Delta Airlines Earning and Using Miles

Earning Miles on Delta

Delta has maintained (for now) the 500-mile minimum, including on their partner airlines. Their SkyTeam membership means you can accrue miles with Aeroflot, AeroMexico, Air France, Alitalia, China Southern, Continental, Czech Airlines, KLM, Korean Air and Northwest Airlines with associate member airlines including Air Europa, Copa Airlines and Kenya Airways. They also have non-alliance partnerships with Alaska, Avianca, China Airlines and Singapore Airlines.

Delta also has the usual array of hotel, car, retail and telephone partners. However, their must lucrative partnership for frequent flyers is their co-branded Delta SkyMiles American Express card. The $55 card nets you double miles when you use the card to purchase a Delta flight (a handful of other types of items also gets you double miles). If you’re flying a significant amount, this benefit alone may be worth the switch to Delta.

Delta Air Lines Secret: Looking for a comfortable way to fly across the country? Delta is flying some of its former Song 757s on transcon routes. These aircraft offer ample legroom and live television at every seat. Be sure to check with the airline, though – Delta flies 4 different 757s, and only 1 type has this amenity.

Using Miles on Delta

Sadly, once you’ve earned all of those miles, you may have a difficult time redeeming them on Delta. Where people used to just complain that you could rarely find a seat available to purchase with miles, they’ve recently added insult to injury and switched to a 3-tiered reward chart. In this scenario, seats that require the fewest number of miles will likely be rare, and they’ve added a top tier (60,000 miles for a domestic ticket) that has no capacity controls. You may remember that as recently as 2007, those tickets were only 45,000 miles.

As noted, however, SkyTeam availability is strong, especially out of New York, so it may be worth hopping a connection to New York first and then getting a SkyTeam partner flight for international travel (that domestic leg will be included in the number of miles you need for the reward ticket).

Delta does have one interesting redemption option – they will allow you to use miles to pay for a flight if no reward seats are available, at an exchange of roughly $1 for each 100 miles redeemed. In other words, if a flight to Europe costs $600, you could use 60,000 miles to get yourself a seat on the flight. It’s not a terrible option if you need an international coach ticket and the price is reasonable. It becomes absolutely prohibitive for business travel, as a typical business class ticket to Europe could cost you 400,000 miles under this scenario.

Delta Air Lines Secret: Continental has the nicest business class service to Hawaii in the sky, with plush seats and full meal service. If you are using Continental, Delta or Northwest miles to go to Hawaii, definitely consider redeeming those miles on Continental – your trip will be much more comfortable. If the Continental flight is not available, consider the Minneapolis-Honolulu flight on Northwest if it’s being flown on an A330 – you’ll also fly in comfort.

Delta does not charge an award ticketing fee, but they have added a $25-50 “fuel surcharge” on award tickets, effectively adding a fee for getting an award ticket. Delta also charges $25 to make a reservation over the phone, $75 for booking within 21 days of departure, and $100 to change your ticket. Annoyingly, Delta charges $25 to make a reservation on a partner airline, which is a bummer since many of their partners cannot be booked online.

Delta Air Lines Secret: Like Continental, Delta charges a fee for award tickets booked less than 21 days in advance. Northwest, however, does not have this fee. If you have Northwest miles and you need to book an award seat for a flight less than 3 weeks away, you should use your Northwest miles to reserve that Delta flight, because Northwest will not charge you the $75 fee that Delta will charge.

Learn More About Delta Airlines Skymiles

Delta Airlines Skymiles Overview
Delta Airlines Hubs and Routes
Delta Airlines Earning and Using Miles
Delta Airlines Skymiles Elite Status
Delta Airlines Skymiles Elite Status Matching