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One of the most frustrating aspects of using points and miles is the availability of award space. Sometimes you have scrimped and saved, taken a mileage run and accrued enough miles for your dream journey only to be frustrated by the lack of award space. Finding the right space can be like panning for gold, so it’s a great surprise to find wide open award space on Delta from the US to Hawaii during the peak summer season.
What To Look For
If you are looking for award space to Hawaii this summer, there are several steps you can take that will make your efforts much easier:
- Los Angeles and Seattle seem to have the best availability
- August should be your first place to start. June and July are not quite as open
- From the 5 Delta hubs, opt first for nonstop flights before trying the options for all flights
- Use Wikipedia pages for each airport in Hawaii to identify all nonstop Delta destinations (Examples: HNL (Oahu/Honolulu) and OGG (Maui/Kahului))
- As an example, any dates that show 22,500 miles and represent Delta-operated flights can be booked by partners
The question is now what to do once you have found the perfect award space that dovetails with your schedule. Well, the first thing to do is not to book on Delta!
How To Book
We recently reported on booking SkyTeam award space on Korean Air. This is where it will come in handy for booking Delta awards. Booking through Delta’s site will cost you 45K miles for a round trip. Booking through Korean Air will cost you only 25K miles since they have access to Delta’s lowest award space. You can transfer your Ultimate Rewards to Korean Air if you don’t have any miles in their program to complete the bookings.
Not Near Hubs?
If you're not near any of the Delta cities with award space, see if you can find a connection at the lowest level award space as well — if not, it might be worth it to use additional miles or piece together separate tickets / possibly even purchasing them from a low-cost carrier if the price is right.
Overall
Hawaii is a popular award destination that our award booking service handles. If you are looking for some award space to Hawaii you are in luck; it is very rare to find this amount of award space open on any airline. The fact that space is open to one of the prime vacation destinations is a great bonus.
Source: Points with a Crew/Sharon Peterson
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Looks like some awards are starting to fill.
How can you know which flights are available through Korean air. I just got off the phone with them trying to book my family on miles for a couple weeks in July. They didn’t have the dates I needed and seem to have very limited availability (it is a group trip and we already have room accommodations). Is there any way to actually search what is available through Korean? We are flying from TYS to OGG. Also, do they generally open up more seats to partners as the dates get closer or is it the exact opposite? I am a little concerned at this point that I may not be able to get the dates I really need.
Brandon – The best way to search for partner seat award availability would actually be on Korean’s website — https://awardwallet.com/blog/skyteam-award-booking-now-possible-online-with-korean/
Search for all the non-stop flights Delta has from the mainland US to Hawaii and then piece together the segments to TYS. For example, here are all the airlines / airports served to OGG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahului_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations
I think I have tried 100 searches on Korean Air’s website and I get the same thing every time.
We are unable to find recommendations for your search.
You can search more detailed skyteam flight schedule through Flight Finder menu in Skyteam website (Open in new window) .
You will be redirected to the search page to modify search criteria and view flight result again.
Any tips? Am I doing something wrong?
If you’re searching from here https://www.koreanair.com/global/en/booking/booking-gate.html#bookingChange, you’re at the right place. One thing you might try is using Air France’s site or Alaska’s site. The key thing is you only want to look for Delta operated flights. If displayed on either site that means Korean can book those flights too.
Great suggestion for using Wikipidea pages for finding non-stop airport destinations
I am a platinum member on DL. Which route would allow me to use my RUC for a lie flat seat? Thanks!
Between Hawaii and LAX, SEA, SFO, or SLC you can use a Regional Upgrade certificate. Not all (most) of these routes/scheduled flights have lie-flats. You’ll need to search the calendar and review individual aircraft.
Already had flights booked to Hawaii this summer, otherwise this could have been good! Though flights from my area for far more sparse, not much saver availability to the hubs. Great opportunity for Korean awards though, for whoever can take advantage!
Thank you. Wish DTW flew direct, but still might have to take advantage of this
amazing!! definitely way better than aadvantage availability
I am so close to redeeming for this! Delta there, Virgin back.
Hawaii in summer is a rare reduction. Wish I had the time. Maybe next year
Love the Korean Air option. Thanks!
If only they had flights from New Orleans. 🙂
Looks like I need to work in some Delta miles for my HI trip this summer.. Sweet. Thanks!!
nice to see Hawaii opening up
Exceptional value I see.
Destination very attractive and good availability.
Who is interested should book very soon because Delta can reduce the availability for some destinations (Hawaii would be one of the first I think).
I’ve had an ongoing love affair w/Hawaii ever since my first trip in 1986. We vacation there repeatedly and it’s good to see this info regarding DL space. Thx for the info!
wow hawaii! That’s always hard to get lower mileage tickets to! Thank you for the info! I would love to go for some warm sun fun. I’ll make sure to look at the rules…august, hmm..hot there. Any hotels deals that you’ve heard of too? ;o)