How To Get The Most Value Out Of Delta Sky Miles

Delta SkyMiles sometimes gets a bad rep for the value of their miles, Delta, unlike some other airlines, they don't publish an award chart, so the way it works is that the price you see is the price you get, they argue that it's similar to how a revenue ticket would work if you're paying cash for a ticket, there's not a published chart, you pay whatever you see.

But, the good news is, there are still some ways to maximize your sky miles. As a general rule of thumb, if you're redeeming miles for travel on Delta, especially in the economy, you're gonna get about one cent of value per point. That's not amazing, that's fine, but for the most part, that's not how I'd recommend redeeming Delta SkyMiles.

There is still some great value to be had with SkyMiles, and this is especially true if you're redeeming for travel in first and business class on some of their partner airlines, Delta Flights belongs to the SkyTeam Alliance, which is one of the big three alliances in the world. And they have some really good airline partners with some excellent business class products.

Now, there are few benefits to redeeming Delta's partners. One of the benefits is that often these airlines have better onboard products, so it's a better flight all around, but the other reason is that often the award pricing is much better on Partner Airlines.

This is because while Delta has variable pricing for their own flights, generally speaking, there's a pretty consistent theme as to how much they charge for travel on Partner Airlines, and especially for international first and business class, it's usually quite a bit lower. For example, if traveling to Asia instead of flying Delta, you could redeem your miles on China Airlines, they are based in Taipei, and they have an excellent business class product, they have Wi-Fi, reverse herringbone seats, which are some of my favorites, pajamas, and excellent food.

And, they also actually are very good about making award space available, often; they will have a lot more business class rewards seats than Delta has on their own flights. Similarly, if going to Asia, Korean Air has an excellent business class product, this is especially true on their 777s and their 747s, and on those planes, they have Apex Suites, which are some of my other favorite business class seats.

If you're traveling to Europe for example, Delta often has very high award prices, the good news is they have several SkyTeam partner airlines you can redeem on, so, for example, you could redeem on Alitalia, Air France, KLM, Air Europe, these are all airlines that generally have a pretty good business class product, and they also often have award availability, so, that's a great option if you don't want to redeem, for example, you'll see sometimes Delta tries to charge 325 thousand miles, while their partners might only be charging 70 to 80 thousand miles in business class, just as an example.

To Africa, one of the excellent uses of Delta SkyMiles is that you can fly Kenya Airways, they have a new flight from New York to Nairobi, and it has a lot of award availability, like a lot, I redeemed SkyMiles for this route back when it started, and this is great if you want to connect even to South Africa, or anywhere else in Southern and Eastern Africa, it's a great option, tons of award space.

Surprisingly one of the other great uses of SkyMiles, and I on one hand hate recommending this, but it's a surprisingly good use, is that you can redeem SkyMiles for alcoholic drinks in their Sky Clubs, so if you have access to the Delta Sky Club, in addition to the free house drinks that they have, you can actually redeem SkyMiles for premium drinks, and it's actually a really good deal.

So, for example, you could redeem SkyMiles for Dom Perignon,  last I checked they were charging I believe 12,500 SkyMiles for a bottle, or they charged 0 cash, so comparing those two, we're talking value of 2 cents per SkyMiles, but even compared to the retail price of a Dom, that is a very good deal.

Most people, you know don't wanna down a bottle of champagne before they get on a plane, but it is being aware that that menu at the Sky Club, with opportunities to redeem miles for drinks, can be a good value.

I'll admit SkyMiles is not my favorite mileage currency, but I have several times found myself in a situation where I had American miles, Delta miles, United miles, and Delta miles ended up being the best option, thanks to the availability they had on their partner airlines, this is true sometimes for travel on Air France, for travel on China Airlines, both of those airlines often have a lot of award availability when other airlines don't. So, for me, SkyMiles is an important part of my overall miles and points strategy.

The Delta credit cards often have big welcome bonuses that can earn you a lot of bonus miles, so you can check this link here for more details on that. In summary, there are a lot of great uses of Delta SkyMiles, especially for travel on partner airlines.

While I wish that they'd publish an award chart, and sometimes their redemption rates on Delta are quite high, there's a lot of value that you can get for travel on their partner airlines, especially for first and business class on international flights, and that's something I am always grateful for.

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Juliet Lewis Joined: June 11th, 2020