Avoid Debt With My Amex Delta Platinum SkyMiles Credit Card
Guest Post by Kevin Craig
In this era of financial crisis, many Money Gurus ask for saving money in your household expenses and luxuries so that you may avoid debt. They also ask to reduce the usage of credit cards. However, let’s discuss if you should really stop using your credit cards. A few years back I was firmly engaged with the cash back credit card rewards camp, and perhaps you won’t believe that you for sure couldn’t have convinced me to apply for a frequent flyer credit card. However, that was a completely different era.
Last summer I applied for an Amex Delta Platinum SkyMiles credit card. All my friends and relatives know that I travel often, and my family also enjoy periodic tips. Provided that almost all of these travels (through flight) are done on Delta, I thought a dedicated card like this might make sense for us.
After approval, I was immediately provided with 20k bonus miles, 5k of which were MQMs (i.e., they count toward upgrading my flyer status), and further an extra 2250 bonus miles for my wife’s card. It also provides lumps of extra MQMs at certain spending levels (10k MQMs for each $25k spent), and moreover, free checked bags and one free ‘companion’ travel certificate per year.
No doubt, it’s been a good experience. I should thank to the bonus MQMs that have provided me the opportunity to upgrade my status such that I earn mileage at a superior rate when I fly. Further, I often get free upgrades and also the prospect of reserving seats sought after exit row as I’m no more than 6’5”.
These are no doubt good, but do they really worth your money? I pay much importance to the status upgrade as it pays dividends in many ways. However, can you really save some bucks?
My mother was going to visit to her father’ house with her two grandsons. A few days earlier, when we were arranging for her tour, I was able to use miles to holdup one of the tickets, and then used the companion ticket for a buy-one-get-one-free pair of tickets for the other two. The reward ticket took 32,500 miles (a bit higher than the base 25,000 due to availability), plus an extra $5 for booking fee. I saved a net $380 as the ticket normally costs $385. If we calculate, the ticket just charged me 1.2 cents a mile.
I was very pleased with the companion ticket as it was very easy to use. Few taxes/ fees were not covered on the companion fare that added $21 to the overall bill. However, we purchased the two tickets just for $406.
If I add, we got the three plane tickets worth $1155 just for $427. It is even after adding back $150 in the annual fee for the Platinum card. There is no doubt that we could not have such benefits if we just had a simple cash back reward card.
