Delta gold Skymile - 70,000miles and 100 statement credit after 5000 in 6 months

Thanks, just got approved! Do you have to wait 6 months to get the 70k miles or do you get it instantly after spending the $5000?

Edit: Nevermind, I see that it says 2-4 weeks. I REALLY hope this thing is attached to my SkyMiles account!

Quote from ToughPeanut : I have about 200k in Delta Skymiles. Please note that it is usually very difficult to find a flight for 25k miles. On average, most flights I see are 40k round trip. International flights are VERY hard to find. Even though flights to Asia are listed on their tables, if you try to book a flight to Bangkok, for example, they tell you that the "low priced flights are sold out". I actually tried booking at their max 365 days in advance, and it was still "sold out". Bottom Line: This is still a good deal, but you will probably only get 1-2 free round trip out of this.

Of all my airline programs which have plenty of miles, we have found Delta tickets in off peak ticket prices the last two vacations. (2) round trip, business class for 100,000 miles each last year to Germany from Chicago. (2) round trip, coach class for 25,000 miles each this year to San Francisco from our small, local airport in South Bend, IN. An argument can be made that most air miles are hard to book at great redemption, but you just have to plan ahead and be flexible.

Any ideas on how to spend $5000 in 6 months? I'd love to have the miles in order to fly to Europe (which is roughly 75k points RT) but I can't imagine spending that much...

Quote from cxxpsu : availability of delta/skyteam reward flights is much much worse than that of united/star alliance you'll never get the free flights as easy as they advertise

Quote from danandrews27 : There was an article in the WSJ about a study of 23 international airlines, showing that Delta was literally dead last, in terms of how easy it is to redeem miles. Somehow I was not surprised. http://www.ideaworkscompany.com/w...ournal.pdf

Tough comparison: UA is widely regarded as the best for availability.
While Delta is fairly bad for availability, I think most in the know would say that of all the domestic airlines, US Air is the worst.

Having said that, you also need to factor in where you live (where you fly from) and where you want to fly to. If you live near any of the Delta's hubs - Altanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, JFK, LAX, SLC, and international gateways: Portland, SF, Miami, Boston, etc, availability is not bad....

Another thing is that the Delta website is absolute crap. It is simply not accurate in locating reward flights. Add that availability is not predictable (i.e. best availability is NOT 364 days out! It depends on the route, and availability is added/taken away gradually as you get closer to the departure date). Its actually quite decent for flights 2-3 weeks out.

Quote from Charpai : skypesos are no good on DL metal..........use them on AF to get to french polynesia

+1 The hidden benefit of Delta skymiles is that there are good partners flying east (Airfrance/KLM/Ailtaila) to places like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, and onward. Delta is also quite decent flying to Asia, with partners like Korean Air, China Air, China Southern Eastern, etc. The best part - very reasonable fuel surcharge (unlike British Air and many other EU airlines). In fact, with a little work, you can get to most places around the world as well as with the other big alliances. I admit Skyteam is weak in South America and Africa...

Bottom line: Its easy to earn skymiles with credit card offers, but it takes some effort to redeem it, but the reward/value is high if you are diligent and flexible.

I believe the rule of thumb churn time for a Delta AMEX is 18 months (You can get one, use it for a few months, cancel, wait 18 months, apply for another one), but I would love to be proved wrong...

Quote from 158442983 : Delta miles are joke! I have over 12k Two years ago, it worth a lot. 12k can be redemed toward two RT flight to Asia. But NOW I spent 4k just on a ONE WAY flight from DC to Las Vegas. If you do the math, Delta points become junk, it only worth 1/4 of its original value (two years ago)

Just because you say it doesn't make it true. I have a hard time believing you could get a round trip ticket with 12k to asia (2) years ago. I have no proof to refute you, but you also have no proof in what you are saying. I can believe you found round trip tix for 120k in business class to asia (2) years ago, but a devaluation of 75-90% is hard to swallow. Not calling you a liar either since you can believe that's what you found.

Since there's no place to enter your Skymiles number, does adding it to the end of the URL ensure that the card will be linked to your current Skymiles account?

Quote from jfluckey : Just because you say it doesn't make it true. I have a hard time believing you could get a round trip ticket with 12k to asia (2) years ago. I have no proof to refute you, but you also have no proof in what you are saying. I can believe you found round trip tix for 120k in business class to asia (2) years ago, but a devaluation of 75-90% is hard to swallow. Not calling you a liar either since you can believe that's what you found.

Quote from 158442983 : Delta miles are joke! I have over 12k Two years ago, it worth a lot. 12k can be redemed toward two RT flight to Asia. But NOW I spent 4k just on a ONE WAY flight from DC to Las Vegas. If you do the math, Delta points become junk, it only worth 1/4 of its original value (two years ago)

I am sure he means 120 k and 40 k ...otherwise he is from Mars...and DC , MARS to LV, MARS burns 4 k miles on delta...

