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The Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card appeals to a very specific cardholder: the Delta Air Lines enthusiast.
It earns 2X SkyMiles per eligible dollar spent on Delta purchases, restaurants, and U.S. supermarkets, and 1X mile on everything else. You can redeem those SkyMiles for flights on Delta or its SkyTeam partners, plus a wide variety of other rewards.
The Delta SkyMiles Gold card comes with a strong introductory offer, too: 35,000 bonus miles for spending $1,000 in the first 3 months.
And there are plenty of other benefits, like Main Cabin 1 priority boarding and waived fees on your first checked bags.
You have to pay an annual fee after the first year (Rates & Fees) to get all this, but if you already spend a lot with Delta, or you’re ready to commit to a single airline, then this rewards card could easily be worth the price.
The Delta SkyMiles Gold is one of four co-branded consumer airline cards available from Delta and American Express.
Card | Annual Fee | Rewards |
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Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card | $0 (Rates & Fees) |
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Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card (This review) | $0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $99. (Rates & Fees) |
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Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card (Review) | $250 (Rates & Fees) |
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Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card (Review) | $550 (Rates & Fees) |
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We’re giving the Delta SkyMiles Gold American Express Card 4 out of 5 stars. If you fly Delta several times a year and spend a lot of money at restaurants and supermarkets, it’s a great pick — especially if you’re not ready to hand over hundreds a year for the premium Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card (Review). But because it’s an airline card, the Delta SkyMiles Gold is only going to benefit a handful of people.
The Delta SkyMiles Gold card’s reward structure is very normal for an airline card.
The spending categories are simple to understand, and like with most airline credit cards, the value of each mile you earn will depend on how it’s redeemed.
Assume you’ll get somewhere between 1 to 1.5 cents in value when redeeming for airfare through Delta or a partner airline. That’s a cash back equivalent of up to 3% from the card alone, which is good. But you’ll also earn 5X SkyMiles per dollar on Delta purchases just for being a SkyMiles member. This can up your cash back equivalent even more, to about 7–10.5%.
You’ll be hard-pressed to get anything better, but you can nearly always expect something in that range if you’re redeeming for flights, and that kind of consistency can be appealing.
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You’re probably already spending quite a bit with Delta if you’re considering this card, so you aren’t likely to have trouble taking advantage of the Delta category.
The 2X miles you earn on Delta purchases with this card are in addition to the 5X miles per dollar you get with a basic, free SkyMiles membership. So, when you use this card with Delta, you’re actually getting 7X miles per dollar — but only those two extra miles are coming from the card itself. Anyone can get the other five. (And you can earn more miles per dollar as a Delta Medallion member.)
The restaurant and supermarket categories are arguably even easier to use. Grab your groceries at your local supermarket to get 2X SkyMiles per dollar, but bear in mind that this category won’t encompass big box stores like Walmart and Target.
When you’re too tired to cook with the groceries you bought, go ahead and eat out — you’ll get 2X SkyMiles at restaurants, too. So the card makes it easy to earn SkyMiles no matter where you eat.
If you want to earn SkyMiles on purchases from merchants that don’t seem like they’re covered by these categories, you may still be able to earn 2X SkyMiles by buying gift cards for your retailer of choice at a supermarket.
You can redeem your SkyMiles for a variety of rewards, including flights and flight upgrades, Delta vacations, car rentals, gift cards, and more.
Because the Delta SkyMiles Gold is an airline travel credit card, it’s probably no surprise that you’ll get the best cash back equivalent if you redeem for airfare.
SkyMiles can be redeemed for airfare with Delta and its SkyTeam partner airlines right on the Delta website. You can view both miles and cash prices to compare which flights provide the best overall value.
You can also book airfare with either Miles + Cash or Pay with Miles, two somewhat similar features. Your redemption value will typically be better if you use miles outright, however, so we recommend avoiding these.
Delta's Miles + Cash feature basically allows you to pay for a ticket with both miles and cash (surprise!) by instituting a surcharge to lower a flight's price in miles.
Pay with Miles is different — it lets you book airfare with miles in increments of 5,000, and then pay for the rest in cash.
