In October 2022, Delta and Starbucks launched a loyalty collaboration, intended to reward customers from both brands. While we often see partnerships like this between travel brands (like between airlines and hotels), it’s cool to see an airline partner with a coffee chain.
Some major changes have just been announced to this partnership. I actually don’t necessarily think this is bad news, though I’m sure others will feel differently.
In this post:
How the Delta & Starbucks partnership works
Thanks to this partnership, you have the opportunity to earn bonus Delta SkyMiles and bonus Starbucks Rewards Stars for your business with the two brands. In order to take part in the Starbucks Rewards and Delta SkyMiles partnership, you need to be enrolled, by linking your accounts.
So let’s cover how this partnership works, and what’s changing — the ability to earn Starbucks Rewards Stars is staying the same, while the ability to earn Delta SkyMiles is being updated.
Earn bonus Delta SkyMiles
As of June 12, 2024, we’re going to see updates to how you can earn Delta SkyMiles with this collaboration. As things currently stand, you earn one bonus mile with Delta SkyMiles for every dollar spent with Starbucks (excluding tax and gratuities).
This will all be changing shortly — instead of being rewarded for all purchases directly with Starbucks, you’ll instead be rewarded when reloading the balance in your Starbucks account. Specifically:
- A $25-49.99 Starbucks reload will earn 25 bonus Delta miles
- A $50-74.99 Starbucks reload will earn 75 bonus Delta miles
- A $75-99.99 Starbucks reload will earn 125 bonus Delta miles
- A $100 Starbucks reload will earn 200 bonus Delta miles
I’ve gotta be honest, I just got really sad for a second, thinking about the concept of earning 25 Delta miles at a time. Us humans don’t live long enough for that to amount to a whole lot. Like, how many generations need to drink Starbucks before you’d have enough miles for a Delta One ticket to somewhere interesting?
In all seriousness, as you can see, you’re being rewarded more generously if you make larger Starbucks reloads. If you are happy to do a $100 reload, you’re earning two bonus Delta miles per dollar spent, which is more generous than the previous version of the program, in my opinion. For what it’s worth, personally I value Delta SkyMiles at a little over a cent each, so at most you’re earning an incremental return of just over 2%.
While I realize not everyone will like these changes, I can totally understand why Starbucks would want to incentivize reloads rather than direct purchases. Who wouldn’t want to encourage an interest free loan, plus a strong incentive for someone to be a repeat customer?
Earn bonus Starbucks Rewards Stars
What isn’t changing about this partnership is the ability to earn Starbucks Rewards Stars. US customers who are enrolled in both Delta SkyMiles and Starbucks Rewards can earn double Starbucks Rewards Stars when making purchases with Starbucks on the same day where they have a Delta flight scheduled.
Starbucks Rewards members ordinarily earn 2x Stars when using a prepaid digital Starbucks Card, or 1x Stars otherwise. That’s before this additional bonus. Personally I value Starbucks Stars at 4-5 cents each, so think of it as a minimum of an incremental 4-5% return on Starbucks spending.
Bottom line
Delta and Starbucks have offered a partnership since October 2022, but it will be changing as of June 12, 2024. While it has historically been possible to earn one Delta mile per dollar spent with Starbucks, soon we’ll be able to earn a fixed number of Delta miles for Starbucks reloads. The best reward will be earning 200 Delta miles for a $100 reload.
As before, you’ll continue to earn double Stars with Starbucks Rewards when visiting the retailer the same day you fly Delta.
This is a fun partnership. I’m not sure it moves the needle all that much in terms of whether it makes sense to get coffee at Starbucks or fly Delta. But still, you might as well earn extra rewards.
What do you make of the Delta and Starbucks partnership changes?
The people who come out worse off are the ones in my situation.
In my house, we use Starbucks so much, that I've been buying discounted gift cards from online gift card marketplaces to maintain the balance in our Starbucks account. The rate I pay for those gift cards changes frequently but is usually roughly around maybe 4 to 8 percent. Doesn't sound like much but it adds up.
So, under the existing program,...
The people who come out worse off are the ones in my situation.
In my house, we use Starbucks so much, that I've been buying discounted gift cards from online gift card marketplaces to maintain the balance in our Starbucks account. The rate I pay for those gift cards changes frequently but is usually roughly around maybe 4 to 8 percent. Doesn't sound like much but it adds up.
