Update September 12, 2024: Alongside the launch of the best ever offer on the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card, we found an even better offer on the card when making a dummy booking at Delta.com.
The offer we found on September 12, 2024 was: Earn a $500 statement credit after making a Delta purchase within 6 months and 50,000 bonus miles after spending $3,000 on the card within 6 months.
We always feature the best public new cardmember offers on our list of Delta Air Lines credit card welcome bonuses. But airlines sometimes offer hidden, targeted welcome bonus offers to some customers. And we found out this week that Delta is again sometimes offering better bonuses to some customers.
Here’s how you might be able to find a “better than public” offer on a Delta Air Lines credit card.
In this article…
Dummy booking on Delta.com: Get a large statement credit
In some cases, Delta will show you a better welcome offer when making a booking on Delta.com. Fortunately, you don’t need to actually complete a booking to get a credit card offer, you just need to search for a flight and get to the checkout page.
If you are offered a targeted credit card welcome offer, it will look something like this:
If you see this, check the box and you’ll be able to apply for this offer on the subsequent screen.
Finding the best offer
The offers you’ll see when making a dummy booking at Delta.com will vary. At publication time, these offers tended to offer fewer SkyMiles than the best public offers on the Delta Amex credit cards, but they also offered a statement credit. Here’s what we noticed about these offers:
- The offers all featured a statement credit after making a Delta purchase plus some amount of bonus miles after spending a certain amount on the card.
- The number of bonus miles was consistently 30,000—lower than what you’d get on the public bonus—but the statement credit meant that the welcome bonuses total value was often higher than the public offers.
- The amount of the statement credit varied from $200 to $500. Subsequent searches on the same computer offered the same statement credit.
If you do a search and see a low statement credit offer, you might want to consider opening up an incognito or private browsing web browser. You also might tend to get a higher offer if you search for a more expensive flight. Try searching for a first class, cross-country flight or an expensive refundable airfare—searching for a more expensive airfare might mean your targeted offer includes a larger statement credit.
In-flight offers: Sometimes just a bit better
Airlines sometimes hawk their co-branded credit cards in flight. If you’re in the market for a credit card, it might be worthwhile to take note of what welcome bonus is being offered in-flight and compare it to what you’ll get online or through other channels.
In our experience, in-flight offers are usually the same or only marginally better than what you’ll get on the ground. But you might be able to get an additional 5,000 miles in your welcome bonus.
We don’t know of any increased offers available in-flight, but if we learn that Delta is offering a better-than-public offer in-flight, we’ll update this section.
Referral links: More miles plus miles for a friend
American Express has a “refer-a-friend” program where it allows some cardmembers to generate a referral link to send to a friend. If someone uses your referral link to get a new credit card, you can get points, miles, or cash back, depending on what the card you refer from offers.
In the past, some referral links have better offers than the public offers. We’re not aware of this happening at the moment, But we’ve seen the personal referral links in the past offer many more miles than the public offers.
If you know someone with a Delta SkyMiles credit card, asking them for their referral link might yield a better offer. (We’ve also seen referral links feature an offer that was lower than the best public offer.) Be sure to compare what your friend’s referral link shows with the best public Delta SkyMiles credit card offers so that you can get the best offer available.
Bottom line: You might earn more miles by hunting around for a better offer
In the case of Delta SkyMiles credit cards, the best public offer may not be the best offer available. Trying out a dummy booking on Delta.com, asking a friend for a referral link, or looking for welcome offers in different channels may yield more SkyMiles or a larger statement credit.
