Guide to Delta SkyMiles®

Delta SkyMiles® is the loyalty program of Delta Air Lines. In this guide to Delta SkyMiles, we keep the focus on what you need to know to make effective use of the program and how to tactically get the most value out of a program for the least effort.

Delta SkyMiles at a glance

Best uses of miles: U.S. domestic travel on Delta, international short-haul flights on SkyTeam.

Best ways to earn miles: Credit card welcome offers. Using Membership Rewards®-earning credit cards for spending.

What we like

• Easy to book awards at Delta.com.
• Almost every Delta flight is bookable with SkyMiles.
• Free award changes and cancellations for non-Basic Economy awards originating in North America.
• Miles never expire.
• No fuel surcharges on North America origin awards.
• Consistent value for miles.

What we dislike

• Vanishingly few opportunities for outsized value awards.
• Dynamic pricing.
• International-origin flights have surcharges.

Expected redemption value:
1.2 cents/mile of Delta travel. (1.4 cents/mile with a SkyMiles credit card.)

Value compared to cash:
0.96 cents/mile. (1.1 cents/mile with a SkyMiles credit card.)

Transfer from: Amex Membership Rewards®, (Marriott Bonvoy.)

Essential reading:

• Delta SkyMiles credit card overview
• How much is a Delta SkyMiles worth?

How to earn Delta SkyMiles

Delta offers a bunch of ways to earn Delta SkyMiles. But not all ways of earning miles are created equal, and the majority can be ignored. Here are the ways to earn SkyMiles that we’d recommend focusing on:

• Using your SkyMiles number on Delta and its partners. There’s no cost to earning SkyMiles if your ticket is eligible, so be sure to use your SkyMiles number on your Delta and partner airline tickets.
• Credit card welcome offers. Earning a welcome bonus is usually the fastest way to earn travel rewards points. Delta’s credit cards all have a welcome offer for new cardmembers. But you can also get Delta SkyMiles with an Amex Membership Rewards® welcome offer, since Membership Rewards® points can be transferred to Delta.
• Using Membership Rewards® cards for spending. Like many airline programs, using Delta’s own credit cards will give you fewer points on your spending than the alternatives. Want to earn more SkyMiles for your spending? Use cards that earn Membership Rewards® and transfer those points to Delta. See the section below on the best cards for earning Delta SkyMiles on spending.
• Check bags. Delta is quite good at delivering bags on time. In fact, they guarantee that they’ll deliver your bags to the baggage claim 20 minutes after your flight arrives or they’ll give you 2,500 SkyMiles. I’ve earned quite a few miles in the last few years when Delta has delivered my bags just slightly more than 20 minutes after my flight arrived.

Best cards for earning Delta SkyMiles on spending

We mentioned above that the Delta credit cards will earn you fewer points on your spending than the alternatives. In almost every case, you’ll earn more miles if you use a card that earns Membership Rewards® on your spending and then transfer those points to Delta. Here are a few examples:

• The Platinum Card earns 5x Membership Rewards® on flights booked directly with airlines, while the Platinum- and Reserve-level Delta cards earn only 3x SkyMiles on Delta flights.
• The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card earns 2x Membership Rewards® points on up to $50k of purchases per year—twice what the Delta credit cards earn on general purchases.
• The Business Gold Card gives you 4x Membership Rewards® points on the two select business categories where you spend the most each billing cycle. That’s much better than the 1.5x you’re going to earn on your Delta-branded business cards.

Membership Rewards® charges a small fee ($0.0006 per point, up to $99) to transfer to U.S. domestic programs, including Delta, but that fee represents about a 5% tax on the value you’ll get out of miles.

