Tag: credit cards

Delta Amex has some great miles offers!

Delta Amex has some great miles offers!

youshouldgoanyway
American Express Delta

I recently upgraded to the Delta Skymiles Reserve card which has some great lounge benefits among other things. I started out with the Gold card which has a $0 first year fee and $95 every year after. The best part is that there’s a 70,000 miles bonus which can go pretty far if you play your cards right. I recently got two round trip tickets to Seoul from Seattle for 34,000 miles each!

In any case, I do recommend this card because the miles add up and never expire.

Use this link to apply and we both get some miles!

Read more about how I use this card to travel cheaply!

The three things I use to travel well for cheap

The three things I use to travel well for cheap

youshouldgoanyway

For just about $2,550 in cash for airfare, I completed the following flights in 2019 using a combination of frequent flyer miles, vouchers, deals from Scott’s Cheap Flights, and miles earned from my Delta SkyMiles American Express.

  • Las Vegas (Delta SkyMiles) + 3 mileage tix for companions
  • Miami (DSM) + 1 mileage ticket for companion
  • San Antonio ($200 cash)
  • Honolulu (Got refunded by Delta because of a broken plane!)
  • Tokyo ($200 cash + $400 United Voucher from wheelchair issue)
  • Helsinki ($450 deal via Scott’s Cheap Flights)
  • Ecuador ($250 – Mistake Fare deal via SCF)
  • Peru ($250 – Mistake Fare deal via SCF)
  • Montreal (Part of the above trip to Ecuador)
  • Toronto (Part of the above trip to Peru)
  • Madrid ($450 deal via SCF)
  • Canary Islands ($200 cash)
  • Tahiti ($550 cash deal via SCF)

I reached Platinum on Delta for the second straight year as well. This comes with lots of upgrades and other perks which I love — including flexibility on award ticket bookings.

I also get Priority Pass lounge access, TSA Pre-Check, and Global Entry in addition to a whole slew of travel and purchase benefits.

Here’s what I do. (I get referral miles for the Delta cards if you use my link, but I’d recommend the card even if I didn’t!)

  1. I subscribe to Scott’s Cheap Flights. For $50 a year you set your home airports or any airports you want deals from and they’ll email you as soon as they find them. This is how I got tickets to S. America and Spain for under $300 — round trip, main cabin, including bags. You don’t buy the tickets through Scott’s, which is just an alert system. They’re regular fares that let you accumulate miles and everything. They’re just really good sale prices or mistakes.
  2. I use my Delta American Express card and fly Delta whenever possible. I get miles for the credit card expenditures and bonuses for various purchases. If you coordinate your purchases, you can get medallion status without having to spend a lot of money on airfare at all. As a Delta card member you can also use their Pay With Miles feature for some flights, which allows you to earn Medallion qualification miles on the flights even though you’re using award miles to buy the tickets, which isn’t true for regular award tickets.
  3. I also have a Chase Sapphire Reserve card. The rewards points here are available to use for everything from cash back to travel. And if I use these points to buy Delta tickets, I will get mileage credit because it’s not an award ticket on Delta, it’s a paid ticket using rewards from Chase. This is also the card that gives me $300 per year back towards travel purchases, access to lounges, travel insurance, Pre-Check and Global Entry. The fee is high but after the cash back and the travel benefits, it’s worth it if you travel a lot.

If you use the rewards shopping portals with the Amex and Chase card, you can get more miles for everyday purchases as well. In addition there are often bonuses available if you pay attention to their emails.

I will mention that if you travel a lot, these cards are a no-brainer. If you only take one trip here and there, you might opt only for a lower or no fee airline card miles credit card. Just make sure the miles don’t expire.