In the miles & points world, people often joke about the value of Delta SkyMiles, going so far as calling them “SkyPesos.” In Taylor Swift terms (and I’m no Swiftie, but it seems appropriate), you could say that SkyMiles is kind of the anti-hero.
But here’s the thing — not everything about SkyMiles is bad. I wanted to address that in a bit more detail in this post. What does SkyMiles get such a bad rap, and what’s the best way to redeem this currency?
In this post:
Why do people not like Delta SkyMiles?
There are plenty of people who like the Delta SkyMiles program, though savvy people who are into miles & points aren’t necessarily a fan of redeeming this mileage currency. For many of us, the beauty of miles & points is being able to redeem for aspirational first and business class flights that would be unaffordable if paying cash.
From redeeming American AAdvantage miles for Qatar Airways business class, to redeeming United MileagePlus miles for Lufthansa first class, there are all kinds of ways to use miles for tickets that would cost many thousands of dollars. This represents a disproportionately good value, compared to the cost of a ticket if paying cash.
Delta SkyMiles, on the other hand, is a much more strictly revenue based program, meaning there are fewer opportunities to get outsized value:
- You’ll rarely find a reasonably priced one-way Delta long haul business class award, unlike with American or United
- Even though Delta reimburses partner airlines very little for partner redemptions, the airline still charges an outrageous number of miles; for example, Virgin Atlantic one-way transatlantic awards regularly cost over 300K miles, while Virgin Atlantic would often charge under 50K points for the same redemption
What are the best ways to redeem Delta SkyMiles?
How should you go about redeeming Delta SkyMiles, to get as much value as possible? Unlike with other programs, you’ll generally find that you get the best value with SkyMiles on the same flights that would be reasonably priced in cash. You just need to have a different mindset when you redeem Delta SkyMiles vs. other mileage currencies.
Below I’ll share what I consider the best uses of SkyMiles to be. Let me state upfront that you’re almost never going to get a good deal with SkyMiles if you’re booking a partner award originating or terminating in the United States, and/or if you book a one-way Delta long haul business class award originating or terminating in the United States.
Conversely, Delta SkyMiles is one of the mileage currencies with the highest floor value. Unlike with other programs, it’s almost impossible to redeem SkyMiles for less than one cent of value per mile. Many Delta loyalists kind of appreciate this, especially since Delta award flights count toward elite status, and you can even take advantage of most elite perks on award tickets.
With that out of the way, let me share what I consider the best uses of Delta SkyMiles to be. As you’ll see, if you want to maximize value, there’s a strong incentive to have a co-branded Delta Amex credit card.
Use the Delta TakeOff 15 benefit
Nowadays I think the single best, easiest way to redeem SkyMiles is using the TakeOff 15 benefit, which is available to those with a co-branded Delta Amex. Essentially if you have a co-branded card and log into your SkyMiles account, you’ll get a 15% discount on award redemptions.
Delta SkyMiles has dynamic award pricing, and you’ll find that the cost in miles is roughly correlated to the cost in cash (though it’s not an exact cent per mile ratio). So start by finding a flight that you think is fairly priced in cash (you can do this through Delta’s website, or through Google Flights).
Let’s use a $409 one-way first class fare from Boston to Seattle as an example.
If you wanted to redeem miles for that ticket, it would ordinarily cost 32,000 SkyMiles. However, if you have a co-branded credit card, you’d pay just 27,200 miles.
You’re saving $403 (after subtracting the $5.60 in taxes you’d pay if redeeming miles) for 27,200 SkyMiles, so that’s nearly 1.5 cents of airfare per mile. That’s pretty solid, and you’ll find similar redemption rates for most types of Delta tickets.
Use the Delta Pay With Miles feature
Delta also has the Pay With Miles feature for those with a co-branded Delta Amex. With this, you can redeem SkyMiles toward the cost of any Delta ticket, in increments of $50 worth of savings for every 5,000 SkyMiles.
In other words, this gets you one cent of value per mile. Is this my favorite use of SkyMiles? No, as I find that you’ll typically get better value with the TakeOff 15 benefit. However, this gives SkyMiles an absolute floor value of being able to redeem them for one cent each toward airfare, even if you don’t have enough miles for the entire ticket.
Redeem on SkyTeam partners outside the US
Delta’s premium cabin partner award pricing is consistently borderline offensive when traveling to and from the United States. Expect Delta to consistently charge 200,000+ miles for a one-way business class award, even if a partner airline would charge only a fraction as many miles through its own program.
