If you're looking for a frequent flyer program that offers business and first class international travel for a reasonable number of miles, Delta Air Lines SkyMiles isn’t your frequent flyer program. Still, the program does offer Delta loyalists a few ways to get a little bit of extra value out of their SkyMiles.

Here are a few strategies to maximize your Delta SkyMiles by redeeming them for high-value award flights.

What are Delta SkyMiles worth?

The baseline Delta SkyMiles value is 1.2 cents each when redeemed for economy tickets, according to NerdWallet's analysis. Because Delta did away with its award chart and pegs the prices of award tickets to the cash prices of the same flights, it is fairly difficult to do any better (or worse) than that value.

However, not every award is dynamically priced, and it is in these deviations from dynamic pricing that we find most Delta SkyMiles sweet spots. Will you get a round-trip award ticket to Europe for less than 240,000 SkyMiles? Very rarely. Can you get 2 cents per mile out of your SkyMiles with a little bit of work? Absolutely.

If you're holding a mountain of SkyMiles, here are some ways that you can squeeze a little bit of extra value out of them.

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Best ways to use Delta SkyMiles

1. Delta flash sales

Probably the best use of Delta SkyMiles is through the airline's flash sales. Delta runs both advertised and unadvertised flash sales with limited-time discounts between certain city pairs on certain dates.

Booking tickets offered in a Delta flash sale can yield some incredible deals. These sales frequently feature one-way airfares within the United States starting at 5,000 miles in the main cabin; sometimes airfares have been spotted for as few as 2,500 miles each way.

Flash sales aren’t just for domestic travel; Delta often runs flash sales to Europe, discounting round-trip travel below 40,000 miles for a main cabin ticket. This past summer, as Australia opened up for travel, Delta even ran a 70,000-mile round-trip flash sale to Australia.

Many of Delta’s flash sale fares can be found on Delta’s website, where you can see current flash sale deals from your city. That said, some flash sales are unannounced. You might stumble upon those by doing a web search or by following updates from sites that track airfare deals.

2. International partner awards, particularly in coach

Unless Delta is running a flash sale, the prices that Delta charges for its flights in SkyMiles generally track the cash prices of the same flights. However, there is an exception: Redemptions on Delta airline partners.

While Delta doesn’t publish an award chart, it does offer fixed-price awards on partners when they open up award ticket availability. If you search for award availability on a route served by partners and see a block of dates with a consistent, lower price, that price is almost always going to be on a partner airline.