Originally Posted by Helena Handbaskets

If you will spend at least $10,001 on the DL Amex during the 3 months, or $5,001 in Delta airfares, you can profit by donating 10,000 Skymiles to a charity. This may offer a better return than trying to book an award flight you otherwise wouldn't.

Other ways to get a better return on the 10,000 Skymiles, depending on your circumstances:

1. Pay the new member fee for a Sky Club membership: 10,000 miles. Don't know whether a new member fee applies to the $90 30 day membership, but if it does, this could be a good value if you don't want to spring for a full year.

2. $10,000 of DL tickets using Pay With Miles. Can't really see how this could be a good value. It could be a way to limit the qualifying Skymiles investment
to 10,000, but I'd think in this case even a donation to Charity would be better, because then you could buy hte tickets with cash and get 20,000 bonus Skymiles in the promotion, plus you'd earn miles and MQMs on the flights.

3. Skymiles Auction. Doubt you'd find good value there, but who knows? But I think most or all of the auctions start at more than 10,000 Skymiles.

4. Skymiles Marketplace: Some good options here. Not many of these things are great values at $0.01 per Skymile, but factoring in the bonus miles you'll earn from the promotion, the calculus can get more interesting. The variety of items increases the chance you'll find something you can actually use, and the availability of lower-priced items allows you to combine purchases to meet the 10k threshold, or to combine a Marketplace purchase with a Miles for Magazines/Newspapers purchase.

5. Magazines/Newspapers for Miles: 500 miles to 3200 miles (Economist) per subscription. The Economist subsciption is a decent value. Wall Street Journal is 1389 miles (M-F, 39 weeks). I think the newspaper offers depend on your zip code, so you may be offered a local paper if you live in the right place.

6. "Bringing You to Broadway": 3 Bway shows available for ticket purchase using Skymiles, currently . Price is 16,500 to 17,800 Skymiles, so it won't keep your investment to just 10k miles, but it you want to see Billy Elliott, Avenue Q, or American Idiot, it could still be a viable option.

Other ideas?