Earn Up To 70K Miles With Limited Time Offers On Delta AMEX Cards

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AMEX has limited time offers available on their Delta Gold and Platinum cards through 10/28. Unfortunately new Delta cards are not eligible for the limited time spending offers that were added to existing Delta cards due to Coronavirus. It is worth noting that they will qualify for MQMs that will count for both 2020 and 2021 status.

These offers are not as strong as the intro offers when these cards were refreshed back in February, but they are better than the standard offers.

Welcome bonus and card highlights:

Consumer cards:

• Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express
  • Earn 50,000 bonus miles after spending $2,000 in the first 3 months of card membership.
  • $0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $99.
  • After you spend $10,000 in purchases on your Card in a calendar year, you will earn a $100 Delta Flight Credit to use toward future travel.
  • Earn 2 Miles on every dollar spent on eligible purchases made directly with Delta, on every dollar spent on eligible U.S. purchases for groceries, and on every eligible dollar spent on dining at restaurants.
• Platinum Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express
  • Earn 60,000 bonus miles and 5,000 Medallion Qualification Miles after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months of card membership.
  • If you spend $25,000 in a calendar year you’ll receive 10,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles. If you spend $50,000 in a calendar year you’ll receive another 10,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles.
  • Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit.
  • Earn 3 Miles on every dollar spent on eligible purchases made directly with Delta.
  • Earn 2 Miles on every dollar spent on every dollar spent on eligible U.S. purchases for groceries, and on every eligible dollar spent on dining at restaurants.
  • Receive a Domestic Main Cabin round-trip companion certificate each year upon renewal of your Card.
  • $250 annual fee.

Business cards:

• Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express:
  • Earn 60,000 bonus miles after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months of card membership.
  • $0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $99.
  • After you spend $10,000 in purchases on your Card in a calendar year, you will earn a $100 Delta Flight Credit to use toward future travel.
  • Earn 2 Miles on every dollar spent on eligible purchases made directly with Delta, on every dollar spent on eligible U.S. purchases for advertising in select media, on every dollar spent on eligible U.S. shipping purchases, and on every eligible dollar spent on dining at restaurants.
  • Terms and restrictions apply, see rates and fees here.

• Platinum Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express:
  • Earn 70,000 bonus miles and 5,000 Medallion Qualification Miles after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months of card membership.
  • If you spend $25,000 in a calendar year you’ll receive 10,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles. If you spend $50,000 in a calendar year you’ll receive another 10,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles.
  • Global Entry/TSA PreCheck credit.
  • Earn 3 Miles on every dollar spent on eligible purchases made directly with Delta and on every eligible dollar spent on purchases made directly with hotels.
  • Earn 1.5 miles per dollar on single eligible purchases of $5,000 or more, up to 50,000 additional miles per year. 1 Mile on every eligible dollar spent on other purchases.
  • Receive a Domestic Main Cabin round-trip companion certificate each year upon renewal of your Card.
  • Terms and restrictions apply, see rates and fees here.
  • $250 annual fee.

Comparison Chart:

Here is a current breakdown on Delta card benefits, not including limited time spending offers:

Welcome bonus terms: 

You can receive the bonus once for each of these flavor of the Delta card. You will get an ineligibility popup if you have had the card or if AMEX determines that you have opened and closed too many cards.

Benefits offered on all Delta Gold, Platinum, and Reserve cards:

• Offer a free checked bag for the primary cardholder and up to 8 companions on the same reservation. You do not need to book tickets on your Delta card for this benefit, you only need to have your Skymiles number in the reservation. That allows you to buy airfare on a card that offers more points per dollar on airfare.
• Have no foreign transaction fees.
• Offer Zone 1 Priority Boarding on Delta flights for the primary cardholder and up to 8 companions on the same reservation so that you won’t have to gate-check your carry-ons.
• Offer free priority boarding along with a free carry-on and checked bag even on a Basic Economy fare. That can equal major savings on domestic and international basic economy deals.
• Offer a 20% savings in the form of a statement credit on eligible pre-purchased meals, in-flight purchases of food, alcoholic beverages and audio headsets, and movies, shows and video games accessed via Delta’s seatback in-flight entertainment system, on Delta-operated flights.
• Offer free additional cardholders (up to 99 per account). Additional cardholders are each eligible for American promotions like AMEX Offers.

