Delta SkyMiles have the notorious reputation for being “SkyPesos”, a reflection of how poor value the points typically are. But is that accurate?

For this post, I’m not going to get into the details of the elite status aspect of the program and instead focus on the redemption side of the program.

If you need to transfer in points, Amex is the only way to go

Delta Airlines only has one transferrable bank partner and that is American Express. That shouldn’t come as a surprise because American Express is the sole issuer of Delta credit cards. The two have a deep relationship, with Delta being Amex’s most valuable partner ever since Costco left American Express.

Note that American Express charges a fee to transfer your Membership Rewards points over to Delta SkyMiles. The fee is $0.0006 per point ($0.60 per 1,000 points), with a cap of $99 per transaction. The fee represents an excise tax and applies for any American Express transfer over to a US-based program. There is no way to “avoid” the fee if you’re intending to use SkyMiles to purchase flights.

Award space is released 331 days in advance

Delta is comparable to other US-based programs in only opening up award space 11 months in advance (331 days). If you’re looking to book Delta’s partner award space with Delta SkyMiles, you’re also limited to that same limit.

Unlike American Airlines, I don’t think this is too crippling for Delta. That’s because American’s best use of miles is on their partners and they offer excellent rates on those partners. Meanwhile, Delta doesn’t fit the same profile with not-very-competitive rates on their partners.

Delta SkyMiles charges high award rates for its own flights

Let’s just take a peek at the prices Delta SkyMiles charges by looking at a variety of routes (all for flights on August 1, 2025 as of the time of this writing):

All I can say is… ouch? Delta doesn’t offer much value on their own flights. Some of this is by design because they feel the experience on their own planes is superior to other US-based airlines. There’s some truth to this, so I can somewhat understand pricing on domestic options. But international options where other airlines offer equivalent or superior options? I’d reckon their hubris gets in the way of rational thinking.

Not only are the award prices for economy well above the industry norm for international flights, but don’t even bother looking at that Delta One pricing. You’re better off looking elsewhere. This is what famously gives Delta SkyMiles the “SkyPesos” moniker.

Delta’s SkyTeam (and other) partners offer no reprieve

Hoping Delta’s partners will be better priced than Delta’s own flights? Sadly, you would be mistaken–at least for those that touch the United States. Let’s look at CDG to MIA.

For cabins that have award space, you’ll find that there isn’t a discount for partner flights. And to make things worse, TakeOff 15 (explained in more detail down below) would offer you a discount on the Delta flights but not the partner flights if you hold the right credit card. Plus, there is a bogus extra cash fee for booking partner flights out of Europe to the United States (the charge was removed for Delta flights in March 2025).

Put it all together and Delta doesn’t exactly reward you for trying to avoid their planes.

Delta SkyMiles charges no cancel/change fees for many itineraries

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Delta removed all cancel and change fees from most fares. There are a few key exceptions:

• Basic economy awards are considered non-cancelable and non-changeable, but can be canceled for a fee in miles, deducted from the value of your ticket. The fee is 9,900 miles for domestic travel and 19,900 miles for international travel.
• Travel originating outside of the United States, Canada, or the Caribbean. The fee is $150 for non-basic economy awards.

In particular, this last item might sway you away from booking two one-way flights if you were otherwise considering a roundtrip out of the United States, Canada, or the Caribbean. Two one-ways means you might be forced to pay a fee on the flight home if you need to modify it, while it would have been covered for free if you booked as a roundtrip.

What are the sweet spots of Delta SkyMiles?

Flights that don’t touch the United States

Ostensibly, this means partner flights since Delta is based in the United States. But there is some value in here.

Intra-Canada travel is just 12,500 SkyMiles on WestJet in economy, like this trip from Vancouver YVR to Toronto YYZ.

Want to fly between Taiwan TPE and Singapore SIN? You’re looking at 22,500 SkyMiles in economy or 40,000 SkyMiles in business on Vietnam Airlines.

Or you can go all the way down to Johannesburg JNB for 35,000 SkyMiles in Air France, KLM, or Virgin Atlantic economy or 65,000 in business class. [[Aug 21]]

Not everything will be a winner, but this is a heck of a lot more value than flying Delta.

Award flash sales

Let’s say you do want to fly Delta. What you’ll want to do is wait around for Delta’s award sales. Doing so might give you double value (or more) compared to what you might typically get for your Delta SkyMiles.

Looking back on an example Delta flash sale, you could book a roundtrip Delta One flight for just under 200,000 SkyMiles. Is that a good deal? I suppose that’s ultimately for you to decide. Now that Delta has premium business class lounges, it might be more appealing, but they also fly planes that have an outdated business class cabin. To be sure, this is far better than the typical roundtrip price.

