Eight reasons to collect Delta SkyMiles
For years, Delta’s loyalty program has been heavily criticized by the frequent-flier community, in particular for the value of its points. But as Delta and its airline partners have improved their in-flight product, and other frequent-flier programs continue to devalue their points, it can be argued that the relative value of SkyMiles is increasing. Here are a few reasons you should keep earning this underrated airline currency.
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1. Delta doesn’t charge last-minute booking fees.
One of the best aspects of airline miles is that they’re more flexible than cash. While waiting until the last minute to book a flight can cost extortionate sums of money, award flights are often cheapest at the last minute. However, United and American charge fliers a $75 fee for booking a flight within 21 days of the date of the flight — even if that flight only becomes available within 21 days. However, Delta will let you book a flight for later today with no fee.
2. SkyMiles never expire.
Delta is the only major airline in the country that will allow you to hold onto your miles for life. Even if you vow to never fly Delta again, your SkyMiles will be there waiting for you when you return. Most other carriers will get rid of your points after 18-24 months without activity.
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3. You can earn elite status without ever flying.
Delta is the only legacy carrier that will let you earn elite status strictly through credit card spending (American will let you get close). While Delta was the first airline to start requiring Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs) in addition to Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQMs) or segments (MQSs), spending $25,000 on a co-branded credit card waives the MQD requirement.
The airline has a variety of co-branded cards that reward users with major MQMs. The regular and business version of the platinum Delta SkyMiles card offers 5,000 MQMs after spending $1,000, and up to 20,000 more for spending bonuses. If you spend $50,000, that’s enough for Silver status.
Both versions of the Delta Reserve card offer 10,000 MQMs after the first purchase, and up to 30,000 more in spending bonuses. That’s a possible 40,000 MQMs, which is nearly enough for gold status. If you were to get a platinum and a reserve card, and spend an admittedly huge sum of money, you could earn up to 65,000 MQMs (in addition to a lot of SkyMiles), which is good enough for gold status and well on the way to platinum.
4. Elite status is even easier to earn next year.
Delta is also the only carrier that allows elite SkyMiles members to roll their extra MQMs over. For example, you need 25,000 MQMs (plus $3,000 MQDs) to earn silver status and 50,000 (plus $6,000 MQDs) to earn gold status. But let’s say you earn 40,000 MQMs in 2016. That’s 15,000 more than you need for silver status, but you’re still 10,000 short of gold. Delta will let you keep those extra 15,000 MQMs for 2017, meaning you now need only 10,000 MQMs to reach silver status again, and if you earn the same 35,000 MQMs you did in 2016, you’ll wind up with 50,000 total — enough for gold status.
And once you have status, you also earn more miles per dollar spent on a flight (5 miles per dollar with no status, 7 with silver, 8 with gold, etc.), further helping retain your status.
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5. Delta has acquired new and improved partners outside of SkyTeam.
For the last few years, Delta has partnered with Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia, two of the most loved airlines in their respected regions. And Delta is arguably the best way to redeem award flights for these airlines. It costs more SkyMiles than Virgin’s own miles to fly on Virgin. But Delta won’t charge you the hefty fuel surcharges the Virgin airlines charge when using their own miles.
6. SkyTeam is getting better.
Long the black sheep of the airline industry, SkyTeam has improved and expanded in recent years. It still may not have the premier carriers of oneworld and Star Alliance — like Qatar, Qantas or Singapore, for example — but several SkyTeam members have undergone major transformations, particularly when it comes to the quality of their business-class products. This greatly boosts the value of SkyMiles, as those cashing in on international business-class partner awards can now spend their flights on flat beds.
7. Other loyalty programs are getting worse.
Delta created a stir when it switched to a revenue-based program, but other U.S. airlines eventually followed suit. And many of the biggest critiques of SkyMiles are no longer unique to Delta’s program. One of the biggest complaints among frequent fliers has been that Delta doesn’t allow redemptions for international first class, but United and American have now made those redemptions so expensive to most destinations that they’re usually not worth the miles. Similarly, as award availability at the lowest tier has gone down, Delta’s tiered award system can now be considered a good thing rather than a negative.
8. Delta’s tiered award system means more affordable flights.
One of the changes Delta announced when it restructured last year is that it would be implementing a new five-tiered award chart for each class of service. The benefit of this system is that even when Delta does not have flights available at its lowest tier, it often still has affordable flights available. For example, on days Delta doesn’t have economy flights available to Europe for 30,000, it will often be selling tickets for 37,500, which isn’t horrible if your itinerary is inflexible. American, on the other hand, bumps straight to either 47,500 or 65,000 if flights aren’t available for 30,000, and United bumps straight to 65,000.