Last week, American Express and Delta teamed up to roll out one of the strangest (in the best possible way) welcome offers we've ever seen on the *delta reserve card*. And it's tailor made to help you cover expensive flights home for the holidays, this year or next.
Forget a simple bonus of SkyMiles: Instead, you can earn two round-trip Delta Comfort flight certificates valid for travel to the U.S. 48, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, along with 50,000 bonus miles after you spend $10,000 in purchases on your new Card in the first six months.
That's a first-of-its-kind offer – Delta typically pushes the SkyMiles bonus above 100,000 on its flagship, premium travel card and calls it good. But the value of these novel certificates can easily exceed a bigger stash of miles. While there are a few restrictions to be aware of – namely you can't use them within 21 days of departure – they're uncapped, so you could use them to save thousands of dollars on flights … especially over the busy (and pricey) holiday travel season.
And the 50,000 bonus miles? Well … those are quite valuable, too. We've been loving SkyMiles more than ever lately, thanks to a recent surge of SkyMiles flash sales and even discounted Delta One seats. With some of the deals we've been seeing lately, 50,000 SkyMiles is enough for two roundtrip tickets to Europe, Mexico, Asia, or even far-flung destinations like Australia and New Zealand.
But with the holidays right around the corner and flight prices back on the rise, all eyes should be on these certificates for roundtrip flights in Delta Comfort. Here's exactly what this offer is worth – and how to turn it into free flights home this holiday season.
Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card Overview
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- Check your first bag free on Delta flights worldwide and get a second checked bag free when flying domestically – a potential savings of $200 on each roundtrip flight
- Zone 5 Priority boarding (even with a basic economy ticket)
- Get 15 Delta Sky Club visits each year (to use between Feb. 1 and Jan. 31 of the following year) when flying Delta. You can unlock unlimited Sky Club access by spending $75,000 or more on your card in a calendar year.
- You also get four free guest passes and can bring up to two guests in at a time. After that, each guest visit will cost an additional $50.
- Complimentary access to the American Express Centurion® Lounges when you are flying Delta on a ticket purchased with your Reserve card
- Get a Delta Main, Delta Comfort, or Delta First companion certificate to destinations throughout the U.S. (including Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico) as well as many destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America each year upon card renewal
- MQD Headstart: Get a head start on earning Medallion status with an automatic 2,500 Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs) each year
- Earn 1 MQD for every $10 you spend on your card
- Earn 3x SkyMiles per dollar spent on Delta purchases
- Earn 1x SkyMiles per dollar spent on all other eligible purchases
- Up to a $200 Delta Stays credit: Earn up to $200 in statement credits each year when you make a Delta Stays prepaid hotel or vacation rental booking on the Delta Stays platform.
- Up to a $120 Rideshare Credit: Get up to $120 in statement credits (doled out in $10 monthly installments) a year when you use your card to pay for a ride with Uber, Lyft, Curb, or Alto in the U.S.
- Up to a $240 Resy Credit: Get up to $240 in statement credits each year (doled out in $20 chunks each month) when you use your card to pay for eligible purchases on Resy, Amex's restaurant reservation platform. This is also a use-it-or-lose-it benefit: Any unused balance won't roll over to the following month.
- Get up to a $120 credit to cover the cost of Global Entry or up to $85 for TSA PreCheck
- Complimentary space-available upgrades, even for non-Medallion members. A great way to improve your upgrade chances.
- Get 15% off SkyMiles award tickets with TakeOff 15 when booking on delta.com or through the Fly Delta app
- Hertz President's Circle Status: Receive complimentary top-tier Hertz President's Circle elite status upon enrollment.
- Enjoy 20% off in-flight purchases such as food & drinks in the form of a statement credit
- No foreign transaction fees
- annual_fees annual fee (see rates & fees)
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How Good is This Offer?
Simply put, this is one of the best welcome offers we've ever seen – not just on the SkyMiles Reserve Card – but any card, for that matter. We'll crunch the numbers in a bit, but if you're able to put those Delta Comfort certificates to good use, you should have no trouble getting $2,500-plus in value out of this bonus offer.
Now, you should know … that could come at a cost: Depending on which (if any) Delta SkyMiles cards you've already had, going straight for the top-tier Reserve could make you ineligible for offers on other SkyMiles cards down the road thanks to Amex's introduction of new welcome offer restrictions.
