Delta SkyMiles--Are There More Cities You Can Fly into and out of If You Call Delta

I think Skymiles awards seats are based upon availability and not destination. I know there are others here who are better versed in Skymiles redemptions than I, I'm sure they'll weigh in.

However, if you are going to fly to Berlin on Delta, you are going to go through either Paris or Amsterdam. There's no getting around a connection. Same for Prague and Budapest, and probably Hamburg. Delta doesn't fly direct there as far as I know (I think last year Delta had a summer nonstop from JFK to BER, but I'm not sure they still do).

If you are trying to book award seat in Comfort +, if that's what you mean by "Comfort Class", and you don't see any availability, it's unlikely calling them would free up a seat. Delta would rather people pay cash for those seats than redeem miles for them. I have read that you can start looking for award seats 330 days out, because there will be the most award availability then, though you're not likely to find a bargain in terms of miles needed.

From the various points and miles groups I follow and newsletters I read, my impression is that Skymiles redemptions are more plentiful and a better value for domestic flights. Skymiles redemptions for even economy seats to Europe have gotten outrageous. At the beginning of 2020 I got a Main Economy seat to Edinburgh from ATL for 35K Skymiles. That flight was cancelled due to the pandemic, and I haven't seen anything like it since.

I also doubt you will get more seat award options by calling than you can see on the website. Many European cities require a connection through a major European hub. I keep my Amex card to earn miles, but the miles needed to get even a European economy seat are high these days when compared to their competitor, American Airlines.

I find that the price in both dollars and SkyMiles is more reasonable, say, six months out rather than 10 months out. And advice I can offer is to check the website every few days, especially six months or so out. Earlier this year I booked a one-way flight to Europe for roughly 85,000 miles (again, the Delta comfort or comfort plus class). One-way tickets usually cost the same as round-trip tickets. Two months later, the price dipped below 50,000 miles for several days before shooting back up. An advantage with booking with SkyMiles is that you can readily cancel and rebook. The fluctuations on the website can be so frequent and at times so dramatic that you have constantly monitor the website for price and availability changes.

You can fly to those cities but you will have to transfer somewhere in Europe unless you happen to live in a Delta hub in the USA (e.g., Atlanta). I live on the west coast and have limited direct route options, but have flown to Prague on Delta miles via JFK and home via Munich/Atlanta. As noted in prior response you have to check early and often to see if there are deals for you. If you have the Delta American Express I believe you can also do a miles + cash option which sometimes works out to be a better deal. I gave up the mileage game after my last trip using them (travel drama and difficulties rebooking a miles ticket to another day).

No, you won't get any different options. Be prepared for your schedule to change multiple times. The tickets I bought (miles) for getting over to Europe in December, they can't even get us on the last leg of that flight that we paid for (in miles). So they told us to throw that leg away and buy our own way there. Yes, really. Just pack your patience with them.

How are you looking for flights using miles?

You can fly between any two points using miles, no problem. Simply log into your account, go to "book" put in your starting and ending airport, dates, and indicate to show the results in miles, or miles and cash, and bam, results.

If you are looking at promo emails that show sample flights, yes, they do not show all possibilities, you need to use the booking option.

As an example, I did a search for mid-May of 2025 to Prague, from my smaller regional airport, and had a result of about 200,000 miles (plus airport taxes of $59) for Comfort Plus. The regular fare right now is about $1700.

Delta only flies to select cities directly (same with all US airlines), so yeah, flying to cities other than their primary hubs, and to cities further East, you will need to change in Europe, usually to one of their partner airlines.

Delta is pretty notorious for high redemption amounts for transatlantic trips.

While it is not Skymiles, Delta is part of the Alliance with KLM and AirFrance, so
if you can get miles on the Flying Blue plan, you can redeem them for Delta
flights at differing amounts - each frequent flyer plan looks at forecasts and
redemption plans in different ways.

Winter obviously has less demand than summer, with spring/fall in between.

I would focus on flights into the hubs. Without the core hub flight, you won't be
able to get anywhere else in Europe.

Comfort class within Europe doesn't really exist, and business class is just a
coach seat up front with the middle seat blocked. So if you want to fly comfort/PE,
what really matters is the transatlantic segment.

I agree that calling won't get you anything different. The agents see the same availability
you do on the website. These days, there is more chance of the agents making a mistake
and booking you on something you didn't want. And you might wait a long time to reach
an agent.

One thing you can watch for on Delta is flash sales

last year. I got a trip to London for about 40,000 miles just because they randomly put them on sale. You can sign up on their website to be alerted.