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Delta has opened up business class saver award space for direct flights between Detroit and Honolulu. Booking with Delta requires a ton of SkyMiles, whereas Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles offer much better value at only 37,500 miles + $5.60 per person each way.
The Deal
- Fly DTW-HNL and HNL-DTW in lie-flat business class seats for 37,500 Flying Club miles + $5.60.
Quick Thoughts
Even though these direct flights are on Delta, booking with SkyMiles isn’t the best option as they’re charging a lot. Those same flights between June and September are bookable through Virgin Atlantic for only 37,500 miles each way. Here’s what availability looks like between August and September:
One of the best aspects of this is that availability is there for 8 passengers in business class. That’s unlikely to last long, so if there’s a large group of you wanting to travel in comfort to Hawaii, you’ll want to jump on this ASAP.
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[…] less traditional route to get to Tahiti. Almost a year in advance, I had found availability for Delta One business class from Detroit to Honolulu in flat bed seats and booked it. I then found that Hawaiian Airlines flies the ~5.5hr flight from […]
So I booked this award using virgin Atlantic miles. Dtw to Hnl nonstop first class. Got an email from Delta today they took me off the nonstop and put me on dtw to lax, lax to Hnl. No lie flat seat. Definitely pissed off.
That’s awful. I’d be pissed off too. So far mine have stuck as is, but you have me worried
[…] night, Stephen reported on the outrageous first class award availability on Delta’s new route from Detroit to Honolulu that starts service next summer (for up to eight passengers). The catch is that while Delta still […]
Two questions:
1)Wouldn’t booking via Korean Air miles be an even better deal?
2)Can you add other segments aded on for no extra mileage to get to/from DTW if that is not your home airport?
1) Yes Korean charges just 45K round trip. If you have the Korean miles, then that’s a great way to go. Problem is that Chase no longer transfers to Korean.
2) If you book with Virgin, they charge extra for each segment. If you book with Korean, then yes you can add the previous legs on at no additional charge.
I was able to book using Air France Flying Blue miles (transferred from Citi) for 69k mile round trip, which included the flight to position from NYC to Detroit. Surcharges were marginally higher (~$80 per ticket round trip). This might be a good alternative to Virgin if you need the extra segment.
[…] HT: Frequent Miler […]
Here’s a video showing how to find the flights: https://www.useloom.com/share/e6072ea52be84ab88493cd529fa86b26
Thanks for the video, that definitely helped get past some of the problems I was having (choosing HNL as the airport, redeeming miles graying out, etc)!
I’d been having the exact same issue others were having. When doing a search, click on ‘Show advanced options’ and select ‘Upper Class’ – that then displays the results rather than giving the message that there were no seats found for my search.
To enter HNL as a destination, click the “Full Airport List” link that shows up when your cursor is in the Destination text box. Then click Hawaii, then Honlulu
How do you see partner availability on the virgin atlantic website? I can’t even get the website to take HNL as a valid airport.
How come I can never seem to find these award flights? When I go to Virgin Atlantic’s main page I can’t even get past the route selection of Detroit-Honolulu; it says those routes are not an option. What am I missing here? 🙁
Don’t see one seat at 350am June-Sep. Another waist of time.
Certainly no intent to waste your time — availability like this rarely lasts long and sometimes it might just dry up before you see it.
That said, I just searched right now (8am Eastern) and I still see availability every day except Tuesdays and Wednesdays in August 2019. Are you sure you were searching DTW to HNL?
LOL, I was just about to write the exact same reply (including the same 8am ET). Plenty of availability at least for one-way DTW to HNL
Just checked the other direction and see the same. Lots of availability HNL to DTW
Unfortunately, you need little bit of playing around and experience to look for award flights.
Searching with right parameters, specially if you’re not searching “Upper Class” – you’ll not see any availability. I booked family of 4 last night, wish I had korean miles – 45K RT is solid deal via Korean.
Should anyone else find themselves looking to book an infant in his/her own seat:
1) The online system won’t let you do it. When you try to book an infant as an adult and you then enter the birth date, it will tell you that they aren’t an adult. If you try to mark them as a child (2-11), you’ll have the same problem if they are under 1.
2) They can do it over the phone no problem. Entire call from the moment the automated system picked up to the moment I hung up paid and booked as 8 minutes and 44 seconds. Virgin Atlantic agents work quickly.
So I assume you didn’t book anything online and all 3 tickets were bought over the phone? When there’s a time sensitive opportunity like this, I wish there’d be a way for us to complete everything online.