How to redeem Delta SkyMiles

Like many airline programs, Delta SkyMiles can be used for a variety of redemptions, most of which aren’t worth considering. Generally you’ll want to plan on using SkyMiles for flights on Delta and its partners. In our view, here are the best uses of SkyMiles and why:

• Delta SkyMiles flash sales. Delta occasionally puts some route on sale using SkyMiles. Look to deal-tracking sites for these, as they are not always posted on Delta SkyMiles award deals page. Keep in mind that many “SkyMiles flash sales” correlate with lowered cash fares of the same routes, so they are often more of a standard fare sale rather than an exclusive SkyMiles deal.
• Speculative flights originating in North America. Non-Basic Economy Delta SkyMiles tickets originating in North America can be canceled, with miles redeposited, for free. This makes them a good alternative if you’re not sure you’ll take a flight. With a cash ticket, you’ll get a voucher that expires within a year of your original ticket purchase, but if you cancel a ticket booked with miles, you’ll get the miles redeposited—and SkyMiles don’t expire
• SkyTeam flights that don’t touch the U.S. Delta prices flights that don’t touch the U.S. or Canada using a hidden award chart, but award availability is limited to what other airlines offer to award partners—you’ll usually get good pricing relative to other programs on shorter flights within a region.

Additionally, if you make many SkyMiles redemptions, you’ll want to hold a Delta SkyMiles credit card with an annual fee, as you’ll receive a 15% discount on Delta award tickets just for having the card.

Redeeming SkyMiles for flights

Redeeming SkyMiles for flights is a relatively simple process. Just select “Shop with Miles” when searching for flights on Delta.com or in the Delta mobile app.

You’ll search for flights just like you would search for a flight priced in cash. In addition to the price in miles, you’ll pay a (usually) small amount of taxes and fees.

How Delta prices its award flights

Delta prices most of its own flights dynamically, meaning the price in terms of miles generally tracks the cash price of the flights. Flights on many partners are still priced using an unpublished award chart, but prices on partner itineraries that originate or terminate in the U.S. are usually higher than Delta’s own flights.

We’ve noticed that you’ll usually get slightly better award pricing relative to the cash prices of tickets on flights to/from markets where Delta isn’t the dominant carrier. You’re more likely to get a better miles price on a Seattle-Denver flight than a Minneapolis-Detroit flight.

Because most partner flights that do not touch North America are still priced using an award chart, you’ll occasionally find good deals on SkyTeam flights outside the U.S. on Delta.

Elite Status: Perks for annual spending with Delta

Delta offers four tiers of elite status within the SkyMiles program (plus an additional invite-only Delta 360° status). Delta elite status comes with useful benefits like additional check baggage allowance, priority handling, complimentary upgrades, and (at the higher tiers) Choice Benefits that you can select. In addition, if you have accumulated more than 1 million “Million Miler” miles with Delta, you get complimentary annual status.

Here are the four tiers of Delta status, and how many Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs) you need to earn each level:

Earning Elite Status: Medallion Qualification Dollars

You’ll earn Medallion status with Delta based on the number of Medallion Qualification Dollars you can earn during the calendar year. If you earn the number of MQDs required for a certain status level, you’ll receive that status immediately, through the end of the following Medallion Qualification Year (January 31, two years later). Here are the ways you can earn Medallion Qualification Dollars:

• Spending money on Delta and partner flights. Generally, you’ll earn 1 MQD per dollar spent on the base fare and mandatory non-tax fees on Delta flights. Some partner-marketed (flights with a non DL- flight number) and operated flights earn based on distance flown and fare classification.
• Medallion Qualification Headstart. For each Platinum- or Reserve-level Delta SkyMiles credit card you hold, you’ll receive 2,500 MQDs each Medallion Qualification year.
• MQD Boost. For every $20 you spend on a Delta Platinum-level credit card and every $10 you spend on a Delta Reserve-level credit card, you’ll receive 1 Medallion Qualification Dollar.
• Delta Vacations and Delta Stays. For every $1 you spend on Delta Vacations, you’ll receive 1 MQD. Delta Stays occasionally runs promotions where bookings earn MQDs.

