@Anonymous wrote:June is the summer and even on aa it is very hard to find cheap mile tickets.
The trip is in the winter of next year. We just spoke to them about it in June, but the trip is not in June. 
Irish is also correct in his comment that the redemption value is poor for the miles on Delta, and to think carefully prior to applying for Amex Delta. These are all important points to consider.
@kdm31091 wrote:I'm not an expert, but most travel enthusiasts seem to frown on Delta's program and you probably know they call the miles "skypesos". If you just want the bonus, that's one thing, but for a regular use card I think your other travel programs are probably better. A lot of people just get the Delta to get "in with Amex" vs because it's actually a worthwhile program. That's just my impression on it though. It may suit your needs fine, but make sure you look into the redemption and such before you apply. You sound unsure as to if the points would even be useful for you.
The perks of the basic one are pretty good IF you fly Delta a lot and check in bags. This pretty much goes with any other airline card that has an AF included ( the free Jetblue card doesn't offer this). Generally speaking the cards perks is the reason to keep the card vs the points you get.
@red259 wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:I'm not an expert, but most travel enthusiasts seem to frown on Delta's program and you probably know they call the miles "skypesos". If you just want the bonus, that's one thing, but for a regular use card I think your other travel programs are probably better. A lot of people just get the Delta to get "in with Amex" vs because it's actually a worthwhile program. That's just my impression on it though. It may suit your needs fine, but make sure you look into the redemption and such before you apply. You sound unsure as to if the points would even be useful for you.
Yes, the program has a bad rep and I am not talking about moving my business to Delta. This would really only be for the signup offer due to the higher than normal signup. Clearly because of my location I can pretty much use any airline miles, but I didn't know if these are worth the effort to begin with. They don't have an award chart to look at so you need to search specific flights on specific dates to get an idea and I'm not at that point yet, so I was hoping someone with experience with them could give me an idea if 50k is worth the effort or if there is a viable airline partner where they have a good redemption rate.
I live in NYC as well but I have never flown Delta and never planning to. I like flying with Jetblue and AA and just stick with those two. That being said I would simply look at how many points it would require to get to X and see if you can get that amount with the card. IF not I wouldn't bother to get a card for points you won't use.
@Anonymous wrote:Delta makes it very difficult to utilize miles for trips. Years ago, my husband's family let him use some of their miles for us to go on a trip. It took me several weeks and calls back and forth to Delta to find a flight they would allow us to use miles on - and this was many months in advance of travel. We actually ended up having to go during a month and time that was not convenient for us at all in order to be able to use miles. This was a domestic trip to Hawai'i.
I also recall that the mileage redemption suddenly increased when I called to book, and was higher than the mileage redemption shown online just 10 minutes prior.
Fast forward to an international trip we have planned for next year. My husband has Delta miles saved up for the outgoing part of the trip.
He does not have an Amex Delta card, just has a lot of miles with Delta.
I went back and forth with Delta in June, having 6 conversations with them during the month, and doing lots of figuring on my own in between calls, in order to be able to find any route they would allow us to use miles on. This is for an international trip.
There were all kinds of restrictions: can't use miles at all to connect through Charles De Gaulle airport (ridiculous), can't use miles on this route or on this day. The restrictions seemed endless. And this is for a trip that will not take place until next year. Finally after I planned out some different possible scenarios (Delta was zero help with this, and none of the scenarios were convenient for us), we ended up having to take a flight on a specific day and arrive TWO days later. This was with a twelve hour layover in a place and during a month that will be cold. Had to take it because they would not offer any other possibility on miles, despite there being many other routes that Delta offers to our destination.
We then received an email about two weeks later that part of that route was being changed and now we would be arriving at midnight into a different country, and have a shorter layover ( so now we can't even enjoy the country we originally had 12 hours in, and decided to see a few things). Now, thanks to Delta, we have to check into a hotel at probably 1am, not exactly a good value for a hotel stay. We will still be traveling on the flights for TWO full days and will be exhausted when we arrive. There is no reason anyone should have to take a flight and arrive two days later. That's also a very big waste of our vacation days and time off.
Contrast that with American, with whom we are using miles on our return flights. They were stellar, helped me look at different possibilities for our situation, and had many more possible options for us. In talking with each airline 6 times for this trip, there is no comparison - American came out far ahead of Delta. I have known other travelers in our family as well who have tried to use Delta miles, both domestically and internationally, and run into numerous problems with restrictions.
This is just one reason that I will be closing my Amex Delta card in December when it hits 13 months of age and folding its limit into the BCP. Delta does not appear to be geared to meet the customer's needs, even when you plan travel out a year in advance.
Delta offers many routes from our location, they just don't seem to want to offer them using miles. And we had flexible dates as well!
Sorry to hear about all the challenges with getting miles redeemed, and thanks for sharing the details. Quite an ordeal. With a really complicated itinerary like that, redemption might just be a challenge with any airline.
What was your miles value, for the segments that were paid with miles?
I put together a trip for my daughter so she could get to a friends wedding in another state, to a smaller city airport in OH. The basic round trip offerings redeeming Delta miles were not appealing, so I constructed the trip using the new one-way awards: From here to OH, through ATL, then started shopping again to book from OH back to here, through MSP. It worked out much better that way, and so trying to get individual legs may be easier. Of course, this was for one seat on domestic flights. I can imagine trying to coordinate multiple seats to be on the same flights on multiple international legs would be more challenging.
I have been focusing on flying Delta for the last several years, and have generally had good experiences with them. I tried American and Alaska and Jet Blue recently, just to see how they operate, and it was not nearly as good as Delta. So I'm going to be using Delta for a lot of flights, paid flights for work and personal travel, redeeming the miles I have on other airlines as those are available, and not buying more flights with the other airlines unless they are the absolute only option.
@Anonymous wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:I'm not an expert, but most travel enthusiasts seem to frown on Delta's program and you probably know they call the miles "skypesos". If you just want the bonus, that's one thing, but for a regular use card I think your other travel programs are probably better. A lot of people just get the Delta to get "in with Amex" vs because it's actually a worthwhile program. That's just my impression on it though. It may suit your needs fine, but make sure you look into the redemption and such before you apply. You sound unsure as to if the points would even be useful for you.
In the last few weeks, Delta has been getting better press!
http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2016/06/17/delta-skymiles-sheds-skypeso-moniker/
This part I find extremely interesting: What this means is that you can use the "Pay With Miles" feature to boost your Medallion status. Even though the stated redemption is 1c per mile, the MQM miles cost 20c in the case of paid with cash. [When you pay $1 for airfare, you earn 5 MQM toward Medallion status, so 20c to buy a basic MQM]
If one uses the Delta AMEX (Gold, Platinum or Reserve) for $25,000 of card spend in a calendar year, this covers the MQD requirement, at all Medallion levels, so the Pay With Miles can get you to any status you want. If you use the Delta Platinum AMEX or Reserve AMEX for $25k spend in the year, you also get 10,000 MQM.