One distinguishing feature is that Miles + Cash flights are treated as award tickets, so you won't earn any rewards. Pay with Miles fares are treated as typical tickets, however, which means that whatever portion of the price you pay with cash will actually earn SkyMiles.
More often than not, your per-mile redemption value will hover between 1–1.5 cents, like we said above. That’s sometimes a bit less than we like to see, but it’s not bad by any means. It’s just not the best on the market.
Let’s explore a couple of examples.
Here’s a round-trip Basic Economy itinerary from JFK to Seattle and back. The trip spans from Wednesday, March 11, to Wednesday, March 18.
On the left is the cash price. The right is what you’d pay if you were redeeming SkyMiles for the same trip.
Divide the full cash price by the number of miles, and you land right around 1.4 cents per mile, comfortably in that 1–1.5 cent range we mentioned above. That’s not a bad deal. You still have to pay “taxes, fees, and charges,” but this amount is considerably lower when you’re redeeming with miles.
Next, let’s look at a Boston/Atlanta trip in first class.
That gets you about 1.3 cents per mile. Only a bit less, but it’s an example of how your redemption value changes depending on the specifics of your itinerary.
The remaining redemption options (there are quite a few) aren’t particularly valuable.
Here’s a list of several things you can use SkyMiles for outside of airfare:
We don’t recommend any of these, because the value of your SkyMiles is usually going to be a lot lower than if you just redeemed for airfare.
Take Delta gift cards for example.
You’ll get the best per-mile value for buying a $1,000 gift card for 111,100 SkyMiles. That’s 0.9 cents per mile, which isn’t very good.
The Delta SkyMiles Gold card features a few good benefits, but they’re relatively average for the card’s fee.
Purchase APR | Balance Transfer APR | Cash Advance APR |
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15.74% - 24.74% Variable | None | 25.24% Variable |
Annual Fee | Foreign Transaction Fee |
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$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $99. | None |
Balance Transfer Fee | Cash Advance Fee |
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None | Either $10 or 5% of the amount of each cash advance, whichever is greater. |
Penalty APR | Late Fee | Returned Payment Fee |
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29.24% Variable | Up to $40 | Up to $40 |
There’s nothing exceptional about the Delta SkyMiles Gold’s fees.
Its annual fee is normal for this type of airline card, as is its lack of foreign transaction fees. Just remember that you may not want to take this card abroad, anyway. It uses the American Express network, which isn’t as widely accepted as Visa or Mastercard.
If Delta’s your go-to airline and you’re not ready to pay hundreds a year for a premium travel rewards card, the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card is a very strong option.
A 2X mile-per-dollar reward rate on Delta purchases is average for an airline card, but the Delta SkyMiles Gold adds restaurants and U.S. supermarkets, which makes it a lot easier to accumulate rewards than with more narrowly focused co-branded cards.
The introductory bonus delivers a fairly strong return on spend to help you offset the annual fee for a bit.
There are quite a few helpful perks, too. Priority boarding is sure to please regular travelers, and the free checked bag benefit offers hundreds of dollars in potential annual savings. But if you already have access to benefits like these through your airline loyalty status, this card may not be the best choice for you.
All in all, the Delta SkyMiles Gold American Express Card is a solid airline rewards credit card that appeals exclusively to people who plan to spend a lot with Delta, and those who already do. Its rewards and benefits are both quite good, even if they don’t provide quite as much bang for your buck as, say, the more expensive Delta Reserve.
Easily apply for the Delta SkyMiles Gold by clicking the “Apply Now” button below. You’ll be sent to the American Express website. Submit the secure application, and you’ll probably get an instant decision, either approval or denial, after Amex conducts a hard credit inquiry.
In certain cases, the issuer may not provide an instant decision, and may reach out for more information.
The Delta’s Gold card is designed for cardholders with good credit scores — that’s 670 or higher for FICO, and 700 or higher for VantageScore.
You may be approved with lower scores, or you could be denied with very high scores if other factors, like your income, don’t meet the issuer’s standards.
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The Delta SkyMiles Gold is a good card for its primary audience of loyal Delta users. If that doesn’t sound like you, there are plenty of comparable (or better) cards that can help you rack up points or miles while exploring.