Why does Delta have such high partner award pricing? Well, I think it’s primarily about setting expectations. Delta wants to charge these very high amounts for travel on its own flights, so it wouldn’t look very good if partner awards only cost a fraction as much, so Delta instead jacks up the prices across the board.
The good news is that Delta’s partner award pricing is much more reasonable if you’re not traveling to or from the United States, since these aren’t markets where Delta is competing. So I don’t want to say there are any spectacular redemption values, but you’ll find much fairer redemption options in other markets.
For example, you could fly from Tokyo to Sydney via Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam Airlines business class for 75,000 SkyMiles…
Or you could fly from Johannesburg to Frankfurt via Paris in Air France business class for 85,000 SkyMiles…
Or you could fly from Bangkok to Paris via Jeddah in Saudia business class for 80,000 SkyMiles…
I’m just picking routes at random here, but my point is that Delta SkyMiles is a program worth considering for partner business class awards that don’t touch the United States.
Book roundtrip Delta One business class awards
If you want to redeem for a long haul Delta One (business class) award, is there ever a deal to be had? Yes and no. Aside from some award sale, you’ll rarely find a good deal for a long haul one-way award on Delta if travel originates or terminates in the United States.
The reason is because Delta uses similar logic for award pricing and revenue pricing, and when paying cash, a one-way long haul ticket is almost never half the cost of a roundtrip.
You will sometimes find decent deals on point-to-point Delta One flights, but only if booking roundtrip. For example, doing a quick search, I see a roundtrip business class award from Boston to London for 230,000 miles, which is less than the cost of a one-way on that same outbound flight.
There’s also one other redemption option worth calling out. You’ll sometimes find decent Delta One pricing for long haul flights if you’re simply connecting in the United States, rather than originating or terminating there. For example, I recently redeemed just over 60,000 miles for a one-way business class award on Delta from Santiago to Atlanta to Mexico City. If I had only booked it as far as Atlanta, it would’ve cost exponentially more.
Redeem for premium alcohol in the Sky Club
One of the benefits of Delta making SkyMiles a revenue based currency is that you can redeem miles toward the cost of just about anything Delta related… including alcohol in the Delta Sky Club. So while Delta ordinarily seems to make SkyMiles worth around a cent each, you can redeem SkyMiles for 1.5 cents each toward premium alcohol in the Sky Club.
If you appreciate good alcohol, don’t feel guilty about redeeming SkyMiles this way.
How much are Delta SkyMiles worth?
Personally I value Delta SkyMiles at 1.1 cents each. I’m not claiming that should be your valuation, but that’s the number I feel good about, while trying to be conservative with my valuations of rewards currencies.
While you can consistently redeem SkyMiles for one cent each with the Pay With Miles feature, it shouldn’t be hard to get a bit more value than that through the TakeOff 15 benefit, or even when redeeming on partner airlines outside of the United States.
Bottom line
While Delta SkyMiles is far from my favorite mileage currency, the miles also aren’t worthless. Delta’s program is much more revenue based than that of American and United, and that’s both good or bad, depending on how much effort you’re willing to put into redemptions.
On the plus side, SkyMiles has a high floor value. If you have a co-branded Delta Amex card, you’ll almost always get more than one cent of value thanks to the TakeOff 15 benefit.
The best ways to get significantly outsized value through SkyMiles is for partner redemptions not to or from the United States, and for roundtrip Delta One awards, or Delta One awards merely connecting in the United States.
What’s your take on the best use of Delta SkyMiles?
Delta Reserve Card isn't worth it. Tried it this year and it doesn't have enough Value to offset the cost. Will be downgrading to lower Delta Amex cards
The only real difference I'd make vs the above is that I'd drop the Pay With Miles from the above and call it a "generally bad" value raher than listing it among the best ways to maximize value.
I'd note pairing redemptions with RUCs/GUCs in place of that.
Well... I actually like flying Delta for domestic flights. I'm in the middle of the country and I use their routes to one of their hubs and their point- to point NY flight a fair bit. Reasonably reliable airline (although they have stranded me before and they are the worst of the bunch about making it right without a fight) and their planes are OK. The up front seats are pretty good and the flight...
Well... I actually like flying Delta for domestic flights. I'm in the middle of the country and I use their routes to one of their hubs and their point- to point NY flight a fair bit. Reasonably reliable airline (although they have stranded me before and they are the worst of the bunch about making it right without a fight) and their planes are OK. The up front seats are pretty good and the flight attendants and service up there are not terrible.
I put them right there with Southwest for domestic coach, if that's the cabin I'm flying (although SW strangely holds the distinction of being the airline that's never screwed with me or abandoned me even once, although I think that's just luck) although SW seats are more reliably with more space and friendlier attendants.
