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?
It’s not often that you can get incredible value from your Delta miles these days so if you’re interested in this deal, make sure to jump on it right away! Through August, awards are wide-open to fly round-trip Delta One Suites from Seattle to Taipei on Delta’s modern Airbus A330-900neo. If flying from Seattle, round-trip prices start at 146,200 miles for those with the 15% discount you get for having a Delta Gold or higher credit card. Without the credit card, prices start at 172K round-trip.
Thanks go to Aaron Hurd of Cards and Points for letting us know about this opportunity!
If you’re originating in other cities besides Seattle, you may find good deals connecting through Seattle. For example, from Minneapolis, there are plenty of dates available for 166,600 points round-trip (after the 15% credit card discount).
Yes, you can expect Taipei to be very hot in the summertime, but sometimes you have to sweat the details to get value from your SkyMiles.
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Deal is now dead
Good lord, really hope the people taking advantage appreciate just how hot and humid Taiwan is going to be in August. I personally only visit in the winter and even then I find it warm.
I suppose it’s offered both because it’s a new route, and because Delta wants to get mindshare with the soon to be crowded SEA – TPE route.
Hmmm. It looks like they’ve already boosted the price to 240K. The other thing is that even though late August is the latest you can get an outbound at the price, the return can be as late as March.
Wow. When I booked yesterday, shortly after this was published, we were the first 2 seats taken in D1 on my outbound flight. Now there are 15 of 29 seats taken. I guess this was popular!
I could be wrong but didn’t there used to be a legacy Northwest lounge in Taipei? It seems to me KLM also had intra-Asia routes out of Taiwan. Or am I wrong?
I booked from Detroit for 166,000 miles. Every day in August was virtually 100% empty in business-class. Will use Taipei to position for elsewhere in Southeast Asia. I imagine Delta is losing a tremendous amount of money on this route. They offer inferior catering compared to competing airlines flying this route. Worse, the flight times are awful for anyone who doesn’t live in Seattle. Like 1-hour or less connection times.
The timing is similar to other Asia flights from SEA. There is a SEA-PVG flight at 11:30am, a SEA-HND flight at 11:40, and the soon to be SEA-TPE flight at 11:50. SEA-ICN is at 12:45pm.
Given that I am SEA based, I am really thankful for this route. The current 1-2x daily EVA flights run at 1:10am and 2:10am, and China Airlines and Starlux are starting flights in July and August, respectively, also in the middle of the night. While this might be ok for onward connections in TPE, it is kind of painful if Taiwan is your final destination (getting in at 4 or 5 in the morning?). I am quite happy with the timing. I would guess that some of the capacity will be cut back in the future. But in the meantime, I am happy to finally get another Delta One flash sale.
It’s great for someone in Seattle but almost impossible for anyone connecting in Seattle for the onward to Taipei. Even from a hub. Especially if you have to double connect; once in a hub and again in Seattle. An extra hour would make a world of difference as a connection of a mere hour is problematic, especially on the return.
I am not sure what Delta could do though–this is Delta’s only flight to TPE, so the aircraft makes a direct turn. If they were to make the departure to TPE an hour later, than the return flight will be an hour later. That means your tight connection on the return in SEA will just be impossible. For someone like yourself coming from DTW, that means you won’t be taking the late afternoon SEA-DTW flight, and end up with a long layover so you can take the redeye. Given its location, SEA has few eastbound flights leaving from the mid afternoon to the mid evening (until the redeyes start).
There are plenty of west coast connections that would work just fine in either direction. For the midwest and east coast, it may just be better to take the China Airlines flight from SEA-TPE.
Used to live in Taipei and I have to say summer is mighty sticky. People are wonderful. And take note: those three inch cockroaches DO fly.
Good call out. For those who aren’t aware, Summer, especially June and July, is also peak monsoon season in Taiwan. So in addition to the overwhelming humidity, you’ll also be drenched with constant rain. Not ideal for exploring…but at least you can still eat in the rain. 🙂
Booked! 8/31-9/7 (so September dates are also available).
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Can’t comment on the PYB article: the Disney charges should be under the Disney cards, not the Southwest cards.