Would you pay 700,000 miles for an award ticket?

Frequent flier miles are the best way to fly in premium cabins all over the world, but sometimes saving the miles necessary for that free flight can be tough. I know a lot of people who, once their account gets to the 25,000 miles level, look to how they can get a free flight to Chicago or Miami.

While this may be OK for some people who don’t have large ambitions to fly in luxury all over the world, there comes a point when it seems a bit crazy to redeem miles.

Emirates Hennessy Prive A380 Onboard Bar

Emirates Hennessy Prive A380 Onboard Bar

If you want to drink some of the $1000 bottle of Hennessy Paradis in Emirates, it’ll cost you 200,000 miles one way.

We’ve been lucky enough to fly in a lot of other business class products all over the world, but none of them have come close to being as crazy a price as this one that we just found. A good friend of ours was asking for some help using her Delta SkyMiles to get to Australia, one of the most difficult destinations to achieve with miles. Just take a look at what she found.

Skymiles 700000 award

Skymiles 700000 award

Delta’s inflated awards

Delta got quite the reputation a while back for their SkyMiles being worthless, and with a chart like this you can see why! The idea that anyone would pay 700k miles for a ticket is absurd.

Quite some time ago, Delta removed their award charts from their website so you and I won’t ever have any idea how to calculate awards. Shady, right? I mean, imagine a store where you go and there are no prices. And when you check out, you pay whatever price they feel like charging you. It would be like going to a fancy restaurant and paying MP (market price) for everything.

Does Delta give you Hennessy Paradis or Dom Champagne? Nope. If you’re lucky you get a bumpy seat and overcooked beef.

a plate of food on a table

Delta One “Beef” dish

a seat on an airplane

Delta One Business Class Seat

Would you consider spending 700,000 miles for a first class ticket? I sure hope not! If you need some help booking your own award ticket, give us a call. We’re happy to help!

What’s the most expensive award ticket you’ve ever booked?

Author: Jon Nickel-D'Andrea

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4 Comments

  1. American is charging up to 840,000 miles roundtrip in first

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  2. The issue is that AA is also doing this and it’s actually worse than Delta! Their AAnytime awards have no ceiling! In fact they just announced they are raising AAnytime award levels to Australia! And they can literally set any amount they want – more than 700k if they wanted! In terms of miles both delta and AA suck. I hope United doesn’t follow suit – if they are smart they can use that differentiator to their advantage…

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  3. Not first class. Delta one is a business class product. Rediculous.

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  4. I only know one company that will charge something like that.. Smiles. They charge 580.000 milas to do a roundtrip from GRU to BKK with Emirates (their partner).

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