The problem as you would naturally suspect is when the flash sales will come. There hasn’t been a predictable schedule on when this happens–and whether or not the dates would work for you. While Delta has no obligation to let you know when these sales occur, they at least make it known with a lot of promotion, as though it were a big event.

Hidden city ticketing / Skiplagging

This is the practice of finding flights between airports A and B by instead pricing out a route that travels A to B to C with the intention of not taking B to C. It’s more discussed as a tactic for cash flights, but in theory it works for award flights too. However, it’s not as generous as it once was.

Take this trip from Tokyo HND to Atlanta ATL, which costs a massive 410,000 miles in Delta One.

If you instead connect on that same HND to ATL flight but continue to Lima, Peru, the price drops to 360,000 miles.

What about a domestic option? How about traveling between LAX and MSP for 27,000 miles in economy?

Well, flying LAX to MSP to IND would lower the price in economy to 23,500 miles.

A few things to note, however.

• Don’t abuse this or you risk getting shut down.
• Don’t check bags on a purely domestic itinerary as they will be through-checked to your final destination. International trips entering the United States will force you to pick up your bags at the airport you first enter the US.
• There’s a chance of irregular operations (IROPS) and you might be moved to another flight that doesn’t pass through the city you want. This might require you chatting with an agent to get it fixed but the Fly Delta app and website also usually work.

I’ll be honest and say I have not engaged in this up to this point. I value my relationship (and airline status) enough to not risk losing it. But I know you might have a different risk tolerance level.

Auctions via SkyMiles Experiences

If you’re like me and open to using your Delta SkyMiles towards experiences rather than flights, it’s worth checking out SkyMiles Experiences. We’ve done it only once up through now and thoroughly enjoyed our dining experience at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Depending on how many others challenge you for the event, you might even get it at a reasonable price. We ended up paying 26,000 Delta SkyMiles for a dinner that normally would have cost $550 (2.1 cents/mile).

I’d say Delta’s events don’t quite compare to the networking opportunities at United’s events, but sometimes you want something a bit more intimate or discreet. And that’s just dandy for us.

Delta SkyMiles award discounts if you have the right credit card

If you have the Delta Gold, Gold Business, Platinum, Platinum Business, Reserve, or Reserve Business cards, you have the “TakeOff 15” benefit. This means that Delta award flights will cost you 15% fewer miles than someone who doesn’t have the credit card. The discount does not apply to award flights operated on carriers other than Delta. If your itinerary contains one non-Delta flight, you won’t get any discount.

The feature is not worth having a Delta credit card on its own. It’s nice to save miles, but I’m not going to advocate you get it strictly for the discount. If you’re going to make a large redemption, it might be worth signing up for the Delta Gold card ($150 annual fee). But not every redemption would be worth it if all you cared about was the discount.

Infant pricing

Back when we flew internationally with an infant, we ended up sometimes paying a pretty penny to allow our child to sit in our lap. Without getting into the debate on the safety of the lap child, I can say it sometimes got expensive.

With most airlines, you would be forced to pay 10% of the cash price of the ticket. Say you found a flight for 75,000 miles in business class one-way. But if you want to bring your lap infant, you’d have to pay 10% of the cash fare, which could be thousands of dollars. A one-way flight is painfully priced high, and you might pay less if doing a roundtrip, but it’s still quite a dent. I’d say the rough average of what we paid for an infant was around $600 for the ticket.

Delta follows the same approach that many others do: infant awards are charged 10% of the current cash fare as of the time you call up. Check out our article that goes into more detail on how you might handle this, along with some ways you might be able to lower the cost.

• What to Know When You Book Infant Tickets

How to Best Search for Availability?

I’ve become quite proficient at using Delta for most of my award searching needs, so I’ve tended to use the tool. That’s especially true if I am trying to weigh the better option between using miles or a companion certificate (earned via their more premium credit cards). It also helps looking at the Delta website (not app) for finding award space that books into first class or Delta One using upgrade certificates (earned via Platinum or Diamond elite status).

So I’ve felt that for most of my needs, the Delta website has me mostly covered. It’s not perfect, but no single tool is. If you frequently look up cash rates on Google Flights, you might want to check out Points Path, which will integrate the points price right into the search results displayed.

If you’d prefer to use other award tools, options like Seats.aero or the free point.me tools might help you find that elusive award space.

Do Points Expire?

No, points do not expire. Hurray!

Suggested reading:

• WOW: Delta One Lounge LAX is Incredible
• Volunteering for Delta Flight Bumps
• Review: Delta Domestic A350 First Class LAX-ATL