TD got an assignment from LD: for next year’s Hawaii trip, they needed to book two tickets for LD’s parents from Shenzhen/Hong Kong to Honolulu.
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Booking criteria
1. Since the travelers are elderly and the total flying time is more than 10 hours, the priorities were business class, as few connections as possible, and the shortest travel time possible. Because Cathay Pacific does not have a nonstop flight from Hong Kong to Honolulu, the search was limited to itineraries with one connection.
2. Since the parents do not speak much English, Chinese airlines were preferred.
3. Connecting in mainland Chinese cities on a Hong Kong-to-U.S. itinerary requires additional travel documents, so for simplicity, itineraries like HKG-PEK/PVG-HNL were ruled out. There is no such restriction when departing from Shenzhen.
Booking result
If you do not want to read the whole booking process, here is the spoiler first: in the end, two Hong Kong–Taipei–Honolulu China Airlines business class tickets were booked with Delta miles. The Taipei–Honolulu segment is operated by China Airlines’ newest A350, featuring a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone fully flat business class seat.
According to the China Airlines website, the “new A350 is known for being ‘the most advanced, most eco-friendly, most energy-efficient, most spacious, and quietest.’ The cabin configuration includes 32 premium business class seats, 31 premium economy seats, and 243 economy seats, for a total capacity of 306 passengers. The cabin design incorporates youthful and stylish elements, with metallic materials adding a modern touch and an open, lofty feel. The Sky Lounge and seasonal mood lighting further enhance the cabin, creating a comfortable flying environment for travelers. Since the launch of the new-generation A350 fleet, China Airlines has received multiple awards, including Japan’s Good Design Award, one of the world’s four major design awards; ‘Best Business Class Seat Design’ from the U.S. travel magazine Global Traveler; and ‘2016 Reader-Voted Airline of the Year’ and ‘2016 Design Innovation Award’ from The Design Air.”
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Total cost: 120,000 Delta miles + $116 in taxes and fees. These two tickets could not be ticketed online and had to be issued by phone. The 120,000 Delta miles came from last year’s Delta Gold and Delta Platinum credit cards, with welcome bonuses of 50,000 Delta miles + $50 and 70,000 Delta miles + $100. TD bought two $50 Delta gift cards to trigger a total of $150 in credit. This time, those two Delta gift cards were used to pay $100 of the taxes, and the remaining $16 was paid with a Citi Prestige card.
I have now heard that the Delta Gold welcome offer has increased to 60,000 + $50. Anyone applying now has great timing. T_T Still, I can console myself by saying it is better to earn early and enjoy early, and points are only truly valuable once you use them.
Why connect in Taipei? Is it convenient?
As you can see from the map, a Hong Kong–Honolulu flight passes by Taipei, so connecting in Taipei gives the shortest flying time and fits booking criterion #1.
TD had previously flown EVA Air long-haul business class and was very impressed by the service from Taiwan-based carriers, so this time that also made them feel like a great choice. China Airlines’ Plum Blossom Lounge in Taipei was another big plus.
Note that Delta award bookings cannot overnight in Taipei; the connection must be on the same day. For same-day transit on a U.S.–Taipei–mainland China itinerary, no special documents are needed. But for mainland China–Taipei–U.S., you need a Mainland Travel Permit and Taiwan entry permit when boarding in mainland China (except from Nanchang, Chongqing, and Kunming). If mainland China is replaced with Hong Kong, then no such documents are required.
Why use Delta miles?
Of course, because among the Big 3 U.S. airlines, Delta miles were the least valuable most plentiful on hand, and also the easiest to earn. (Delta itself has three credit cards with frequently strong welcome offers, plus Membership Rewards as another major source.) By comparison, there are fewer UA cards, and UA and UR are also subject to 5/24. AA has many cards, but transfers mostly rely on SPG and targeted mailer offers.
That said, even without considering mileage balances, I would still prioritize Delta. Although all three major U.S. airlines charge 60,000 miles one-way from SZX/HKG-HNL, AA miles were the first to be ruled out, because 70,000 AA miles can get you one-way business class between China and the U.S. mainland, so why spend 60,000 just to fly to Hawaii? Also, Cathay does not fly nonstop to HNL, and if you connect, you cannot use a Chinese airline, which does not fit booking criterion #2.
As for UA, based on criteria #2 and #3, the only one-stop option would be SZX-PEK-HNL. Although the PEK-HNL (CA837) A330 has a decent 2-2-2 fully flat business class cabin, the schedule is 1:50AM-5:30PM, not as good as China Airlines CI 2 at 9:10PM-12:45PM. And as the map shows, it is quite a detour from South China, though for departures from North China or East China it could still be a good choice.
