Life is all about expectation, and if you know a few things going in, you can get some great – even incredible – value out of your Delta SkyMiles. From Dom Perignon, to hearing the ding of the in flight system from business class, you can have it all.
Below, we’ll dive into some of the best ways you can use your SkyMiles, as well as the best ways to earn lots and lots of them, since having lots and lots tends to help. We’ll cover award sales, international business class flights, cheap economy flights and even how to use your miles to get champagne.
If you need some guidance on how to find seats where you can use miles, routing rules and more, check out our complete guide to redeeming SkyMiles.
Now, let’s get to the fun stuff!
How To Earn Delta SkyMiles
Perhaps the best part of Delta SkyMiles is its partnership with American Express.
American offers co-branded Delta cards (Learn More) which often have welcome bonuses up to 100,000 points, and you can also transfer points from American Express Membership Rewards earning credit cards from Amex, like the Platinum or Gold cards into the Delta Skymiles program. Just read this guide before you do!
Whether you spend a lot at grocery stores and gas stations or on flights and hotels, you can easily set yourself up with a combo of cards that will help you earn 2X to 5X on many purchases. Here are of the very best Membership Rewards cards, particularly for travel:
- The Platinum Card From American Express (Learn More)
- The Business Platinum Card From American Express (Learn More)
- American Express Gold (Learn More)
- American Express Business Gold (Learn More)
Check out some of the other amazing ways you can redeem Amex Membership Rewards points for some insane value.
In a pinch, you can also transfer Marriott Bonvoy points into Delta SkyMiles at a 3:1 ratio. Transfers of 60,000 points will earn you 20,000 SkyMiles plus a bonus of 5,000 miles for a total of 25,000 miles. You can earn more Marriott points with any of the co-branded Amex and Chase Marriott cards (Learn More)
Delta Award Sales
If you have SkyMiles you’ve been wanting to use, keep an eye out of for one of Delta’s award sales. In fact, we’ve called it “the one thing” Delta SkyMiles fans need to do.
Delta regularly runs award sales to different regions of the world or even within the US. Whether you want to book an economy ticket to Mexico, premium economy — what Delta calls Premium Select — to Asia or business class — Delta One — to Europe, you’re bound to find a sale that could work for you.
As an example, we’ve seen business class award prices to Europe as low as 89,000 SkyMiles round-trip, and round trip in Delta One Suites to Japan for 98,000 miles round trip.
Now, if you have the cash on hand for cheap business class fares, you’ll notice these award sales often coincide with cheaper cash fares as well. Some of you will prefer to pay cash in these circumstances but I’m betting plenty of us would prefer to save the $2,000+ if possible.
Virgin Atlantic Upper Class To London
If you want to fly Virgin Atlantic Upper Class and avoid the steep surcharges, Delta SkyMiles is the way to go. A non-stop Upper Class award ticket from the US to London will cost you circa 100,000 SkyMiles and have minimal taxes/fees.
Just remember that if you book a flight from London with SkyMiles that you’re going to get smacked with the steep surcharges — and the Air Passenger Duty (APD) fee, which can add hundreds to the cost of your ticket.
Keep an eye out for Virgin’s Airbus A350 out of New York (JFK) and Los Angeles (LAX) as the aircraft will have the newest seat and inflight “lounge”.
Regardless of what aircraft you’ll be flying, make sure you check out the lounge before you fly. The Clubhouse in London is obviously famous — and we’ve covered it plenty — but the one at JFK is no slouch. You can enjoy a sit-down meal, grab a haircut and play a game of billiards while you wait for your flight.
Delta One Suites
Delta has certainly upped its game with its newest business class seat which converts into a bed, known the Delta One Suites. You can find it on all of Delta’s A350s, A330-900neos and various iterations on the Boeing 767 now as well.
If you want to fly one of Delta’s A350s, you’ll want to look at these routes:
Delta, of course, makes it difficult to figure out how many SkyMiles you’ll need for Delta One Suites thanks to dynamic award pricing, but we at least have a bit of an idea. For a one-way flight to Europe on the Airbus A350, you should look for flights that require 105,000 miles.
If you want to fly to Asia, you can find options for 90,000 SkyMiles – particularly to the west coast. You can also find this rate on flights to other parts of the US on Delta’s retrofitted 777-200. If you’re booking a flight to the midwest or east coast, don’t be surprised to see 120,000 SkyMiles as the fewest miles possible.
If you’re going to transfer Membership Rewards points, booking with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles could save you a ton of points.
Business Class To Asia On Partners
If you want to book a business class flight to Asia, you’ll have several options with Delta SkyMiles. Korean Air business class gets solid reviews, China Eastern continues to improve and China Airlines (from Taiwan) is a very nice business class option that often seems to be forgotten.
While Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue program provides some great business class redemption rates to Europe, Delta actually comes out on top to Asia. You can book a one-way business class ticket for 85,000 SkyMiles. Not bad when you consider that a non-stop China Airlines flight from JFK to Taipei (TPE) is nearly 16 hours!
Business Class To Europe On SkyTeam Partners
While Delta has dramatically increased the number of miles required to book a business class award ticket to Europe, things are a bit more reasonable when booking SkyTeam partners. This is good news for us as Delta provides a way to book flights to Europe without surcharges on Air Europa, Air France, Alitalia and KLM.
For the best inflight experience, you might want to skip Air Europa but it can be useful when flying to Spain. On the other hand, Alitalia gets high marks for its in flight dining while KLM has excellent service and fun delft blue houses as souvenirs.
Air France also has quality in flight dining and many of its aircraft feature comfortable reverse herringbone seats, which are regarded among the best.
