Back in October I wrote about a surprising limit which Delta SkyMiles was going to put in place as of January 1, 2015, for points transfers from partner programs. The new rule was basically that you can't transfer the equivalent of more than 250,000 Delta SkyMiles from a partner program to Delta in a calendar…
Continue reading: Delta Reverses Partner Transfer Limits
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Sometimes 250,000 domestic miles won't even get you a roundtrip within the U.S. 🙂
At the highest level 250,00 SkyMiles gets you from Atlanta to Conyers........................
@panda That is EXACTLY what I thought. How would 250,000 miles not be enough and how much in cash spend on an AmEx card would that be?
This was a bad move from Delta that underestimated the impact on both Amex MRs and its relationship with Amex and its frequent flyer base. Delta's move largely precluded MRs from being used towards DL premium awards, which would have seriously reduced MRs from being as valuable as they are and would have seriously harmed Amex, DL's partner with its own co-branded cards. Delta has reversed course almost certainly because of pressure by Amex or the realization that it was a misdirected limit that even further eroded its FF program.
You have to wonder how common it even is for someone to transfer more than 250k miles to delta. I would think the number of people who do that probably only numbers in the hundreds or low thousands per year. Seems like this rule only antagonized people who dream, but would have had a small effect on the bottom line.
Lucky, how many of your clients do you think surpassed this threshold in a given year?
This says that AMEX removed the limits! I wonder if there is any truth to that?
@ Tom -- Given that this applies to their other transfer partners as well, I doubt it. I suppose it could be that they applied the pressure, but it seems to go beyond that.
- good reversal. Now if they would let me bring a free guest again to Sky Club, they'd re-earn my loyalty for sure...
I was looking to book an award ticket on Delta using Amex MR Points. I noticed that on the details page of Delta Sky Miles it says that the max that can be transferred from a partner program is 300,000. Is this waived for Amex or has their policy changed since this article?