MattRob

I am currently Delta Gold for a few years now, basically because we fly 2 - 3 times a year in Business Class from Europe to the US (both on KLM and Delta). When I choose Delta over KLM (used to be Flying Blue member), there were good reasons for that (free upgrades on Delta domestically, no miles expirary, low fees for booking award flights; at that time I flew mostly economy). But as we fly BC all the time, I am actually mostly interested in accruing the most miles (and perhaps a little in fees for award tickets), but all the other benefits are not of interest to me anymore. What would your advice be in respect of the program to use ? Skymiles or Flying Blue ? Living in the Netherlands, by the way (and Dutch national), but also have an address in the USA (and also recently credit cards in the USA, which might help). Thank you !

mb752

Depends a bit on where you want to spend the miles on.

EU-US redemptions via Delta Skymiles have gotten much more expensive in the last couple of years, and are pretty terrible value now (think 400k-600k miles return in business, typically, per person). Those same flights tend to cost a lot fewer FlyingBlue (or Virgin!) miles.
EU to South America or Caribbean on the other hand are still pretty decent value using Skymiles (often 150k return in business). So if those flights might be of interest, then DL Skymiles could be a better choice.

DL Skymiles can also be pretty decent value if you *upgrade* EU-US flights, especially from premium economy to business, using a Mileage Upgrade Award. (I.e. book PE cash fare, then upgrade to business using Skymiles.) Bit tricky to find availability for those though.

DL miles don't expire (I think FB miles do), and you can get pretty decent signup bonuses for DL miles via US Amex cards.

Personally I'd stick with DL, unless you know you mostly want to spend your miles on EU-US flights, then FB or Virgin could be better options.

prgboy

No-expiration of miles with Delta is a major benefir from my perspective.
I also noticed the 1-way business flights between US and EU are no more 60.000 like they used to be (last used this way in 2016). :-)
Personally, I'd keep Delta and use the miles for intra-US flights.
And yes, there are many more chances to earn miles besides flying in the U.S. than in Europe, seems to me.

physicsdude

FB miles don't expire if you have status (FB Silver and up), make a purchase with a FB branded credit card once every two years, or take a flight with AF, KL, KQ, RO, HV once every two years.

xliioper

Lowest level Business class flights with Skymiles between US-EU pretty much all require a roundtrip booking now (on both DL and partner metal due to award harmonization last Fall). There are still some US markets outside of US-EU routes where this is not true (JFK-BOG, for example), but it largely depends on whether or not revenue fares require roundtrip bookings for cheapest fares or not. There are sometimes decent deals with Skymiles for business fares, but these are generally limited to the irregular 48-hour flash sales and sometime limited unannounced award sales.
There is currently an unannounced D1 Skymiles sale going on between US and a number of EU markets from 180K miles roundtrip (153K miles with 15% Amex discount), but these are only good on flights through May 8th. A roundtrip booking is required for these awards (you can't book them as one-ways for half the miles).