I don't understand the "I hate Delta" thing and "I will never fly them" because of the bad points redemptions. I still use them, I just don't chase loyalty or their points currency.
The points are fine for what they are. A low- yield rebate program with fixed- value, just like Southwest. Never using them for international. Sometimes will use the points for good hooch (I did use points for Dom in the lounge once when that was still a thing).
I like that their points are no- stress; use them and forget them, no looking around for a good deal or "best" redemption because there isn't one.
As for international trips, I use other airlines/ points currencies to fly up front- or pay cash. I would never pay cash for international "up front" on Delta when I can have a far superior experience on an international airline on most routes; so the irony is, they lose my high- yield, cash- paying international business. Well, that's their model, whatever they feel works for them
Delta Skymiles are good for a few award sales each year and they can be a terrific use of points. We've gone NY to the Caribbean several times for 8-16k miles per person roundtrip, and across the country for under 20k roundtrip. The deals tend to be even better from smaller cities I just wait for those sales.
I used to live in Europe and got pretty good value using SkyMiles to fly to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East from there. Now that I’m back stateside, I just use my skypesos for domestic flights (which are somehow now $400-500 for quick hops around the west coast…) and use the money saved to buy business class long haul outright on other airlines with a better program.
The threshold question is: Is it even worth crediting to Delta rather than Air France? For years I’ve been crediting my Delta flights to Air France. It means I forgo Delta status but I always book domestic first/international business anyway, and Air France points are far more versatile. The one hassle is it means Delta doesn’t have my information saved so whenever I book a flight direct with Delta, I have to enter all my info.
What's the best way to redeem Sky Miles? Take a time machine back 20 years.
Little bit farther.
Neither airline advertised this, but while you couldn't redeem SkyMiles for Air France's former First, you could redeem them for Concorde. 165,000mi flat fee at that.
2001-2003 was a goldmine for it, as until the retirement announcement, AF's Concordes rarely went out full, even once they pared the service down to 5x weekly.
....and the airline didn't hold inventory: if you had the miles, and there was an open seat, you were...
Little bit farther.
Neither airline advertised this, but while you couldn't redeem SkyMiles for Air France's former First, you could redeem them for Concorde. 165,000mi flat fee at that.
2001-2003 was a goldmine for it, as until the retirement announcement, AF's Concordes rarely went out full, even once they pared the service down to 5x weekly.
....and the airline didn't hold inventory: if you had the miles, and there was an open seat, you were almost guaranteed to get it.
Was still in college back then, and had only JUST gotten my first AmEx. But man, to be able to go back to THAT, knowing what I know now! Bonanza.
Two comments: (1) While 1c for 1 mile sounds like a good deal, it does ignore that it can regularly be true that Delta tickets are more expensive for the same dates/destination. E.g., random week of January dates for one way ATL-ORD shows United and AA at $129. Delta starts at $159 and goes thru $264. Similarly, ATL-DCA has five flights on AA at $109. Cheapest Delta ticket for any of their eleven flights is...
Two comments: (1) While 1c for 1 mile sounds like a good deal, it does ignore that it can regularly be true that Delta tickets are more expensive for the same dates/destination. E.g., random week of January dates for one way ATL-ORD shows United and AA at $129. Delta starts at $159 and goes thru $264. Similarly, ATL-DCA has five flights on AA at $109. Cheapest Delta ticket for any of their eleven flights is $309. (2) There are some niche destinations from the US where there are deals to be had using Skypesos e.g., Air France flights from Miami to the Caribbean are great value Skymile redemptions
Point (2) is interesting, but Point (1) is heavily market dependent. DL prices in the PNW for example are generally superior to Alaska (across all cabins).
the difference being where Delta has strong competition, and where it doesn't!
Just finished flying a SkyMiles award ticket SFO-LAX-LHR-SFO in Premium for 103k miles and $344 (the UK rips people off with taxes). The ticket would have cost about $2300 for the same itinerary. There good redemptions to be had if you are patient and flexible with dates.
That same ticket for about the same price can be had on Air France/KLM in biz. Cheaper than that on Iberia biz. Even Virgin biz tickets are now cheaper depending on date of travel. But if you've got Skypesos it's not a bad value!
Best redemption I ever had was on Garuda Indonesia from AMS-CGK-DPS in J for 80k SkyMiles. Delta didn’t let me book it directly – I had to book AMS-CGK and then “modify” my booking to add the DPS segment (for 0 miles).