After deciding to use Delta miles, there was actually one other option: China Eastern’s SZX-PVG-HNL. But that was even worse than the Air China option. Never mind the phantom award space and $200+ in YQ; MU571’s A330 is still equipped with 169-degree angled-flat “dentist chair” seats. A 9-hour flight without fully flat business class seats? That is hard to take seriously.
How to book?
When it came time to book, whether because of poor IT or because dullta.com was intentionally making things difficult, TD ran into the infamous married segments problem. Specifically, there was award space on Hong Kong–Taipei and on Taipei–Honolulu:
But if you searched Hong Kong–Honolulu, the Taipei connection would not appear:
With no other choice, TD had to call the SkyMiles service desk to ticket the itinerary. The agent could also see that both individual segments had space, but could not issue them together.
Me: This is a bit unusual. Could you please check with your supervisor? (Frontline phone agents can do quite a bit, and supervisors often have even more power, so when you run into something unsolvable, escalating can really help.)
Agent: Sure, please hold for a moment while I check. May I have the passengers’ names and dates of birth so the supervisor can work on the booking?
Me: Rufeng, Ru as in “Rulai Palm,” Feng as in “rising wind and clouds,” date of birth XX/XX/XX. Keyun, Ke as in “unrivaled,” Yun as in “cloud,” date of birth XX/XX/XX.
Agent: Good news, the supervisor was able to book it for you. The total is 60,000 SkyMiles plus $58 in taxes per person, for a total of 120,000 SkyMiles + $116.
Me: Wonderful. I happen to have two of your $50 gift cards. Can I use them toward the taxes?
Agent: Yes, but I need to contact another department. Please hold.
That department took about 20 minutes to process everything. During that time, the agent came back every three minutes or so with an update, so it never felt like I had been abandoned on hold. The agent told me midway through that only one Delta gift card could be used per reservation, so the tickets had to be split into two separate reservations. After ticketing, the agent gave me both the Delta and China Airlines six-character PNRs, and then I could happily go pick seats. In the end, the all-powerful supervisor never appeared personally to accept my thanks, quietly taking all the credit and disappearing into the shadows.
Here TD has to give Delta credit: among the Big 3 U.S. airlines, only Delta gift cards can be used to pay the taxes and fees on award tickets, and Delta gift cards are also easy to acquire:
- If you have a PRG or AMEX Platinum Card, the annual $100/$200 airline credit can be used by purchasing $50 Delta gift cards.
- If you applied for the Delta Platinum or Delta Gold, the $100/$50 credit from the welcome offer can be triggered by any Delta purchase, and the most popular method is buying a $50 Delta gift card.
- If you have a CSR or Citi Prestige and are worried you will not use up the annual $300/$250 travel credit, buying Delta gift cards can solve that problem. In the past, the Ritz card’s annual $300 credit could also be used for Delta gift cards, though that apparently no longer works.
China Airlines route network
If you are tired of phantom award space and high fuel surcharges on China Eastern and China Southern, then using Delta miles to book China Airlines flights is a good option. China Airlines (including Mandarin Airlines, its SkyTeam-affiliated subsidiary) serves the following major destinations:
- North America destinations: New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Toronto. (Among these, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Honolulu are served by the A350, while the others are served by the 77W.)
- Mainland China destinations: Beijing, Changchun, Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Dalian, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Haikou, Hangzhou, Hefei, Nanchang, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Sanya, Shanghai Hongqiao & Pudong, Shenzhen, Shenyang, Urumqi, Weihai, Wenzhou, Wuhan, Wuxi, Xiamen, Xi’an, Xuzhou, Yancheng, Yangzhou, Yantai, and Zhengzhou.
As you can see, China Airlines/Mandarin Airlines has an extensive route network in mainland China, covering most provinces and making it a good fit for people from first-, second-, and third-tier cities. One more point worth emphasizing: China Airlines does not have the kind of phantom award space you see with China Eastern or China Southern, and as shown below, compared with China Eastern’s frequent $200+ fuel surcharges, China Airlines’ taxes and fees are very reasonable at just $50+ (even better when paired with Delta gift cards earned through various credits):
To search for award space, you just need to search JFK-TPE and TPE-YNZ separately on Delta’s website. If both segments have space, you can call Delta to ticket them. (In practice, the transpacific segment is the hard part to find; intra-Asia space is plentiful and usually not a problem.)
Finally, TD wishes everyone good luck getting solid value out of their SkyPesos, and happy holidays!