Delta SkyMiles - Program Guide and Overview

Live near a Delta Air Lines hub city? Then you've likely heard of Delta SkyMiles, the Atlanta-based carrier’s frequent flyer program.

Travelers on Delta Air Lines can earn miles that never expire and are redeemable for free flights, seat upgrades and more. If you often travel with Delta frequently, you can earn a myriad of perks through its Medallion status program. This guide will walk you through Delta SkyMiles, highlighting the pros and cons and illustrating the best ways to earn and redeem these valuable miles.

What is SkyMiles?

Delta SkyMiles is the frequent flyer program for Delta Air Lines, the oldest airline still operating in the United States.

Travelers who fly with Delta and participate in SkyMiles are rewarded with redeemable award miles that can be used for free flights. Delta Air Lines also offers its Medallion elite status program that rewards its frequent flyers with perks like waived baggage fees, seat upgrades and even the option to enjoy a Delta Sky Club lounge membership.

How much are Delta SkyMiles worth?

Compared to other airline miles, such as American Airlines AAdvantage miles (worth around 1.0 cent each) and Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards (worth around 1.5 cents each), SkyMiles are of middling value.

Keep in mind that this is only an average value. Depending on how you use your SkyMiles, you could get either more or less than this value — as an example, for dynamically-priced domestic economy award tickets, you'll likely get close to average value.

Pros and cons of Delta SkyMiles

Pros

Cons

How to earn Delta SkyMiles

The most common ways to earn Delta SkyMiles are flying with Delta Air Lines or partner airlines, using a co-branded Delta credit card, transferring American Express Membership Rewards to SkyMiles and using Delta's shopping portal. Here is a rundown on earning Delta SkyMiles:

Delta flights

Flying with Delta Air Lines is the most straightforward way to earn SkyMiles. Delta Air Lines offers a revenue-based system for earning SkyMiles on its flights, which means you earn miles based on how much you spend, not how far you fly. General SkyMiles members will earn 5 SkyMiles per $1 of base fare on Delta-issued tickets (excluding taxes and fees) while Delta Medallion members earn more depending on their status level.

Note that there are some "exception fares" within the revenue-based earning structure. Exception fares include cruise fares, bulk fares, consolidator fares, vacation packages (including packages with Delta Vacations) and discount or inclusive tour packages.

These fares earn SkyMiles based on distance flown according to the following table:

Partner airlines

Delta is an integral part of SkyTeam, so you can earn miles on a partner flight. While most American airlines are now on the fare-based system, Delta's foreign airline partners still operate a distance-based system, awarding a percentage of SkyMiles based on number of miles flown.

You'll have to check out each partner chart to determine how many miles you'll earn for your particular flight. You'll also need to use a tool such as MileCalc.com to estimate the number of miles flown for each particular flight segment.

For a closer look at a partnering award chart, here is the current partner chart for Aeromexico:

Delta award chart for Aeromexico

The total miles earned column shows how many miles you'll earn, calculated off the distance flown. However, you'll need to also account for the Medallion Bonus (120% for Diamond members, 80% for Platinum members, 60% for Gold members and 40% for Silver members), if applicable, which only applies to the base SkyMiles earned and not the class bonus.

Only a handful of Delta's Skyteam partners allow you to earn MQMs on their flights. If Elite Qualifying miles are not as important to you as regular miles, this may be a great option for earning SkyMiles®, especially if you can find a cheap flight to a far away location on a partner flight. For a more in-depth look, check out Delta's Partners page, .

Here we'll show each airline group and how MQM earning varies between different partners:

Delta credit cards

Delta Air Lines offers a number of co-branded credit cards issued by American Express. You can earn at least 1 Delta SkyMile per $1 spent on eligible purchases with any of these cards. The products offered vary from the [data-lightrail id="1122"]{fee.annual.text}[/data-lightrail]-annual-fee Delta [data-lightrail id="1122"]{name}[/data-lightrail] to the [data-lightrail id="56"]{name}[/data-lightrail], which is loaded with benefits.

Delta enjoys a wide variety of dining partners in most major cities, so it should not be too difficult to rack up miles in this capacity. Here are the number of partners for a few major cities:

Hotel and Airbnb partners

Hotel rewards programs are an excellent resource for increasing your earning potential, especially since Delta has partnerships with many major hotel brands. During stays at partner hotels and Airbnbs, you can earn SkyMiles® in place of the hotel's membership points. Alternatively, you can transfer your hotel points to SkyMiles® directly.

Delta Vacations packages

With Delta vacation packages, you can save money on travel and earn up to 5,000 bonus SkyMiles. You can book packages with a select set of Delta partners, including KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Aeromexico, Air France and Alitalia. If you use a co-branded Delta American Express card to pay for your vacation package, you'll also earn 2x miles per $1 you spend.

Car rentals

With each rental service, an eligible rental within the U.S and Canada will post 500 SkyMiles® to your account. In the case of Hertz, Platinum and Diamond status members get as many as 1,250 miles. You must visit Delta's site and book your car rental through their portal in order to get the miles.

Delta SkyMiles cruises

You can earn between 1,500 and 30,000 bonus SkyMiles by booking a cruise through Delta SkyMiles Cruises. The exact number of miles depends on the cruise line and length of cruise, among other factors. Major cruise lines including Norwegian, Carnival and Royal Caribbean let you earn points when booking through the Delta SkyMiles Cruises portal.