Unfortunately Delta “forgot” to add baggage to my itinerary and I was stuck paying 70€ to check a single bag on a business class ticket, because Garuda refused to enforce their own baggage policy. I luckily won the chargeback.
Interesting. The best value I’ve gotten out of SkyMiles has certainly been via upgrades (ie, Comfort Plus to Premium Select to Delta One).
With Delta points, it's about finding something that is of "acceptable value" that the system will let you book and then dumping the points. (Yeah, let you book, since Delta's married segment logic and partner blocking and not having all partners bookable on their website/app are huge barriers) Trips that don't touch USA/Canada are a great bet (how ironic that a loyalty program gives its home country's members the Trudeau salute when trying to find...
With Delta points, it's about finding something that is of "acceptable value" that the system will let you book and then dumping the points. (Yeah, let you book, since Delta's married segment logic and partner blocking and not having all partners bookable on their website/app are huge barriers) Trips that don't touch USA/Canada are a great bet (how ironic that a loyalty program gives its home country's members the Trudeau salute when trying to find international itins most relevant to them), otherwise alcohol at the Sky Club. Anything left over? Tip the bartender at the Sky Club. It's how I got my balance down to 0.
You need to use the right tool for the job. Delta has made it pretty clear for a long time that premium cabin travel (especially with partners) is a poor use of SkyMiles. Even with Delta as my preferred airline, I routinely stock up on other miles & points currencies for the few times a year I take international trips. SkyMiles is my workhorse for domestic travel, which occurs much more frequently than international. Based...
You need to use the right tool for the job. Delta has made it pretty clear for a long time that premium cabin travel (especially with partners) is a poor use of SkyMiles. Even with Delta as my preferred airline, I routinely stock up on other miles & points currencies for the few times a year I take international trips. SkyMiles is my workhorse for domestic travel, which occurs much more frequently than international. Based in SEA, with the Take15 discount I usually get 1.6-1.8 cents per mile. Not amazing, but these are tickets that I otherwise would pay cash for, so it is pretty close to actual cash value. Recent examples are SEA-PHX for 4600 miles, SEA-SAN for 4200, BOS-SEA for 8900, and LAX-SEA for 5900. These were all less than options using AS or AA miles at the time of booking. It is not as exciting as the 10 cpp I got booking an Air New Zealand flight with Virgin, but I was never going to pay $10k+ for that flight.
I think it is also important to point out that these economy award tickets still count towards elite status (earn MQDs) and count towards million miler status. Five years ago, I was hesitant to use SkyMiles on domestic flights, even when they were a good deal, because I trying to get status with Delta. Now there is no reason not to use them if I am getting >1.5 cpp.
Syd-mex 395k one way in their winter - with Amex discount.
> Bangkok to Paris via Jeddah
ugh, with $1430 copay...
No, that's 1430 THB (Thai baht), which is 41 USD
"Nearly 1.5 cents of airfare per mile. That’s pretty solid". No, it's appalling! Why would anyone bother?
My most recent AC, AV & DL awards were all worth 3.6c/mile. Yes, even DL. (Vietnam Airlines between Europe and Australia. 90k in business each way.) My most recent AA & AS awards were worth 4.8c & 6.4c/mile respectively. (But that was before the AS devaluation.)
Anyone who credited flights to Skypesos during the time when DL and...
"Nearly 1.5 cents of airfare per mile. That’s pretty solid". No, it's appalling! Why would anyone bother?
My most recent AC, AV & DL awards were all worth 3.6c/mile. Yes, even DL. (Vietnam Airlines between Europe and Australia. 90k in business each way.) My most recent AA & AS awards were worth 4.8c & 6.4c/mile respectively. (But that was before the AS devaluation.)
Anyone who credited flights to Skypesos during the time when DL and AS were partners can just cry about making the wrong choice.
Trick question. There is no good use other than lighting them on fire for warmth.
I said this yesterday, but it is difficult for me to understand why you and others are so loathe to answer “the lowest priced available awards during Delta One flash sales” when approaching this question. I have gone to LHR, ZHR and BCN (all popular destinations) this way direct from my home airport. Prices used to be as low as ~60k, but now range from 80K to 110K. These are destinations many travelers want to...
I said this yesterday, but it is difficult for me to understand why you and others are so loathe to answer “the lowest priced available awards during Delta One flash sales” when approaching this question. I have gone to LHR, ZHR and BCN (all popular destinations) this way direct from my home airport. Prices used to be as low as ~60k, but now range from 80K to 110K. These are destinations many travelers want to go to, and I am happy to redeem Skymiles this way when available. In fact, I am booking JFK to MAD for March this way now! People always want to go to Europe using points, so again, I don’t understand why you look at an opportunity to redeem something like JFK to BRU at at 83K points and say it is a bad deal for Skymiles. Otherwise I generally redeem on domestic tickets when fares are low at 1.3 to 1.5 cents.