You can book a one-way flight for 75,000 Delta SkyMiles. Just stick with booking from the US if possible as Delta will tack on the surcharges if you start your award ticket from Europe. It’s not the end of the world, but a few $100 bucks can add up on multiple tickets.
Cheap Delta Economy Flights
When it comes to Delta’s dynamic award pricing, flights within North America or to the Caribbean and Central America might be the toughest to figure out.
That being said, it’s worth checking the route you need as you can sometimes economy flights for as few as 5,000-6,000 SkyMiles, particularly in the SkyMiles Flash Deals.
If you’re looking to use the fewest miles possible so you can take even more trips, economy flights on Delta can be a great way to do it. Even if the airport closest to you doesn’t have a great redemption rate, it can be worth driving to another nearby airport to save a ton of miles.
Fly Delta One Suites For Fewer Miles From Mexico
If you’re based in Mexico, don’t mind repositioning or are happy to combine a trip to Mexico with a trip to a place like Europe, pay attention. While a one-way Delta One Suites seat will require 105,000 SkyMiles if you’re flying out of the US, you can get slash that cost by flying out of Mexico.
How does 65,000 SkyMiles sound to you? Sounds a lot better than 105,000 miles, that’s for sure.
Yes, the example shows a 2-stop itinerary but we’ve seen 1-stop options. If you’re someone who enjoys putting together fun trips to multiple destinations or just enjoying flying around the world, this is an easy way to stretch your miles. Of course, if you live in Texas, maybe it’s worth positioning to Mexico City (MEX) to start your trip to Europe.
Australia Or New Zealand To North Asia In Business Class
Speaking of putting together trips with multiple destinations. Delta might not allow stopovers but you can still take advantage of award tickets between regions that don’t touch the US to build a fun region-hopping adventure. For example, you can fly SkyTeam partners from Australia or New Zealand to Japan or South Korea in business class for 75,000 SkyMiles.
When you think about it, a non-stop flight from Sydney (SYD) to Seoul (ICN) is listed at just under 11 hours so this is a comparable deal, if not better, than using 75,000 miles to fly to Europe. In fact, it’s not much shorter than a flight from Seattle (SEA) to Seoul which would require 85,000 miles.
Champagne In The Sky Club
Yes, Champagne. You can redeem SkyMiles at one of Delta’s Sky Clubs for a bottle — or bottles — of champagne.
The funny thing is, the redemption value isn’t that bad, particularly if you come by Delta SkyMiles easily and like turning points into bubbles, or a nice bottle of red or white. Somehow getting champagne at the club is a decent way to go with your miles, even if you could technically do better using them for flights.
In fact, as we write this there are four options including:
- Dom Perignon Brut – 12,500 SkyMiles (or $250)
- Laurent Perrier La Cuvee Rosé Brut NV – 4,000 SkyMiles (or $80)
- Laurent Perrier La Cuvee Brut NV – 1,100 SkyMiles (or $22)
- Moët et Chandon Brut Imperial NV – 700 SkyMiles ($14)
Based on the Sky Club’s pricing of champagne, that’s 2 cents per mile. If you look at some of Delta’s award tickets, that’s a better value per mile than you can get flying sometimes.
You can get champagne at any of Delta’s Sky Club’s that offer THE BAR service. Here’s the current list of the airports with clubs that offer THE BAR:
| Sky Clubs With THE BAR | |
| Atlanta (ATL) | Orlando (MCO) |
| Boston (BOS) | Phoenix (PHX) |
| Cincinnati (CVG) | San Diego (SAN) |
| Fort Lauderdale (FLL) | San Francisco (SFO) |
| Miami (MIA) | Seattle (SEA) |
| Minneapolis (MSP) | Tampa (TPA) |
| New York-Kennedy (JFK) | Washington-Regan National (DCA) |
| New York-La Guardia (LGA) | West Palm Beach (PBI) |
| Newark (EWR) |
Delta SkyMiles: Final Thoughts
Delta SkyMiles is one of the easier programs to use, since points can be used towards the cash cost of any flight, at a value of one cent per point. In other words, if none of these options above really work for you, you could take $1000 off of $1200 worth of flights by using 100,000 SkyMiles.
Delta has so many fantastic airline partners, it’s hard to choose how you’ll want to redeem your miles, but with an increasing route network, which now includes Cape Town, and some stunning new suites in business class, you might not need to look far to gain a fantastic experience from your miles. Cheers to that…
I did not see listed and perhaps it is not of interest to many, but here is another redemption. I was able to snag Tokyo-Singapore on China Eastern for 40k Delta miles, on business. When I looked there seemed to be 2 seats available on every flight.
Thanks for sharing! What did you think of China Eastern?
While I find little to no value in using Skymiles for Delta-operated flights, their rates on partner airlines are not terrible. For example, I flew from TPE-SFO in Biz for 85k skymiles. Not a tremendous value, but I got way more than if I used those miles on a DL flight.
What did you think of China Airlines? I’m flying them to JFK later this year.
Wow the champagne selection is really well priced! A bottle of any of those usually costs a lot more retail, at least where I live. Do you know if they offer this at all Sky Clubs? 🙂
Great question! Just added a list of the current airports with clubs that offer THE BAR.
I’m new to this. How do you make reservations on partner airlines and use Delta miles? Do you call/website the partner? And then “pay” with miles? Am I making this too complicated?
Hey Sandy! Not a silly question at all. The “partner” flights should show up on Delta.com, when you search a given route, where partners may operate the flight. You’d pay Delta miles, right on Delta.com. Hope that helps!