Fequent Flyer Miles.....

mismi40
Usually it takes between 20,000-25,000 miles for a free ticket within the continental United States.

You can find the info you are looking for on their site:
https://www.delta.com/skymiles/use_miles/ways_redeem_miles/index.jsp

As far as how long before the trip, I would get the tickets as soon as possible because the seats fill up. If you have miles to use, I would say it
is well worth it instead of buying the tickets. Last year I used my miles to fly to CA instead of spending over $300 for the ticket.

Well, I need 15.000 miles for continental USA (one way) with Lufthansa, United and AA.
Here, in Europe, it's the same - though booking online gives you some credit, and booking on short erm (between two weeks and two days before start) gives you another 45%.

Generally, if you want to fly on a specific time, it's better to book quite early.
ASnd then, to my experience, it's worth checking that flight vs some offers: when I flew to Nice recently, I only paid $15 more than I had to pay for taxes/service charges with the miles - but got miles for it

(And I use those miles to update such flights to business class - especially when flying IN the USA, and to as well.)

Also not sure about Delta - but you can sometimes book closer to travel date, depends on the program but it will cost more miles.

Most with restrictions and more limitations cost about 20 - 25k miles per roundtrip ticket. As there will be four of you traveling and with limited amount of frequent flyers allowed per flight - it is best to book as early as possible.

And yes - flying would be much nicer for the kids and you. It would be much easier to entertain them with both parents available rather than one having to keep their eye on the road.

Usually between 15-25K in the US. Book as soon as poss hun. Don't even think about driving - oh no no no..... kids will have an adventure on the plane.

Thank you all so very much! We can get two tickets if they are $25000 miles. That would be great...I will have to get the professor to call and doublecheck and then get price on three other tickets...no, to be sure driving sounds like torture!

Once again, thanks so much for giving me an idea of what we are looking at! HUGE help!
Mis

mismi, Delta is notorious for not wanting to redeem miles into tickets,
I've had sent them some strong emails accusing them of false advertisement and fraudulent behavior, before I finally could get some tickets, and I had
to reserve them about 8 months in advance.

Go to Delta's homepage, sign up with your mileage number and reserve
the flight from there (if you can). There you also can book the other
seats for your kids. Calling them on the phone is sometimes quite challenging.

I switched to United Airlines miles, they're much more service oriented.

That's good to know CJ. I just found out round trip tickets are $450 per round trip. OUCH! Either way this trip is going to be painful...either the pocketbook or the behind...(sitting and dealing with children while driving) I am now venturing to SouthWest to see what there tickets are costing.

Thanks again.

Oy, that's expensive, mismi. Have you checked one of the discount
sites? www.hotwire.com has flights for $ 295 from Birmingham to Ft. Lauderdale (which I used as an example).

That is much better CJ...I will run that by the professor...I tried Cheaptickets.com and the lowest there was $350...still unfortunately - with the three kids that is still out of our range....not only that - we would have to buy for all 5 of us....just can't do it. It is going to be a LONG weekend.

You know though...we will leave Thursday night and drive as far as we possibly can, then find a hotel somewhere...then up early that next morning to drive to Ft. Myers. That won't be so bad...the drive home is going to be a bitch though, since we have to do the entire 13 hours home...no stop for the night unless it is an emergency. We have Travel DVD player...we will have to find some things the boys have never seen before...they really don't like watching TV that much though...we may be able to hook up the PS2 to it - which may help some...I really hate the thought of letting them do that the whole way...we can also get some Hank Zipzer books which will keep 2 of them occupied...

Hmmm. I wonder how much it would cost to rent an RV for three days? Checking into that...

Send them a hologram instead.

Yea...that would work...How do I do that?

I checked on RV's. We may be able to do that a lot more reasonably. There is a cabover that is around $400 for three nights total. Husband is a little concerned about driving it...but I have driven 15 passenger vans quite a bit...how hard can it be?

Thanks for the input guys