What's your home airport? How far out are you booking? What are your travel timeframes? These are all very important variables for booking D1.
Your experience is highly anecdotal and not at all generally applicable to the vast majority of DL redemptions. There are deals to be had, for sure, but they are, objectively, few and far between for the majority of travelers. I congratulate you on finding great redemptions, but you aren't everyone. Heck,...
What's your home airport? How far out are you booking? What are your travel timeframes? These are all very important variables for booking D1.
Your experience is highly anecdotal and not at all generally applicable to the vast majority of DL redemptions. There are deals to be had, for sure, but they are, objectively, few and far between for the majority of travelers. I congratulate you on finding great redemptions, but you aren't everyone. Heck, you aren't even really in the majority of most travelers.
I think the problem is basically you have to rely on a flash sale - whenever that may end up being - to fly wherever they happen to have a sale - in order to get decent value out of SkyMiles. Sure, if you're super flexible on date and route and don't mind waiting around... but it's not how I'd prefer to use my miles.
Replying to both you and DCAWABN here...
I'm not claiming SkyMiles are better than other currencies, or that these sales are the absolute best ways to travel - my point is that D1 flash sales are generally better deals, to places that are in more demand, than the options Ben put in this particular article. This = also assume that you already have SkyMiles - if you have SkyMiles, would you rather redeem them at...
Replying to both you and DCAWABN here...
I'm not claiming SkyMiles are better than other currencies, or that these sales are the absolute best ways to travel - my point is that D1 flash sales are generally better deals, to places that are in more demand, than the options Ben put in this particular article. This = also assume that you already have SkyMiles - if you have SkyMiles, would you rather redeem them at 80-100K each way in D1 to Europe, or redeem them at 1.4 cents per mile domestically? As someone who has done both, I would generally take the European redemption. Stvr also makes a good point - the SEA to TPE deals that are apparently readily available are also much better than most of what is listed in this article.
My home airport is JFK/LGA, so no need to connect domestically, which makes these deals better - but they are also apparently available from SEA, MSP and DTW. Spring and fall are OK for travel for me. Given all of this, I struggle to see how award sales (which barely got a mention here) aren't better uses of already-earned Skymiles than things like redeeming for drinks at the SkyClub, or trying to position out of the country for a random flight.
In business or coach?
This article is odd to me. Every us-based program has a floor. Delta didn’t invent a floor. Their floor isn’t special or stunning.
Also no mention of Seattle Taipei which is odd
Their floor is automatically higher because of the Amex discount, which is admittedly a brilliant piece of co-branding by Amex and Delta to get everyone to open up their cards.
Lucky, the "connecting in the US" thing is interesting. How often does DL release business class awards at these kinds of "saver" prices for routings via the US? Is it around the same percentage of flights that AA or UA would have as "saver" on their own metal, or more? And would it cover anywhere non-US including the Bahamas, Canada,etc.? I'm based in FL so positioning to say the Bahamas would be very easy.
The best, but still not very good way, to redeem miles is economy class domestic travel. It used to be international business class where one could claim "I got this $5000 ticket for ___ miles and business class!". Since Delta prices those tickets with ungodly levels of miles now the better way is "I got this 5,000 mile journey for __ (not that high) miles" even though it's economy class.
Canadians like to rip each...
The best, but still not very good way, to redeem miles is economy class domestic travel. It used to be international business class where one could claim "I got this $5000 ticket for ___ miles and business class!". Since Delta prices those tickets with ungodly levels of miles now the better way is "I got this 5,000 mile journey for __ (not that high) miles" even though it's economy class.
Canadians like to rip each other off. Expensive gas, expensive milk, expensive cheese, expensive housing prices. The same is with airfare. However, so far Delta hasn't always caught up with that but they will.
Curiously, Skymiles aggressive pricing has led me to consider SkyPesos as a Dis-Loyalty program. The more they raise award levels, the happier I am not flying Delta.
Agree about redemption value point for skymiles. And delta only seems premium domestically compared with airlines like ua and aa. Compared with many foreign carrier they're not. So for me, I like to fly af/kl/vs/ci in J and I credit enough of those to skymiles to only every book dl awards in Y. I see no value in F/J on DL.
Agreed @derek, but I would also add SkyWest flights (any cabin) to your list of decent Skymiles redemption opportunities.