So, under the existing program, we were earning one SkyMile per eligible dollar we spent at Starbucks. Now, as we read in this article. we would earn only on reload. However, since I'm buying those gift cards in a secondary marketplace, when I use this doesn't result in any reload in our Starbucks account. So, no more SkyMiles for us in those cases
The plan is we'll still keep buying those discounted gift cards, because it's a better deal.
I suspect people like me are one main reason Starbucks just made this change....
As someone who rarely flies Delta, I did enjoy the opportunity to collect a few more Delta miles for my twice a month Starbucks visits. With the change, I don't see earning a lot of miles since I reload my Starbucks card three or four times a year, with $20-25.
Does this work with any credit card or does it have to be one affiliated with Delta?
I had a reload today, and earned the 25 miles for it. I don't have any Delta-affiliated cards currently
Except 2x Skymiles on $100, you will earn Skymiles on sales taxes as well which was excluded.
Aeroplan does this as well. At least in Canada.
I reload my Starbucks app by buying a gift card through the United MileagePlus X app which gets me 2 UA miles per dollar and charging it to my CFU which gets me 1.5 points per dollar. So I bump it up to $100 rather than $20 and in the end, I’ll have 200 UA, 300 UR and 200 DL. Slow going for sure but I’ll always take extra miles/points wherever I can get them.
For me this is actually good news. I should probably refill by $25 allotments instead of $10 anyway… I’m just in denial… and my SkyMiles activity was getting bombarded with Starbucks activity so this will be easier to track things.
I kind of like seeing my SkyMiles balance update every time I bought a coffee (haha) but the way you explained it sort of put it into context that this isn't really a devaluation per se. It's basically just a "prepay and earn" thing.
One thing that was unclear though from Delta's email. On Delta travel days, do you earn 2x for individual purchases like normal, or 2x the amount for reloads, or both?
Agreed. That was very unclear.
I think this would remain as it was. Stars aren't something that can be reloaded, right? They're just earned and redeemed as you go?
"Come swing by Edmark Toyota and get a FREE pack of Kleenex with the purchase of a new Sienna!"
hahaha
Haha, you got taken advantage of. I got a box of 8 Godiva chocolates for my BMW purchase! Only the smart ones get ahead in life...
Earning Skymiles isn't something I go out of my way to do, but every now and again I find myself redeeming Skymiles for a flight - just because I can. There's nothing aspirational about Delta or their product. It's purely utilitarian and I would never redeem for D1, especially at the 375,000 level we see too frequently.
But, this change, for me, is a negative. Where I live my local grocery store incentivizes the...
Earning Skymiles isn't something I go out of my way to do, but every now and again I find myself redeeming Skymiles for a flight - just because I can. There's nothing aspirational about Delta or their product. It's purely utilitarian and I would never redeem for D1, especially at the 375,000 level we see too frequently.
But, this change, for me, is a negative. Where I live my local grocery store incentivizes the purchase of gift cards by awarding "gas money." So, with the current program, I was able to buy a $50 Starbucks card earn 10 cents off a gallon of fuel (up to $20). That's a value of $2. Then, I'd buy that gift card with my Amex Gold card to get my 200 MR points. When buying Starbucks I would get the stars and, then, tap into the lousy Delta miles as a bonus. In cases when I bought coffee at the Starbucks in the grocery store I would also earn 5 cents off fuels for purchases over $10 (this is has now been discontinued since the store enabled order ahead and is no longer using PLUs). There were multiple levels of rewards involved on the purchase of two coffees. With the switch to reloads, this will ultimately be a devaluation for me. But it's really insignificant at the end of the day. My spending at Starbucks has also significantly decreased as well simply because I draw the line at coffee approaching $6-7.
This is a "downgrade" for me, too, as I currently pay with my Amex Gold in the app such that I earn MR points, Stabucks rewards, *and* SkyPesos on direct purchases without the silliness of having to "reload" a Starbucks card that I don't care to maintain. I understand where S'bucks is coming from but overall it's a garbage update for me because I don't care for the additional reload step.
You are earning half as many Starbucks stars when you pay with the Amex in the app rather than reloading a Starbucks with that Amex and then using it. (2x per dollar vs. 1x)