airfare, subtracting $5.60 tax that’s also paid on award ticket, and dividing by the miles required to get the cpm or cents per mile value that you are getting for the redemption.

I’d say that any Delta redemption that is 1.3cpm or more is an excellent redemption. Above 2cpm is an outstanding redemption.

In cases where the cpm exceeds how you value your AMEX points, it can be worth transferring points to Delta for an award ticket. But that’s a calculation you’ll have to make on each redemption as cpm values are all over the place.

Comparisons for a one-way flight on 3/3:

Los Angeles-Seattle:
Basic economy: 2,000 miles vs $49 (2.17cpm)
Main cabin: 2,500 miles vs $64 (2.34cpm)
Comfort+: 4,000 miles vs $88 (2.06cpm)
First: 14,000 miles vs $148 (1.02cpm)

Cleveland-LaGuardia:
Basic economy: 4,500 miles vs $69 (1.41cpm)
Main cabin: 7,500 miles vs $109 (1.38cpm)
Comfort+: 9,000 miles vs $123 (1.38cpm)
First: 11,500 miles vs $158 (1.33cpm)

LaGuardia-Fort Lauderdale:
Basic economy: 4,500 miles vs $49 (0.96cpm)
Main cabin: 5,000 miles vs $74 (1.37cpm)
Comfort+: 7,500 miles vs $118 (1.5cpm)
First: 19,000 miles vs $263 (1.35cpm)

Atlanta-Los Angeles:
Basic economy: 4,500 miles vs $59 (1.19cpm)
Main cabin: 7,000 miles vs $99 (1.33cpm)
Comfort+: 16,000 miles vs $208 (1.27cpm)
First: 47,000 miles vs $557 (1.17cpm)

JFK-Los Angeles:
Basic economy: 7,000 miles vs $99 (1.33cpm)
Main cabin: 10,000 miles vs $139 (1.33cpm)
Comfort+: 22,000 miles vs $278 (1.24cpm)
First: 45,000 miles vs $529 (1.16cpm)

Find award bargains on other routes? Hit the comments!

HT: FM