iwpingmu

I called AMEX (delta) , and was told that Mileages purchase, gifting miles, gift card purchase etc. (from delta.com) are considered as "Delta purchase" which is made directly with Delta, thus it is eligible for the $100 AMEX Delta statement Credit






Cardmember must charge a Delta purchase to their Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card within the first six months of Cardmembership. One $100 statement credit will be issued for the first Delta purchase made with the Card. Purchase must be made directly through Delta. Credit issued as a Cardmember statement credit approximately 8-12 weeks after your first Delta purchase. To receive statement credit, account must be in good standing and not in default

iwpingmu

called and confirmed that I will get $100 AMEX STATEMENT CREDIT
though $100 may only buy a little miles

ffI

Unless you are desperate, wait for the 100% bonus on shared miles = 1.1cpm
Or
Buy Amex MR = 50k = 1250$
50 k MR gives you 75k miles (till Dec 15) + instant SM status
75k miles at 1.46= 1095$ cost from this offer.
You get instant Silver status for 155$ cost!
Or
Get a Suntrust checking account = 15k miles for 55$ till year end.
0.4 cpm - for topping off account

AZWildcat97

What's shared miles?


So... if I can miraculously find a 120K miles BE award ticket (SIN-SFO-SIN) for my mom, paying $1,806 for the miles sounds pretty reasonable, right? Or is this newbie missing something here?

ffI

Sharing is when you give miles from one account to another. With a 100% bonus comes out cheaper than buying and gifting with 100% bonuses.
Amex 80k = 2000$ = 120k DL miles + 25k MQM for the transfer till Dec 15th

If you can find low awards, then it is certainly worthwhile to buy these miles and book immediately. or even book and hold and then transfer the Amex or buy the miles.
I prefer to hold all miles in 1-2 accounts and use tickets from any alliance. My BIS does not know the difference between AA J and DL BE (I think the DL is better by a small bit). I can certainly tell the difference between Y & J or certainly F!

Wiirachay

ABSOLUTELY!!! My parents bought 120k each and then redeemed 150k of them for a business class ticket to SYD on VA. Fortunately, they had at least 30k each. Not bad, huh? The cheapest discount J ticket to SYD from the easy coast is $6k+.

AZWildcat97

Thanks, guys!

Ah... so you mean points/miles accumulated on the regular AMEX card, not the Delta Gold Amex card?

The BE seats I've looked at so far are all $5k+ so $1,806 seems like a bargain in comparison! Cattle class itself costs $1,500+. Now if I can only find an award ticket for 120K...

reigndrop

still not worth it imo

GYEWorldTraveler

While I won't say that is a bad deal, you are forgetting to factor in several important things.

-On the award ticket you will pay taxes of about $115 making the ticket closer to $2000
-The opportunity cost of not earning miles on the flights.....On the $5k BE ticket you would make about 27,000 MQM from MSP (where I fly from) and 45,000 RDM (I am a Plat 100% mileage bonus and 50% class of service bonus)
-Different people will value status at different costs. For me 27,000 MQM is a ton so missing out on it by using an award ticket definitely hurts. I personally would say that the cheapest that I get could those 27,000 MQM normally would be at about $0.08/mile (not doing crazy MRs).......That equates to a loss of $2160 by electing to use an award ticket vs paying $5k for BE
-The loss of 45,000 RDM in the account has a different value to different people as well. On the SkyMiles Marketplace the going rate seems to be about $0.01/mile but if you are a smart traveler and use those 45,000 miles for a domestic F ticket or almost 2 domestic coach tickets (sometimes values up to $800 a ticket) the cost per mile is much more. I will list 3 different levels of the value of the miles.
SM Marketplace @ 0.01/mile = $450 loss by using miles for BE
One domestic F ticket @ $1,200 = $1200 loss by using miles for BE
2 domestic coach tix (need 5k more) @ $400-$800/avg = $800-1600 loss by using miles for BE

Typical award ticket uses for me: HIB-MSP-TOL or HIB-MSP-TUL for my folks which usually cost between $500 and $900 but always have 25,000 mile awards available

For domestic F: I usually will give it to my wife to fly MSP-ATL-MIA or LAX which value at $1,200-1,800 depending on the season and if A fares are available

So if my numbers are right and someone said on this thread you can get a BE ticket for $5,000, the true cost for me to use miles instead of pay for BE would be:

$1,806 To Purchase 120,000 miles (still need to find availability for this level)
$115 Taxes on Award ticket
$2,160 my loss of MQM on trip since it doesn't qualify for mileage
$1,200 my loss of Domestic F ticket using miles since I don't get miles
$5,281 Actual Price of Award Ticket to me

As you can see, in my opinion, if I could snag a $5000 BE ticket to Australia I would prefer to pay for BE than use 120,000 miles because by using miles for the ticket I am actually going to end up paying more. This is all based on the assumption that I can get an award ticket for 120,000 in BE to Australia and that I could purchase a BE ticket for $5000. My numbers may be different than others, it just depends what is important to you and how you would use the miles.

I say NO THANKS to the offer. Plus my experience with award tickets internationally isnt very good. DL seems to like to use the word "free ticket" a lot and not accomodate you as well when delays and cancellations occur traveling on an award ticket. Plus my dad was bumped out of Business on a MSP-AMS flight last year in a business award ticket so I am very careful about booking BE intercontinental award tickets, often times it works out better to buy an I fare for paid BE. Just my opinion and the numbers I computed back it for me

joejones

Here is my biggest beef with the above post:

This is a silly way to value MQM for several reasons:

1. The $0.08 market price you cite includes the value of the RDMs you get from the ticket. It also includes the value of the travel itself.
2. In reality, the only value you're getting from MQMs is the value of whatever incremental elite benefits you get from those particular MQMs.
3. Put differently, there is NO value to MQMs in excess of whatever level you are trying to reach at the moment. If you need 10,000 to make Platinum and you accrue 15,000, that extra 5,000 doesn't really get you anything.

iwpingmu

it seems 100% miles bonus with Delta is still not a great deal

Delta miles worth far less than AA or UA