Thinking a co-branded airline card might be your thing? Check out our top airline cards. There are other Delta cards, and a variety of great choices from American Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest, United, and more.
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The Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card (Review) is one jump up from the Delta SkyMiles Gold Card in the Delta credit card family, and several upgrades justify its higher annual fee.
You get a ramped-up rewards program that earns an extra point on Delta purchases, plus a hotel category that the Gold card lacks entirely.
There are extra perks, too, like a TSA PreCheck/Global Entry application fee credit and a yearly companion certificate for a Main Cabin domestic round trip flight.
The Platinum even allows you to access Delta Sky Club airport lounges, but you’ll have to pay $39 per visit.
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This rewards program is a logical step up from the Gold card. The hotel category is an exceptionally useful addition to any travel card, and 3X miles is a fairly strong rate.
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The Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card (Review) is Delta’s top-tier credit card offering.
Its hefty annual fee stands alongside travel favorites like The Platinum Card® from American Express (Review) and the Chase Sapphire Reserve® (Review) for good reason.
The cardholder gets free access to Delta Sky Clubs and Centurion Lounges, a TSA PreCheck/Global Entry application fee credit, an annual companion certificate, and several other perks, including the Delta SkyMiles Gold’s free checked bag and priority boarding benefits.
The Reserve also boasts Status Boost, which helps big spenders and Delta superfans accelerate their progress toward Medallion status.
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The Delta SkyMiles Reserve gives you one more SkyMile per dollar than the Gold, but lacks several categories the Platinum Delta card offers. That may seem surprising, but with premium cards, it’s the benefits that tend to command the spotlight and provide the most monetary value anyway.
Its rewards program is simple (at first glance) and its benefits are standard, but the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (Review) is a favorite of ours thanks to its redemption versatility.
You get a 25% point bonus if you redeem for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards, but you can get an even better return on spend if you transfer to a Chase travel partner.
Another great perk? If you use no annual fee Chase cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠ (Review) and Chase Freedom Unlimited® (Review), you can transfer the points earned with those cards to the Preferred and put them toward your travel redemptions.
Not ready to commit to a single airline? Keep this card in mind.
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This card’s travel and restaurant categories are a natural fit for most people who fly frequently.
The Sapphire Preferred is known for having an excellent introductory bonus. These offers can change at any time, but it’s fairly safe to assume that this will remain true.
The Platinum Card® from American Express (Review) earned its iconic status with more than just sleek looks.
It carries a very high annual fee, like most premium cards, but the Platinum card’s benefits are arguably the best of any travel card on the market.
Its rewards are worth talking about, too.
Not only can you redeem Amex Membership Rewards points for Delta Flights through Amex Travel, but Platinum cardholders can transfer Membership Rewards points to the Delta SkyMiles loyalty program at a 1:1 ratio (and sometimes there are deals). This allows you to use the points earned with the Platinum card alongside any SkyMiles you’ve amassed from being a SkyMiles member. There aren’t many general travel cards that allow transfers to Delta, so the Platinum stands out.
You’ll be charged an excise tax offset fee of $0.0006 per point to conduct this kind of transfer. So if you’re transferring 75,000 points, for example, that’d amount to a fee of $45. Still, there’s a good chance that the transfer will be worth the price if you redeem carefully.
On top of that, Platinum cardholders get complimentary access to Delta Sky Club airport lounges and a host of other airport lounges.
For a serious Delta lover, the Amex Platinum is an excellent pick.
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The Platinum card’s rewards program is sure to be a hit among Delta loyalists.
You earn 5X points per dollar on airfare booked directly through airlines, which covers Delta.
Other than that, the only way to earn more than a point per dollar is through American Express Travel bookings. If you spend a lot on travel, though, those categories could still come in handy.
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For rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card, please click here.
For rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card, please click here.
For rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, please click here.
For rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card, please click here.
The Delta SkyMiles Gold American Express Card earns 2X SkyMiles on purchases with Delta Air Lines and features a plethora of travel-focused benefits. If you’re a Delta enthusiast, this could be a great pick. If not, you’re better off with a general travel card.
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