Brand New Delta Transatlantic Route Has Amazing Award Space This Summer

MileValue is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.

Note: Some of the offers mentioned below may have changed or are no longer be available. You can view current offers here.

Delta has a new daily flight from Philadelphia to London that begins April 26, 2015 with excellent economy award space immediately and good Business Class award space later in the year.

Delta charges 30,000 miles each way in economy and 62,500 miles each way in flat bed Business Class. If you don’t live in Philadelphia, there are flights from Delta hubs plus Seattle and Raleigh/Durham to Philadelphia to connect.

Award Space

First I searched for one passenger in economy just on the direct flight from Philadelphia to London. As you can see, the flight starts April 26, and there is award space at Delta’s cheapest transatlantic price of 30,000 SkyMiles nearly every day for the first four weeks.

Even later in the summer, award space is excellent with almost every day available for 30,000 or 37,500 SkyMiles, which used to be Level 1 and Level 2 on Delta’s award chart before that were eliminated.I ran the same search for two passengers, and award space is still available for 30,000 miles per person from June 27 to July 18. That’s excellent for peak season.

Next I searched for Business Class for one passenger from April 26 for the first five weeks of the route. There is no award space at the cheapest price of 62,500 miles. A few days in May are 80,000 miles one way.

Later in the year, there is regular Business Class award space for 62,500 miles one way.

Taxes

Taxes departing the United Kingdom are very high. A roundtrip in economy is 60,000 Delta miles + $192 in taxes.

Taxes are even higher in Business Class at about $300 roundtrip. You can save almost $150 on the economy award and $250 on the Business Class award by returning from a lower tax country like Spain.

As always, if you want to fly an open jaw to Europe, fly into London and home from somewhere on the continent with lower taxes.

You’re Better at Searching than Delta.com

This great award space to Europe over the Summer will be protected by the incompetence of the Delta search engine. Philadelphia is not a Delta hub, so delta.com doesn’t look for connections via Philadelphia.

But there’s no reason you can’t fly Raleigh to Philly to London on two Delta flights. If both have Level 1 award space, the cost is 30,000 miles. You just need to search segment-by-segment.

On May 1, there is Level 1 award space (we know because it prices at 12,500 miles one way) from Raleigh to Philadelphia–pictured below–and from Philadelphia to London–see the calendars above.

But on May 1, Raleigh to Philadelphia to London itineraries do not show up on a delta.com search for awards from Raleigh to London. All the 30,000 mile routings are via JFK, including some with 10+ hour layovers.
If a Delta award connecting in Philadelphia is the best itinerary the day you want to fly, do what you always have to do when you want to book an award you can’t bring up online: call the airline. Call Delta at 800-323-2323 and feed the agent the date, cabin, and flight number of each flight you found. Ask for the phone fee to be waived, since you couldn’t book online.

Possible Connections

Delta and Alaska Airlines, a Delta partner searchable on delta.com, have several flights to Philadelphia that you could fly to connect to this transatlantic award space.

If you live in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Seattle, etc, you can connect to London with one stop in Philadelphia for as little as 30,000 Delta miles.