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I have a number of cruises booked for the first half of 2024 and I am really looking forward to all of them for very divergent reasons. Each one is also unique on it’s own and gives me a chance to try products so different from my favorite line NCL. I am also, with a bunch of NCL “Cruise Next” discount certs, considering other bookings over the summer and fall but I may put all of that on hold.
Why?
Would you believe Delta SkyMiles?!
I know crazy, right?
Delta has, for almost as long as I can remember, been systematically obliterating any real aspirations value of their travel currency. Once upon a time, we used to be able to fly in luxury with stopovers with our awards in business class for not that many points – but with gleeful abandon the airline has killed this reward for years of loyalty.
But Skymiles Experiences are changing all of this for me.
Both my wife and I have recently started our plan to cycle through all the Delta business cards starting with the Gold and then moving up the food chain to max out as many Skymiles as possible (on the personal side they are now family of cards so starting low and moving up matters – business cards may follow one day). I would like to end up around 300-400,000 per person to have a bunch of points to bid on some of the spectacular cruises they are tossing up like:
- WINDSTAR 7-DAY DREAMS OF TAHITI CRUISE IN AN OCEAN VIEW SUITE
- WINDSTAR 7-DAY PANAMA CANAL, CARTAGENA, SAN BLAS ISLANDS & MORE CRUISE IN A STAR BALCONY SUITE
- WINDSTAR 11-DAY COLOMBIAN & SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN COASTLINES CRUISE
- WINDSTAR 8-DAY CAPTIVATING CANARY ISLANDS IN A STAR BALCONY SUITE
Unfortunately, with such low SkyMiles balances, we are not currently in a position to go for any of the above but if similar stunning ones pop up for the fall I want to be in a position to score oversized and frankly old school value out of my Delta points from a number of new card bonus offers.
The real issue with all of these offers are they are not years out, that is, almost all of them that have popped up are for months out and that is the point of this post that I may have to adjust my plans of just how many cruises I book out so I can leave myself open to try for some of these.
The downside of this possible plan is, of course, that I do not win any of the auctions and then have large holes in my fall cruise plans. – René
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Does Delta send out emails on these auctions?? I never see any?? I subscribe to deals and promotions on Delta but again…ZIP on these auctions.
@dee – No but I will post about them here on the blog so you will not miss out.
Regarding that WINDSTAR 11-DAY COLOMBIAN & SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN COASTLINES CRUISE package. It says departing from “Colon, Colombia” but the only Colon I can find in Colombia is in the middle of the country. Is there a tiny Colon on the coastline somewhere I’m not seeing or is that a mistake and they actually mean Colon, Panama?
@Chris – You can look up the cruise on WINDSTAR website to see all the details.
Good call. Could have saved me some Google Map time if I’d done that first. The Delta info is a mistake. That should be Colon, Panama.
@Chris – It is Delta IT so… 😉