While we're on the topic of United tricks, I thought I'd take the opportunity to remind you all of how to avoid the cancellation/re-deposit of miles fees typically collected on awards.

Normally canceling a United award and re-depositing your miles incurs a $200 per ticket fee if you don’t have United status.

Recently a reader wrote to us asking the following:
"I have held reservations on United since Sept 2016 for flying from Savannah to Copenhagen on June 1, returning June 13.

The frequent flyer community freaked out over the weekend when expensive fuel surcharges popped on Delta awards flying partner Virgin Atlantic in Upper Class from the United States to Europe.

Delta already collects fuel surcharges on partner awards that originate in Europe.

But out of pocket costs skyrocketed a few days ago to around $500 for Virgin Atlantic Upper Class awards originating in the United States, and everyone thought it was yet another unannounced dig from Delta because, well, it wouldn't be that surprising. Delta devalues their award prices all the time with no notice.

Until July 5, 2017, the Gold Delta Card is offering 60,000 bonus Delta miles and a $50 statement credit after you spend $3,000 in your first three months.

Update 5/15/17: I originally left out Virgin America award space from this post because we’d heard reports that First Class Virgin America award space showing up on alaskair.com was phantom. I tested to see if the award space was still phantom, and it's not, so I have updated this post to include info on Virgin America award space to Honolulu. The rest of the airlines' award space hasn't been updated but their patterns remain the same. 

Finding First Class award space to Hawaii is complicated.

There seemed to be enough interest in my original post on this topic, Who Has the Most First Class Award Space to Honolulu?, that I followed up with the next most popular destination in Hawaii: Maui (OGG airport).

Through May 10, 2017 at 11:59 PM ET, you can book roundtrips in Delta economy...

to Florida for as little as 20k miles
to the Caribbean for as little as 25k miles

...for travel September 25 through November 14.Travel can originate in the contiguous 48 states or Alaska.

Technically the advertisement says as little as 20k miles roundtrip to Florida OR the Caribbean, but my initial scans only showed 25k roundtrips to the Caribbean.

This is a pretty good price to Florida, although the discount to the Caribbean is better. Not to mention--what would you really be saving your

Which airline has the best miles and frequent flyer program? United, American, and Delta are the big three legacy carriers that most directly compete with each other in the United States. For that reason, I publish charts that compare their award prices.

United and American Airlines currently have award charts that were devalued in February 2014 and March 2016 respectively. Delta's is in a state of constant devaluation with frequent unannounced price changes that come into effect for flights flown a few months later.

Delta and Alaska Airlines are completely severing their partnership as of May 1, 2017. If you were planning on redeeming Alaska miles on a Delta flight, or a Delta miles on an Alaska flight, do so by April 30.
What This Means
No more codeshare agreement, no more earning miles nor elite credits, and no more redemptions of miles on each others flights.

Below is the timetable released by Delta of which flights on Alaska, depending on when they were/are booked, will earn SkyMiles.

Last week I wrote about how Delta devalued SkyMiles, yet again, by increasing the prices of awards flying partners to:

Europe in Business Class, now 85,000 miles instead of 70,000
North Asia in Business Class, now 95,000 miles instead of 80,000
Australia in Business Class, now 115,000 miles instead of 95,000
South America in Business Class, now 100,000 miles instead of 75,000
South America in economy, now 35,000 miles instead of 30,000

At the time of writing that post, however, there remained one loophole for getting your award to price

Through April 19, 2017 (this Wednesday) at 11:59 PM ET, you can book roundtrips to southern South America in Delta One for travel August through November 16 for only 105,000 Delta miles. The standard price is 145,000 miles roundtrip. You can also book roundtrips in Delta economy for 50,000 miles compared to the standard roundtrip price of 60,000 miles.

This isn’t a particularly amazing award price to the bottom of the Americas in a flat bed.