Quote from bausch : Any ideas on how to spend $5000 in 6 months? I'd love to have the miles in order to fly to Europe (which is roughly 75k points RT) but I can't imagine spending that much...

You can use Amazon Payments to pay people with a credit card up to $1000 per month for free. Care has to be taken as they will cancel your account if you abuse it. I was sending my wife $1000 and she was sending me $1000 each month until I heard about people's accounts getting closed. Now, I just send her $985 a month. This is ~$3000 of your $5000 spend in three months. If you don't care about your account getting closed, risk using (2) people starting in the second month. Worst case is you will still get $3000 of your spend and have a canceled Amazon Payments account. Best case is you get by doing it (2) months and meet all of your spend requirement.

If you have money to loan yourself (front the money now and recover sometime after the signup bonus promotion period has ended):

• Prepay utilities (gas, electric, phone, cell phone, cable, satellite)
• Buy items from Newegg (or other store that is tax free) that are FAR. You can resell them to make some money which can consider interest on your loan to yourself.
• Buy gift cards to places you frequent to use after your minimum spend has ended.

***EDIT*** Apparently HTML doesn't work. Bullets have been corrected.

Quote from veryseablue : I want to appy for the card. But I was denied in the past for other credit cards, due to 1 cell phone collection on my credit history ( although my credit score is 760 and very low utilization ratio) I have a AMX blue cash credit card for many years, do you guys think I could get approved. Thanks.

Fight the collection and get it removed.

Quote from jfluckey : You can use Amazon Payments to pay people with a credit card up to $1000 per month for free. Care has to be taken as they will cancel your account if you abuse it. I was sending my wife $1000 and she was sending me $1000 each month until I heard about people's accounts getting closed. Now, I just send her $985 a month. This is ~$3000 of your $5000 spend in three months. If you don't care about your account getting closed, risk using (2) people starting in the second month. Worst case is you will still get $3000 of your spend and have a canceled Amazon Payments account. Best case is you get by doing it (2) months and meet all of your spend requirement. If you have money to loan yourself (front the money now and recover sometime after the signup bonus promotion period has ended): Prepay utilities (gas, electric, phone, cell phone, cable, satellite) Buy items from Newegg (or other store that is tax free) that are FAR. You can resell them to make some money which can consider interest on your loan to yourself. Buy gift cards to places you frequent to use after your minimum spend has ended. ***EDIT*** Apparently HTML doesn't work. Bullets have been corrected.

How does the amazon payment route work? Do I fund it with the Delta card and send myself (different credit card) ~1k?

Quote from bausch : How does the amazon payment route work? Do I fund it with the Delta card and send myself (different card) ~1k?

You have to sign up for an account on AP (Social Security number now required), then send money to someone's account (Spouse). You can enter your credit card to fund your transaction IF you don't have a (+) balance in your AP account. You have to link your bank account to your AP account to withdraw the money.

You don't fund your own account and then send to someone else. You pay that someone else directly with your card.

Quote from jfluckey : You can use Amazon Payments to pay people with a credit card up to $1000 per month for free. Care has to be taken as they will cancel your account if you abuse it. I was sending my wife $1000 and she was sending me $1000 each month until I heard about people's accounts getting closed. Now, I just send her $985 a month. This is ~$3000 of your $5000 spend in three months. If you don't care about your account getting closed, risk using (2) people starting in the second month. Worst case is you will still get $3000 of your spend and have a canceled Amazon Payments account. Best case is you get by doing it (2) months and meet all of your spend requirement. If you have money to loan yourself (front the money now and recover sometime after the signup bonus promotion period has ended): Prepay utilities (gas, electric, phone, cell phone, cable, satellite) Buy items from Newegg (or other store that is tax free) that are FAR. You can resell them to make some money which can consider interest on your loan to yourself. Buy gift cards to places you frequent to use after your minimum spend has ended. ***EDIT*** Apparently HTML doesn't work. Bullets have been corrected.

Can we use Paypal instead of Amazon Payments?

Quote from riteshbafna : Can we use Paypal instead of Amazon Payments?

Paypal charges a transaction fee. You could, but you would be loosing money.

Quote from jfluckey : You can use Amazon Payments to pay people with a credit card up to $1000 per month for free. Care has to be taken as they will cancel your account if you abuse it. I was sending my wife $1000 and she was sending me $1000 each month until I heard about people's accounts getting closed. Now, I just send her $985 a month. This is ~$3000 of your $5000 spend in three months. If you don't care about your account getting closed, risk using (2) people starting in the second month. Worst case is you will still get $3000 of your spend and have a canceled Amazon Payments account. Best case is you get by doing it (2) months and meet all of your spend requirement.

The problem with using Amazon Payments for Amex cards is that blatant use has been reported to trigger the infamous financial reviews for some. Not a huge problem but still inconvenient.