Does a 50% Discount Make Delta Miles a Buy?

When it comes to selling frequent flyer miles, US Airways has established itself as the Discount King, with frequent promotions allowing travelers to buy miles for 50 percent less.

With this latest mileage sale—its fourth in a year—Delta is making a case for itself as the Discount Queen.

Offer Details

Through December 31, SkyMiles members who use a Delta SkyMiles credit card issued by American Express to buy miles will earn a 100 percent bonus on the purchased miles.

SkyMiles members may purchase a maximum of 60,000 miles per year, which translates into 120,000 miles with the bonus.

Delta miles are regularly priced at 3.5 cents each (a 25 percent price increase since last year's promotion, incidentally), plus a 7.5 percent federal excise tax. So 60,000 miles would normally cost $2,257.50, including tax. With the bonus, you can buy 120,000 miles for that price.

Deal or No Deal

The requirement that the Delta miles be charged to a specific credit card won't be an issue for anyone who already holds a SkyMiles credit card. But for those who don't, this offer is effectively a sign-up promotion for American Express. Do you want another credit card in your wallet?

But the more pressing question concerns the miles themselves. All frequent flyer miles are not created equal. In particular, the value of any airline's miles depends in large part on that airline's policy on award availability. In other words, when you go to redeem the miles, how hard is it to find award seats to desirable locations?

There's no final word on which airlines deliver the best value, awards-wise, but Delta has come in for considerable criticism, based in part on studies that found the airline among the least generous in making award seats available to frequent flyer program members.

That caveat aside, spending just over $2,000 for enough miles to fly to Asia or Europe in first or business class is definitely a noteworthy deal—if you can book the award flights at Delta's so-called "Low" availability prices. If award seats are only available at the "High" prices—185,000 miles each way for a premium seat to Asia, for example—the value of the offer quickly deteriorates.

This is, in short, a potential deal.

Reader Reality Check

Delta miles—a buy, or not?

Other Posts of Interest

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• Which Airline Programs Are the Most (and Least) Generous?
• Earn More Shopping Miles From United
• Fly to Tokyo in Business Class for 50,000 AAdvantage Miles
• American Offers Double AAdvantage Miles on Caribbean Flights
• Are Pricier US Airways Miles Still a Buy?
• Double Southwest Points on Baltimore/Washington, Denver, Phoenix Flights
• Alaska Airlines Doubles the Miles for Fall Flights

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Comments

[kenny]

thank you for your help
your link worked and I get the 100% bonus offer

[Henry]

Not a deal... In my experience, it's almost impossible to get an award seat on a 'Low' miles required.
Not worth your money or mine :)

[Tim Winship]

kenny - That sounds like a different offer, maybe for SkyMiles members who do NOT have a program-affiliated credit card. The offer referenced in the blog post is here: http://www.delta.com/skymiles/buy_transfer/buy_miles_amex_lto.jsp

[kenny]

when I click on the link I am offered a much lower bonus of the following:
Up to a 50% Bonus
Are you looking for that perfect holiday trip, but just don't have enough miles? Why not go ahead and buy the extra miles you need? We will even throw in some bonus miles.

Buy or Gift Miles between November 1 and November 30, 2011, and you will get up to a 30,000 mileage bonus.¹

Mileage Bonus:
Buy 10,000 – 18,000 miles = 5,000 bonus
Buy 20,000 – 28,000 miles = 10,000 bonus
Buy 30,000 – 38,000 miles = 15,000 bonus
Buy 40,000 – 48,000 miles = 20,000 bonus
Buy 50,000 – 58,000 miles = 25,000 bonus
Buy 60,000 miles = 30,000 bonus

What a great way to help yourself get the miles needed to book those Award Tickets.²

Hurry! Offer ends November 30, 2011.

any idea how I can get the higher offer?

[Stewart Sheinfeld]

when you charge this mileage purchase to your skymiles card you will earn anther 4500 miles making the deal a little better still as you note the dificulty getting low mileage awards tempers the offer