Elite Benefits

When you earn Medallion status, you’ll be granted certain benefits. See Delta’s website for complete benefits, but the most substantive benefits are summarized below:

Delta credit cards

Delta offers seven credit cards in partnership with American Express at varying levels of expenses. With the exception of the Blue card, each card has a small business version, with similar benefits. At a very high level, here’s what you’ll get with each of the cards:

• Blue – No annual fee.
• Gold – Free checked bags. Delta Stays credit. $0 annual fee in the first year, $150/year thereafter.
• Platinum – Main cabin companion certificate. 2,500 MQD headstart. Free checked bags. Delta Stays credit. $350/year.
• Diamond – Delta SkyClub® access. First class companion certificate. 2,500 MQD headstart. Free checked bags. Delta Stays credit. $650/year.

In general, the best way to think about one of the Delta credit cards is as a way to buy a set of benefits. You pay an annual fee, you get a set of benefits. Generally, you’ll earn less rewards using your Delta credit cards for spending that you could by using cash back credit cards.

We have a separate complete guide to the Delta credit cards where you can compare every card’s features and benefits. We also cover the best Delta credit card welcome bonuses, where you can see the best current offers for new Delta credit card members.

Our take and how we use SkyMiles

I’m Minneapolis-based, so Delta is the airline with the best schedule out of my airport. Most of the time, when I’m flying within the United States, I’m flying on Delta. My Million Miler status gets me lifetime Gold Medallion status with the airline, though I currently have Platinum Medallion status.

While I have both the personal and business SkyMiles Platinum credit cards, I don’t use them for any spending beyond one Resy restaurant purchase, a Delta Stays purchase (to get the annual Delta Stays credit), and an occasional rideshare purchase. (I keep them mostly for the annual companion certificates, which I am able to use on tickets I would otherwise buy anyway.) I earn most of my SkyMiles with my American Express Membership Rewards credit cards.

I use my SkyMiles mostly for domestic travel within the United States. The fact that I can always cancel or reprice an award ticket is highly valuable to me. If I might want to take a trip, I just book it with Delta and then I shop around for a better price. If I find something better (either on Delta or another carrier) I cancel my tickets. If not, I’ll fly on the SkyMiles tickets I booked.

I have on occasion gotten outsized value from SkyMiles redemptions. Last year, I booked Delta One Suites to Asia for something like 160,000 miles round-trip. (I actually found the deal and posted about it in a few Facebook groups because the large deal sites scraped those and republished it!) But I don’t count on those deals. SkyMiles isn’t a program I get terribly excited about it, but it is useful for my domestic travel.

Insider tips on using Delta SkyMiles

Here are some insider tips on using Delta SkyMiles.

Leverage the generous award cancellation policies. Since you can cancel any non-Basic-Economy award originating in North America, use this to your advantage! If you think that you’re going to take a trip, but aren’t sure, book it using your miles. If the price drops, cancel and rebook. If you don’t end up taking the trip, just cancel the trip and get your miles back.

Don’t use Delta credit cards for spending. You’re leaving miles on the table if you’re paying for things with your SkyMiles credit card. In almost every category, you can get more value from cash back cards with no annual fee. And if you want to earn SkyMiles, using cards that earn Membership Rewards® points (which transfer to SkyMiles) will get you more SkyMiles than Delta’s own cards.

Use Delta Stays only for booking one trip to get your Delta Stays credit. Delta Stays prices are usually competitive with what you’ll find elsewhere, but you’re giving up the opportunity to earn more value in hotel points, bank points, or get cash back through shopping portals when you book through Delta Stays.

Collect Membership Rewards® points over SkyMiles. Since you can always transfer Membership Rewards to Delta SkyMiles, that makes Membership Rewards like a Super SkyMiles. We always prefer accumulating Amex points, since they effectively offer all of the redemption options of SkyMiles, plus transfers to a bunch of other airline partners.

Bottom line: A useful program, but limited upside opportunity

Delta SkyMiles isn’t a program we get excited about anymore but it is a program we find useful. You’ll see a lot of people (including us) complain about the value of SkyMiles, but that’s mostly because the program is fairly useless for booking international business class awards. But the program does offer consistent value and good flexibility when booking flights in economy within the U.S., making it relatively useful if you fly Delta often.