Looks like the 1,000 dollar gift cards are out of stock. I ordered 3 of them yesterday but they are backordered. I haven't received any email that the order was canceled - I hope not. My email said they hope to have them out to me in 48 hours.

I did a single $500 card this morning, email delivery in under 30 minutes.

Just placed an order for three of the $1,000 cards and they arrived into my email within seconds.

By not buying insurance/trip you are SELF insuring your trips. In your case 38 years of pocketing the trip insurance fees has you way ahead $-wise.

Does anyone have experience with 24 hour cancellation when you purchased using a gift card? Do they refund the flight through another gift card? ECV? SOL?

The original gift card is reopened and the funds are applied back onto it. Exactly like using an ECV with Delta.

assuming the risk free request processes via automation and doesn’t have to be put into a manual refund’s queue, the gift card reopens with the value back on it, the instant the trip is risk-freed.

bloc0102 is incorrect and you are. CSR does not give 3x points at costco,com, which is how the gift cards are categorized.

$1,000 are back in stock. They weren't earlier this morning but are now. Just ordered 1.

The transaction is reversed as if it never took place.

Already sold out again :(

$500 version is still available

We're on Kauai for the week and the local Costco has a display of $500 Delta gift cards ...

Anyone else seeing them in the stores?

Oh, and anyone care to guess how the Delta bean counters agreed to this deal? I don't think this is a fire sale because Delta is
hurting for cash...

Jim

There was a Facebook post with the physical gift cards in-store.

Gift cards in general have some known breakage rate, which I'm sure they take into account...

I think it was brilliant. First off, year-end revenue is never bad. But secondly, Costco consumers are a desirable demographic and are often more price elastic. So by targeting Costco members with a 10% discount, Delta stands to gain more repeat business from passengers who might not blindly choose the cheapest OTA advertised fare "next time". Third, I bet outside of FT most people are buying one GC and are not elites, so that $50 or $100 can be recouped on ancillary fees (bags and seat assignment), or just from the Costco member needing multiple tickets far exceeding the face value of the GC.

Also, it's not inconceivable that Costco's normal commission on gift cards exceeds 10%. I know BJ's for instance normally discounts every gift card on their rack (except theirs) by 5% or more. For Costco, if they get some people to join because of this, they might think it's worth it.

Here's my theory: in some markets, especially hubs, Delta commands a price premium and it's hurting their bottom line. They don't want to offer head to head discounts so entering a gift card promo with Costco is a way of softening their higher prices on some routes and adding immediately to the bottom line. It may also reflect softening travel demand.

Heck, we bought United tickets SLC to LIH and even buying the first class upgrade over water it was cheaper. The original tickets were over a thousand dollars less than Delta.

Jim