Here's the short version: You can earn a new card welcome offer on every Delta SkyMiles Card – from the annual_fees annual fee (see rates & fees) *delta blue* to the top-tier Reserve – exactly once per “lifetime,” but only if you do it in the right order. The way it works, you have to start at the bottom and climb the annual fee ladder (so to speak) in order to earn multiple welcome offers. If you haven't had the *delta skymiles gold card* or the *delta skymiles platinum card* yet and go straight to the Reserve, you won't be eligible for welcome offers on those cards later on.
In normal times, we'd say skipping those other cards and going straight for the Reserve is probably a mistake. But given just how valuable this offer is, it could easily make sense in this case. Picking up, say, 60,000 or 80,000 more SkyMiles with those other cards first, truly might not outweigh the value of these roundtrip Delta Comfort certificates … never mind the fact that it would involve opening multiple cards over time.
What if you already have one of those cards? Well then, that makes the current offer on the Reserve all the more enticing. Unfortunately, you can't just upgrade your SkyMiles Gold or Platinum to the Reserve and cash in … but you can apply for it outright and earn the bonus all the same. If you aren't chasing Delta Medallion status, it probably won't make sense to pay an annual fee on multiple SkyMiles Cards long-term, but you can always downgrade to the Blue Card and avoid that extra annual fee.
Read more: You Can Upgrade Your Delta Card … But You Probably Shouldn't
2 Roundtrip Delta Comfort Flights
Alright, now it's time for the reason you're here: Turning this offer into (nearly) free flights home – or wherever you're headed – for the holidays. I looked at dozens of Delta routes, flying to and from airports big and small, for flights departing Dec. 23 and returning Dec. 27, and in every case, Delta was charging north of $1,000 for Delta Comfort fares.
Now, you might be thinking, “That's great and all, but I don't typically book Delta Comfort – Main Cabin is fine by me.” Well, even those regular economy tickets were priced at (or near) $1,000 roundtrip and only amounted to $150 or so in savings. So even then, the math checks out – and you'd get to impress your new significant other with a little more space to stretch out on the way home to meet mom and dad.
Say you live in sunny Miami (MIA) and are headed home to Burlington, Vermont (BTV), this holiday season. Delta is charging $1,108 roundtrip, per person, for Delta Comfort flights. If you and a spouse or significant other are both traveling, that's $2,200 in savings right there.
You'll find the exact same price on nonstop flights from Phoenix (PHX) to New York City (JFK).
The savings are even greater for someone living on the West Coast, flying from Los Angeles (LAX) to Augusta, Georgia (AGS). In this case, you're looking at nearly $1,400 for Delta Comfort flights, or $2,800 for a pair of travelers.
Or maybe you prefer to avoid family around the holidays and want to take a vacation (somewhere warm) instead – no judgment here. St. Thomas (STT) in the U.S. Virgin Islands fits the bill. But flights from a place like Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) down to the Caribbean don't come cheap: Delta is charging more than $2,000 roundtrip for these Delta Comfort seats.
If you and your favorite travel buddy want to celebrate the holidays on island time, it's going to cost you more than $4,000 to do it. See what I mean about this being one of the best card offers of all time?
And these aren't just a bunch of cherry-picked examples to prove a point. Literally, every flight I looked at during this time period was going for more than $1,000 roundtrip. Yes, it's typically the busiest (and priciest) travel period of the year, but these certificates can also be used around big events like the Super Bowl, concerts, or other holidays. When used strategically, the value here is pretty hard to beat.
Now, to be fair, these flights aren't completely free when using these certificates – you'll still have to pay the taxes and fees. But on domestic trips within the mainland, that's typically just $30 or so – and it's capped at no more than $80, no matter where you go.
The other thing that could throw a wrinkle in your plans? You'll need to spend $10,000 in a hurry to earn this welcome offer in time to use it for the holidays this year. Realistically, Thanksgiving could be out of the question unless you open a card and hit the spending requirement ASAP … but you could get it done in time for Christmas or New Year's Eve. Since these certificates are good through Jan. 15, 2028 (you need to book and complete travel by that date), you could also hang on to them and wait for the holidays next year, or whatever else comes up in the meantime.
One final note here: Credit cards are serious business. No matter how good this offer is – and we think it's really, really good – it's not worth digging yourself into debt. If you can't afford to immediately pay off your bill in full each month, it should be a hard pass for you.
