Great Delta Award Redemption! 8,000 Skymiles for NYC to Cartagena, Colombia!

photo: pixabay

Great. Delta. Award. Redemption. Four words that you rarely hear together!

A few months ago, when I was exploring new places to visit, Cartagena caught my attention. So, being the good travel addict, I mean frequent flyer, that I am, I’ve been obsessively looking around at prices for flights and hotels.

There’s a Hyatt Regency in Cartagena, with good reviews which is only a category 2 World of Hyatt hotel, so the hotel choice will be an easy one for me.

Flights are a little more complicated. JetBlue has non-stop flights to Cartagena (CTG) but the JetBlue schedule currently only runs through mid-January and I’m looking at dates in the late winter or spring 2019.  Avianca and Copa seem to have a lot of flights. I even saw some business class saver availability on the United Website for 35,000 miles each way which seems like a good option (yes, I know that business class on those airlines is nothing to get excited about, but still 35K isn’t bad).

And then I noticed that there are some flights from NYC to CTG on Delta for 8,000 Delta Skymiles!

Wow!!

So I explored this. There are these 8,000 mile award redemptions scattered throughout the Delta award calendar.

If you prefer revenue tickets, there are some bargains here too.

Whenever there are two dates in a row with a bargain award fare, generally the flights on day one have a long layover in Atlanta requiring an overnight stay. That can be good if you want to work a day trip to Atlanta into your itinerary, but otherwise you might not be interested.

The flights on day two however have a quick connection time in Atlanta and then you are on your way to Colombia. In my mind, that’s the one to look for.

This for example, is the schedule for NYC-CTG for April 10, 2019.

Looks like LaGuardia is the winner here. 8,000 miles for main cabin economy, or 14,000 miles for Delta Comfort.

And here’s the crazy thing: If you only booked the Atlanta-Cartagena leg of the above trip, the same flight alone would be 25,000 miles!

With this price (or award) differential, It makes sense for travelers from Atlanta to come to New York for a quick vacation day or two before starting their trip to Colombia!!!

Return flights look to be a little more costly, and include a tax of roughly $90.

So, who wants to meet up in Colombia?