Spend Threshold:

If you need a little help to meet the threshold, you can pay your federal taxes for a 1.87% fee. If you overpay your taxes you can request a refund or apply it to your next year’s taxes.

My local natural gas company allows me to prepay up to $1,000 on a credit card for a $1.65 flat fee. That’s a great way to earn miles and help meet a spend threshold. My electricity supplier allows me to pay with a credit card for free as long as I am enrolled in autopay.

American Express benefits:

The cards carry American Express’ awesome top-notch protections that are light-years better than any other banks. Most other banks always look for a way to get out, but that’s not the case with American Express.

• You get an additional year of warranty coverage and if you have any issue in the extended warranty year they’ll pay to have it fixed or refund your entire purchase price without a hassle. This benefit is far more valuable than warranty benefits offered by other banks!
• If you need to dispute a charge there’s nobody who makes it easier or as pain-free as American Express does. It’s the easiest dispute resolution process in the industry by leaps and bounds and you can do it all online.
• If your item is stolen or broken within 90 days you’ll be covered.
• AMEX cards now cover car rental insurance in Israel.
• AMEX cards offer free Shoprunner membership for 2nd day free shipping and returns from dozens of stores.

See this post to see just how amazing some of the AMEX protections can be.

Business vs Consumer card:

AMEX business cards don’t appear on your credit report. That’s good for several reasons.

First of all, they won’t count against your 5/24 count for opening new Chase cards. 

Second, when you spend money on personal cards your credit score will be hurt even if you pay your bill on time. A whopping 30% of your credit score is based on credit utilization. You can pay off your card bill before your statement is generated to avoid that, but that takes effort and laying out money well before you have to. Additionally it’s good to have the statement close with a couple dollars to show the card is active and being paid every month. On an AMEX business card it’s just not reported, so you can wait until the money is due without it having a negative effect on your score.

Third, if you close a business card it won’t ever have an effect on your score.

You may already have a business that needs a card to keep track of expenses. For example if your name is Joe Smith and you sell items online, or if you have any other side business and want a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures you can open a business credit card for “Joe Smith” as the business. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that. Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field.

Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field

It’s important to just write your own name as the business name if you are just applying for your own small business as a Sole Proprietorship that doesn’t have any business paperwork.

Best Uses Of Delta Miles:

I have mixed feelings about Delta miles or “Skypesos.”

Traditionally they have had terrible saver award availability. However that has improved of late and it’s now significantly better than American’s availability, though it’s not as good as United’s.

Delta miles also never expire.

However Delta doesn’t publish award charts anymore as they feel than an uneducated customer is their best customer. That’s beyond frustrating.

They don’t charge a close-in award fee, but it can be tough to find saver award space available within 3 weeks.

However there are still plenty of good uses of Delta miles, especially as American’s award availability has gone down the drain.

Delta has also lowered the cost of some domestic saver awards from a flat 12.5K to as low as 4.5K, depending on the route.

They frequently run flash sales. Last year I flew to Amsterdam for just 49K Delta miles each way in DeltaOne Business Suites:

You can read the Amsterdam trip report and my thoughts on Delta A350 suites here.

Here are some examples of routes that can now be booked from just 9K miles round-trip:

NYC to/from Chicago:

NYC to/from Fort Lauderdale:

NYC to/from Orlando:

If you actually want to collect Delta miles you’ll do better spending on the The Blue Business℠ Plus Credit Card from American Express which earns 2 points per dollar everywhere. Plus you can transfer those points to other airlines or Delta on demand as you need them.

However the MQM bonuses can make it worth spending on the Delta Platinum/Reserve cards if you can hit the spend threshold bonuses.

Additionally if you are gunning for Delta medallion status, then spending $25,000 on Delta Platinum/Reserve cards will waive the requirement to spend a minimum amount on Delta flights to earn that status ($3,000 for Silver, $6,000 for Gold, or $9,000 for Platinum if you don’t spend $25K in a year across all of your Delta cards).

Which of the Delta AMEX cards will you apply for?