New member needs help!!
 

Hello! I am new to FlyerTalk and I need some help. I am a member of Delta skymiles and have about 95,000 miles with Delta. I fly on Delta because it is the preferred carrier for my work. I live within driving distance of NYC, PHL, and BWI and will travel out of any of those airports. I fly about 10 times each year

Many times I find other airlines with cheaper domestic flights on other carriers and am wondering what to do with my miles.....Is there any way to manipulate my miles to another carrier where I can begin accruing miles through them? Is Delta a good rewards program in comparison to the other programs for awarding travel?

Any thoughts will be very helpul!

Thanks!
Dito Calderon

You can't economically do a coversion - transfers and exchanges are not in your favor. Go with whomever has the best price and consider an AMEX SPG to top off the Delta miles, if needed. You may also just use the existing Skymiles for flights. Delta Skypesos are somewhat the Nigerian Dollars of frequent flyer awards - worth a bit less than other program's currency.

The SPG you need to have 20k points to get the 5k bonus, but if you have the Delta Amex you would get 5k bonus at $15k and $25k spend.

Compared to the other major US airlines (SWA, UA/CO, US and AA), Delta is about the worst in terms of being able to redeem your miles and the amount of miles required for rewards tickets. Don't even get started on using them for international flights.

Delta has a three tier award structure and you will rarely find award flights at the lowest tier (ie 25k miles for domestic roundtrip) when others have availability at this level. Lastly, Delta has no other partners with whom you can redeem for domestic tickets. US, CO and UA are partners in Star Alliance and AA miles can be used on Alaska (or is it the other way around).