Transfer American Express Membership Rewards

Delta is one of many airline transfer partners available through American Express Membership Rewards. The transfer rate is 1,000 Membership Rewards points to 1,000 SkyMiles.

If you often fly with Delta and don't currently own an American Express Membership Rewards card, you should consider signing up for one, as some cards offer special benefits with Delta in addition to points.

Buy Delta miles

Delta sells SkyMiles directly to members at a cost of $70 per 2,000 miles (3.5 cents per mile) for a maximum of 60,000 SkyMiles per calendar year — but at this price, purchasing SkyMiles is rarely worth it. Buying miles should only be an option when you’re either getting more than 3.5 cents per mile in value from the award booking, or when you need to top off your account with a few miles for an award. Even then, transferring Membership Rewards points to Delta SkyMiles is a better strategy.

How to use SkyMiles

With award flights that can start at just 4,500 miles, you don't need to accumulate many SkyMiles to be able to fly for free. In addition to free flights on Delta Air Lines and its partners, you can use SkyMiles for seat upgrades and Delta Vacations packages.

Book a flight

The easiest way to redeem your SkyMiles is to use them to book a flight with Delta. You can easily search for award flights at Delta.com. Because Delta doesn’t publish an award chart, prices depend entirely on your origin, destination and travel dates.

Here are some sample one-way prices for various cabins to sample destinations:

Taxes and fees on award flights start at $6 one-way. In general, you'll get a better value for your SkyMiles when redeeming them for premium cabin products, although Delta's pricing can often be sky-high for certain destinations or nonstop flights (the 320,000-mile flight from Los Angeles to Paris above, for example).

Delta SkyMiles deals

Delta routinely offers SkyMiles Flash Deals to destinations all over the world. Flash Deals are limited-time promotions where Delta offers flights between select origins and destinations for a discount.

SkyMiles Flash Deals can be excellent value. For example, in the past, Delta has offered:

These prices are much better than what's offered by major competitors that operate a region-based award chart. For instance, American Airlines charges 30,000 miles for a one-way economy ticket to Europe during peak dates.

Note, however, that without an award chart to compare prices, it's hard to tell how great of a deal you're getting. It's a good idea to compare award prices to cash fares to determine the redemption value in each case.

Seat upgrades

Delta also gives SkyMiles members the ability to use its miles for cabin upgrades. You can upgrade with miles either at time of booking or after you purchase your ticket. Tickets eligible to upgrade with miles at time of booking will show it as an option on the Trip Summary page. This is the easiest and most seamless way to upgrade with miles.

After booking, you may be presented with the option to upgrade with miles at Delta.com or through the Fly Delta app. You can check your reservation at any time to see if this is an option. Alternatively, you can contact a Delta representative to upgrade with miles.

Other redemption options

Other uses for Delta miles include magazine subscriptions and SkyMiles Experiences (unique experiences for miles). SkyMiles Experiences is currently on hold.

Delta SkyMiles status

Delta rewards its most loyal members with special airline perks through its Medallion status program. Benefits include free checked bags, waived fees, bonus SkyMiles, complimentary upgrades and more. The perks get better as your Medallion status level increases.

To qualify for Delta Medallion status, you'll need to meet requirements for both Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQMs) or Medallion Qualifying Segments (MQSs) and Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs). To qualify for Delta Medallion status, you must meet the requirements given in the following chart.

Delta does offer ways of augmenting your MQMs through its co-branded credit cards. If you hold a [data-lightrail id="53"]{name}[/data-lightrail] or [data-lightrail id="56"]{name}[/data-lightrail], these cards will offer bonus MQMs for meeting specific spending thresholds.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Delta will extend your 2021 Medallion Status an additional year through Jan. 31, 2023. It's also rolling over all MQMs to 2022, so that members can get a jump start on qualifying for status for the following year. For all other COVID-19 updates and extensions, visit Delta's website.

You can see the number of MQMs and MQDs you'll earn on the Trip Summary page when booking a ticket through Delta.com. The number of MQMs earned is dependent on the fare class, but you'll always earn at least 100% of flown miles as MQMs — even for basic economy fares. To determine the number of MQMs you earn with partners, you'll have to refer to the chart for each specific partner.

Benefits of Delta SkyMiles elite status

The perks you enjoy as a Delta Medallion member increase as you rise through the tiers, with Delta Diamond Medallion members enjoying the richest benefits. Delta is unique in offering rollover MQMs — this means that any MQMs in excess of your Medallion level earned will roll over to the following year.

Depending on how much you fly, it may or may not be worth targeting Delta Medallion status, especially the lowest status tier. You can enjoy most of the perks of Silver Medallion by simply holding the [data-lightrail id="851"]{name}[/data-lightrail]. However, if you fly routinely for business and have the option of attaining Diamond Medallion, the perks are worth several thousand dollars.

Is Delta SkyMiles worth it?

Delta SkyMiles is an excellent loyalty program for anyone who flies Delta Air Lines or any of its partners. And since Delta SkyMiles never expire, the program could even be useful for people who rarely fly Delta Air Lines.

The program is also excellent for the frequent work traveler, offering an excellent array of elite benefits, including Delta Sky Club lounge membership and upgrade certificates (as a Choice Benefit) for Platinum and Diamond Medallion members. Global upgrade certificates can even be used for long-haul international flights with some of Delta's best partners.

What's more, this program is also free, so there are no additional expenses required to be a part of it.

Delta SkyMiles FAQs