Delta One is absurd

Rumrunner said:

Turkish seems to be reasonable if you’re willing to spend an extra 10-12 hours travel time.
I looked at some dates next February flying on Tuesday and Thursday from DFW to JNB. Delta One is a little over 19 hours and $7337. Turkish is 30.5 hours and $3932 in business class.
Not sure how well Turkish does firearms transport. There are some extra fees when transporting firearms. I think it is a couple hundred euros.
Turkish travel time is very similar to Qatar or Emirates.
Curious to know what experiences folks have had flying Turkish with firearms.

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358 Norma said:

My brother and I bought our Delta premium economy + tickets late July last year. We paid $6,600 for the tickets. Now when I look those tickets are selling for over $9,000! I've been wanting to up grade my ticket to Delta one, but they want $4,700 just for the upgrade one way from Atlanta to Johannesburg!

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WAB said:

Turkish business class is a breath of fresh air. Reasonable prices, excellent service to the point that they have an actual chef on board. Seats are very similar to Delta One, perhaps a bit better.

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Corylax18 said:

People flying for work, who are spending someone else's money.

90%, maybe even 95% of business class seats the world over are sold this way. Its not just Delta.

On a related note, I've found google flights to be less than worthless, most travel agencies as well.

Two days ago, I was looking at Denver to Reno Flights on United and Southwest for the end of June, for a 3 to 4 day trip, they were ranging from $770 to almost $900, for economy seats, for a 2 hour flight. I would argue that's just as crazy as $20k to fly half way around the world.

I looked again today, and if I fly one carrier each way, its down to about $600 total. Google flights/AI whatever Bull#!t the tech companies are currently pushing isn't going to find that type of thing for you. A travel agent could, if you give them very specific instructions and very flexible terms, but you're going to pay for it. Often more than you would save.

If it makes you feel better, I just booked DEN-MIA for 7 days at the end of September for $283, apparently United thinks the war will be over by then and fuel prices will be back to normal. I'll add premium economy seats at some point so that will bump the price up closer to $400, but that's about what I paid last May for the same trip.

If you're serious about saving some money, you should be checking prices, yourself, at least once a day. The airlines are constantly adjusting prices, often several times a day, if oil prices are down that day/hour flight prices will be too.

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etsonaut said:

I’ve flown Delta One to Europe a couple times. Service and food were pretty good and the lounge at JFK is nice but I always felt it was a bit overpriced. When planning our upcoming trip to RSA, I looked into it again from ATL. At the time it was $9k per ticket so I landed my sons and me in Premium Select and turned on the Google flight tracker in case prices went down. I thought I might upgrade. Well as you can see, that didn’t happen. These tickets graduated from overpriced to absurd. Who buys this flight?!?View attachment 760888

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Philip Glass said:

I personally believe that everyone that flys Delta for business hoards their miles for that one big trip to Africa. Knowing it is the longest Delta flight they are willing to burn all their miles for it. I’ve seen families of 4 in business. Does that make sense? $50k for the fam to fly for a safari? Nope!
If they were really getting $12,000 per ticket they would fly the plane twice a day!

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375 Ruger Fan said:

I too have flown Turkish Air b-class several times and agree it is quite good for the price. One bit of caution though, the flights with the 787 Dreamliner have the excellent seats. The flights with the B-777 have the 2-3-2 configuration that is okay, but not as good as the "pods" on 787.

When flying Delta to JNB, I have toughed it out in Premium, not will to pay the sky high price for Delta One.

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Philip Glass said:

I personally believe that everyone that flys Delta for business hoards their miles for that one big trip to Africa. Knowing it is the longest Delta flight they are willing to burn all their miles for it. I’ve seen families of 4 in business. Does that make sense? $50k for the fam to fly for a safari? Nope!
If they were really getting $12,000 per ticket they would fly the plane twice a day!

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Mike B. said:

I agree with this, as I do this myself. I rack up about 1.2mil miles a year and this is about the only flight that I will use those miles on. I typically just pay for in country flights outright and hoard my miles just for this. I will use my miles for premium select for anyone that is traveling with me if it is reasonable. When premium select seats are in the 600k+ miles range to book like we are seeing now, that is not even remotely worth it. With that said, I am more than willing to use the skymiles for that flight in Delta One just so I don't have to deal with a seat that I cannot sleep in. That 16 hours is brutal on me because I find it nearly impossible to sleep without lying down.

Having our local airport as a hub for Delta, all my flights are on Delta so I do not find it worth while to fly to other cities just to continue my trip. Same with using a different type of credit card to get points that are easily converted to other airlines. I leave Salt Lake City to Atlanta and continue from there. If I fly anything else, it makes the total trip time much longer as I typically have to fly to a location such as Dallas Fort Worth, and then on from there. Those airline options would typically go thorough the Middle East. So Delta, while stupidly expensive is my favorite more for the convenience than anything else.

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Altitude sickness said:

I looked into the cost of a private jet for 20 people or so to fly to Joberg. A jet large enough for that flight would be approximately $ 500k one way. So one million round trip.

Delta’s break even point on the Atlanta to Joberg round trip flight is approximately $500k The jet holds approximately 300 passengers depending on that jets exact seat configuration. That comes to approximately $1667 per ticket round trip.

Of course we need to factor in off season flights that are not 100% full
To get to the real break even number.
With current fuel prices these numbers are simply for context and comparison.

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358 Norma said:

So to all of you that are going to South Africa in June on Delta what day are you wheels up? My brother and I leave June 1st. Just curious how many AH members might be on the same flight.

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