China Airlines has just taken delivery of its 777-300ERs. The new plane looks beautiful with a top-of-the-line flat bed business class, a quality premium economy, and economy that offers the chance to combine three seats into one family "couch."

Note that China Airlines is based in Taiwan and is a member of SkyTeam. Don't confuse it with Air China, based in Beijing, and a member of Star Alliance.

The new 777-300ERs will be flying between the United States and Taipei starting in December 2014.

Delta has released its award chart for awards booked on or after January 1, 2015. Check it out here.

Great News: The lowest priced "Level 1" awards (formerly "Saver") will remain at the same price or drop compared to the award chart that goes into effect on June 1, 2014.

SkyMiles have seen a lot of changes the last few months:

First Delta announced a devaluation of its award chart for awards flown June 2014 or later.

Buried in Delta's major award chart devaluation last year was a second piece of bad news: Delta awards could no longer be put on hold under any circumstances.

But there had to be a way, I thought.

Long time reader Les forwarded me his targeted offer for a Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express: 50,000 bonus miles after spending $1k in three months.

The normal offer is only 30k bonus miles after $1k in spending in the first three months, so this is a substantially better offer.

There are two ways to know you are targeted for the higher 50k offer.

Update 11/12/13: The current best deal is this offer for the Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express:

Earn 30K bonus miles after you make $1K in purchases on your new Card within your first 3 months and a $50 statement credit after you make a Delta purchase with your new Card within your first 3 months.
Earn As You Spend: Get 2X miles on Delta purchases and 1X miles for all other eligible dollars spent.
Check your first bag free on every Delta flight - that's a savings of up to $200 per round trip for a family

Delta miles are the worst. I would rather have United, US Airways, American, and in most cases British Airways Avios. But that doesn't mean Delta miles are useless. When a good use pops up, I like to spotlight it, so that people with a stash of Delta miles can see the valuable possibilities.

Out of morbid curiosity, I decided to check Delta's award availability from Los Angeles to Honolulu. I have checked in the past and seen literally zero low-miles-price award seats from Los Angeles to Honolulu for 330 days.

To my great surprise, there was great award availability from Los Angeles to Honolulu, but only at certain times and in certain cabins.

Where's the space?

Delta has three tiers of award availability: low, medium, and high. We only want the low miles price, but Delta is by far the stingiest US-based airline about releasing low level award availability.

You can do some cool things with Delta SkyMiles.

I spent five hours booking a roundtrip from Buenos Aires to Bariloche this week. But at least I avoided an hour and a half in taxis to pick up paper tickets! HUH!?

Bariloche is 851 miles to the southwest of Buenos Aires as the plane flies.

I decided to book a last-second economy award for two because Bariloche is on the northern edge of Patagonia, and summer is over.

Update 11/6/14: Here is an Anatomy of an Award post in which we book the theoretical award below for an actual client!

Two of the most frequent destination requests we receive at our Award Booking Service are Bora Bora and Australia/New Zealand. These are the aspirational trips that families want to take after diligently saving their frequent flyer miles. Luckily, both trips can be accomplished in a single award. Even better--Delta SkyMiles are the mileage currency to use. We recently had a couple with a sizable SkyMiles balance who wanted to visit both places.