Related reading: How to Meet Your New Card's Minimum Spending Requirement … Responsibly
Best Ways to Use 50K SkyMiles
The two roundtrip Delta Comfort certificates are the star of the show, but the 50,000 bonus SkyMiles aren't a half-bad consolation prize. While many travelers and other sites are quick to write SkyMiles off as worthless, that's an outdated – and downright wrong – school of thought.
At a time when virtually every other airline program is getting worse – raising both award rates and fees, throttling award availability, and often all three – Delta SkyMiles are somehow getting inarguably better. Deeply discounted SkyMiles flash sales are cheaper, more widespread, and far more frequent than they've been in years.
Even as flight prices have soared this year, the dirt-cheap economy redemptions travelers have come to know and (sometimes) love Delta for haven't gone anywhere. That includes:
- Regular roundtrips to Mexico and the Caribbean for as low as 8,000 SkyMiles total
- Ditto for domestic redemptions, though cheap rates have gotten harder to find
- But European trips are regularly a bargain, with a slew of deals under 30,000 SkyMiles and some record-low prices to London-Heathrow (LHR) at just 19,000 SkyMiles roundtrip
- Delta recently slashed rates on its new route to Hong Kong to below 29,000 SkyMiles – not each way, but roundtrip
- And then there's what could go down as the deal of the year: roundtrip fares to Brisbane (BNE), Sydney (SYD), and Auckland (AKL) from just 25,000 SkyMiles roundtrip!
If you're already sitting on a modest stash of SkyMiles, not even Delta's fancy business class seats are out of the question with the help of these bonus miles. In the last few months, we've seen an unprecedented slew of deals to Europe, Tokyo-Haneda (HND), Hong Kong (HKG), and beyond … for as little as 80,000 SkyMiles each way!
Considering roundtrip fares to most of these destinations highlighted here start at $500 and only go up from there – way up in the case of many of these international destinations, and especially, if you're trying to book Delta One – it shouldn't be too hard to get another $1,000 (or more) in value out of the bonus miles … on top of the Delta Comfort certificates.
Making Sense of the Annual Fee
Now, it's high time we address the annual_fees elephant in the room: This is Delta's most expensive co-branded card … and that could make it an immediate non-starter for many. To help justify such a hefty annual price tag, Amex and Delta have packed the Reserve Card with a slew of statement credits and benefits – some more useful than others.
For starters, you'll get a free checked bag on each and every Delta-operated flight – not just for yourself, but up to eight others on your reservation. Considering Delta now charges a minimum of $45 for a checked bag, that amounts to at least $90 in savings with each roundtrip. Primary cardholders also get a second checked bag for free – but only on domestic itineraries and this perk doesn't extend to travel companions.
For many travelers, though, the Reserve Card's best feature is that it gets you into Delta Sky Clubs (when flying Delta) 15 days per year (Feb. 1 to Jan. 31 of the following year). If you spend $75,000 (or more) on your card in a calendar year, you'll earn unlimited Sky Club visits. You also get four one-time passes to the Sky Club so that you can bring along a friend or family member when they're traveling with you.
In terms of statement credits, the Delta Reserve offers up to $240 per year in Resy Credit (doled out in $20 chunks each month), up to $120 per year in rideshare credit (up to $10 per month), an annual Delta Stays credit of up to $200, and even a credit for TSA PreCheck® or Global Entry. Use all those up (you probably won't) and you're well on your way to offsetting the card's annual fee.
But that's not all, it also comes with an annual companion certificate starting in year two. Think of this as a BOGO flight certificate, good for a roundtrip fare to destinations throughout the U.S. (including Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico) as well as many destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Best of all, the Delta Reserve's companion certificate can be used in any cabin, from Delta Main to Delta First.
Finally, if you're chasing Delta Medallion status, this card is a practical must. Just for holding the card, you'll get a 2,500 MQD Headstart – that's halfway to Silver status each and every year – and you'll earn 1 MQD for every $10 you spend on the card.
Whether or not all that is worth annual_fees on an ongoing basis is certainly up for debate, but paired with this big welcome offer, I think it's pretty easy to justify for at least a year or two.
Bottom Line
The current welcome offer on the *delta reserve card* is one of the best we've ever seen: Two roundtrip Delta Comfort certificates that can turn $1,000-plus fares into a (nearly) free trip home for the holidays … and that's without even accounting for the 50,000 bonus miles. Add it all up, and you're looking at a minimum of $2,500 in value from this bonus alone.
Yes, it's a pricey card with a long list of credits and benefits, but dare I say … this is a can't-miss offer.
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