Who is the Gold delta SkyMiles Business Credit Card from American Express Good For?
There are three Delta co-branded American Express cards available for businesses and individual consumers: Gold, Platinum, and Reserve. Of the three, only Platinum and Reserve cards offer the feature called MilesBoost, which allows you to earn Medallion Qualification Miles by spending money on your card. MQMs earned with the Amex Delta credit cards edge you closer to elite Medallion status.
- Silver: 25,000 MQMs or 30 MQSs and $3,000 MQDs
- Gold: 50,000 MQMs or 60 MQSs and $6,000 MQDs
- Platinum: 75,000 MQMs or 100 MQSs and $9,000 MQDs
- Diamond: 125,000 MQMs or 140 MQSs and $15,000 MQDs
If you are a business owner who is chasing elite status, you might want to take a closer look at the Platinum or Reserve, since the Gold card doesn’t let you earn MQMs. If you want the Gold card, it might be due to one of two reasons:
- You don’t care about status and only want extra miles, especially welcome bonus
- You want a low annual-fee card (free for the first year)
As a Delta entry-level credit card, it offers a nice welcome bonus and benefits, such as free checked bag and priority boarding. In addition, there are other valuable benefits, like purchase protection, baggage insurance and Open business benefits. The earning scheme for the Platinum Delta Skymiles Business card is average at best, but that is true for all Delta co-branded credit cards.
Welcome Bonus:
Earn 30,000 bonus miles after you make $1,000 in purchases on your new Card in your first 3 months. Miles Earned:
- 2 miles per dollar for booking on Delta
- 1 mile per dollar for everything else
What Do Your Miles Get You?
As a member of the SkyTeam alliance, Delta SkyMiles can get you to almost any destination in the world served by commercial aviation. You can use your miles on 20 partner airlines, and Delta not only allows one-way travel for half the miles, but also an open jaw, which you can use to avoid fuel surcharges if your flight home originates in Europe.
Usage Perks:
- 30,000 bonus miles welcome bonus
- One free checked bag for the cardholder and other passengers
- 20% in-flight savings
- Priority boarding
- Free companion certificate on anniversary
- One-way flights are allowed at 50% of a round-trip award ticket
- No fuel surcharges for Delta flights (not originated in Europe) and on many partners
- Open jaw is allowed
- Discounted domestic short-haul awards
- Excellent international business class product
Usage Quirks:
- High annual fee
- Mediocre mile earning scheme
- Fuel surcharges for flights originated in Europe and on some SkyMiles partners
- No stopovers
- No official award chart online
- High change and cancellation fees
How Far Do Your Miles Go?
Use Delta awards for international flights, especially in premium classes. Delta often has great availability to Europe and the Middle East, including Israel, from the East Coast, especially New York. Delta is the only U.S. airline that flies nonstop to Iceland from the U.S., and it doesn’t apply fuel surcharges (IcelandAir is a partner with Alaska, but it adds considerable fuel surcharges to its award flights).
SkyMiles can also be used to fly on some airlines that otherwise add fuel surcharges to their partners. For example, if you want to fly Virgin Atlantic, Delta has excellent availability, even in business, but it doesn’t add any surcharges even though Virgin adds them to their own flights. The same can be said about Korean. Delta has abundant availability to and from Asia on Korean, without any fuel surcharges at all.
Additional Cardholder Benefits:
- Extended Warranty
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- Zero Liability
- Travel Accident Insurance
- Global Assist Hotline
- Purchase Protection
- Baggage Insurance
- Car Rental Loss and Damage Insurance
- OPEN benefits