Amex Card Skymiles Bonus - why reported in 2 parts - no speculation please
 

Does anyone have an explanation?
Was approved for Amex Delta SkyMiles Business card - 60,000 miles after $1000 spend.
When I called (before reaching $1000 spend) asking for confirmation of bonus amount, agent at first said 32,000 miles.
When I commented that didn't sound right, she repeated that figure. Eventually she checked with someone, returned and said it was 32,000 miles plus another 28,000 making a 60,000 mile total.
She had no idea why the 2 amounts. Neither did an Amex card supervisor, or did a SkyMiles supervisor. Or a different Amex supervisor.
Any knowledgeable answers?

I really wanna speculate here, but...

Does it matter as long you get the 60k you are promise when you hit the spend requirement?

I wonder if it's just like a thing in the system where the bonus posts in two parts? Or maybe it's like 32,000 posts separately from the 28,000, and like the total is like 60,000?

I dunno for sure tho...

They gave it to me in two parts too. Did I care? nope

Real Geeks DO care.

Ultimately, no; but have you ever wanted to know why?

Alright... I can't stand it anymore, so I won't speculate, but I will theorize...

Perhaps it has something to do with where the SMs "come from" -- e.g. there must be a system that creates / generates / buys SkyMiles either from or in partnership with Delta. I surmise that AX-awarded SMs are created in one system, and perhaps promotional SMs are generated in "chunks" of a pre-set size, and these chunks can be divided but not added-to, meaning that once a "chunk" is assigned to a SM account, more have to come from another "chunk", and this is reflected in how the miles get deposited into our various accounts.

I conjecture this because I've had the same thing happen on new-account opens, like yours, and also in heavy spend months where I've put ~$100K on a given Delta AX card, only to see the SMs come through in these "chunks."

That's my $0.02 in a world where pennies are worthless.

Can I surmise?

We'd prefer it if you would conjecture or hypothesize. Surmising may be too closely related to speculation, and that's a no-no.

Well, I would ascertain the possibility that OP was uprading a card that for some reason carried a 32K bonus at that time and AMEX needed to prorate the bonus across the two to handle accounts with DL.

And that's my story, and I am sticking to it despite any facts to the contrary :-)

Then I'll hazard a guess.

Is it permissible to posit?

Lots of pontification going on here.

Not really