Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Delta has launched an interesting tool called the Delta Discover Map for those looking to shop around for destinations that fit a budget – whether a certain number of miles or amount of money – and it includes interesting filter options like whether or not the destination has restaurants open and whether or not it requires a quarantine period or COVID test. Keeping this type of tool up to date seems challenging, but it is a very interesting option for those looking to explore the options without a firm plan as to where to go.
Here is a direct link to the tool: https://www.delta.com/us/en/travel-planning-center/find-your-destination/explore-top-destinations
As you can see in the screen shot above, you enter your airport of origin and you can then choose to look at trip pricing in terms of cash price — or you can choose to look at prices for vacation packages or in SkyMiles as shown here:
Furthermore, Delta has some interesting filter options. Drop-down menus shown above include filter options like whether they are open with restrictions or open to all visitors and whether you want a city, beach, food, or history destination as a few examples.
Even more interesting to some is that you can choose to filter to only show destinations with restaurants open or to exclude destinations that require a COVID-19 test or vaccination as a couple of examples.
I found those filters particularly interesting mostly from a curiosity standpoint. Keep in mind that you can use the map to explore regions / destinations all over the world. Over the past year, it seemed challenging to keep up with with rules and restrictions in the United States alone. I am surprised to see a tool like this for worldwide travel.
The tool is impressively smooth — I couldn’t believe how quickly results re-populated as I popped various filters on and off (I kept looking for an “update” button initially before realizing that the tool was just doing it as I clicked around).
The key drawbacks are that the tool only searches round trip and there is no way to search specific dates from the Discover map. That is to say that you’ll just see the lowest price for any particular destination and then after clicking through to it you’ll need to play with dates to see real-world pricing for your intended travel period.
Still, at this point, I’m just ready to daydream a bit about travel and thus found this tool intriguing even just as a fun way to spend a few minutes exploring trips that I’ll one day be ready to take. For those set to begin their travels in the next month or two, this tool could be an awesome way to explore, particularly given that you can search in miles or money.
H/T: TPG
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covidcontrols.co
This could be really helpful for seeing what the lowest prices can be by destination from your hometown and which places it might be a better use of SkyMiles versus cash/UR points.