Delta SkyMiles Gold review

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If you frequently fly Delta, the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card has a lot to offer. This travel credit card comes packed with benefits that can save you both time and money — think perks like free checked bags and priority boarding on Delta flights. Plus, it comes with a welcome offer of 70,000 bonus miles after meeting minimum spending requirements.

Here’s an honest review of the Delta SkyMiles Gold card.

Delta SkyMiles Gold Card review

Current bonus

The Delta SkyMiles Gold American Express Card is currently offering 70,000 bonus miles after you spend $2,000 in purchases on your new Card in your first 3 months. Offer expires 4/28/2021.

With the card’s Pay With Miles perk, the welcome bonus is easily worth $700 — but you could get much more value depending on how you redeem your Delta miles. For example, I was able to find the following award flights on the Delta website:

• 4,000 Delta miles + ~$6 fees for a one-way flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco
• 7,500 Delta miles + ~$6 fees for a one-way flight from Los Angeles to Dallas
• 11,000 Delta miles + ~$6 fees for a one-way flight from Los Angeles to New York

Delta has regular award sales — in the past, we’ve seen flights for 30,000 miles round-trip to Hong Kong and Europe.

If you want to learn more about Delta’s award sales, subscribe to our newsletter, and bookmark our Delta SkyMiles deals page.

Benefits and perks

Earning rate

You’ll earn the following:

• 2 miles per dollar spent on eligible Delta purchases, at restaurants worldwide and U.S. supermarkets
• 1 mile per dollar spent on everything else
• Terms Apply

Free checked bag

With the Delta SkyMiles Gold card, the primary cardholder and up to eight others traveling on the same Delta flight reservation will enjoy one free checked bag each. With baggage fees starting at $30 per bag, a round-trip flight for yourself and eight others on the same itinerary would otherwise mean a total of $540 in baggage fees.

$100 Delta credit

When you spend $10,000 in purchases on your card in a calendar year, you’ll receive a $100 Delta Flight Credit.

20% discount on inflight purchases

If you use your card on certain inflight purchases on Delta flights, you’ll receive a credit of 20% off the purchase price on your Amex statement within six to eight weeks after the transaction is posted to your account. Not all inflight purchases will qualify for this discount, but eligible items typically include food, beverages and audio headsets. The purchase must be made entirely with the card to receive this benefit.

Priority boarding

If you want more time to settle into your seat, Delta SkyMiles Gold cardholders receive complimentary priority boarding for the cardmember and up to eight additional people flying on the same itinerary (on Delta flights). Just make sure to include your Delta frequent flyer number on your reservation.

Discount on Delta SkyClub access

Delta stopped selling single-visit passes for its Sky Club lounges last year. But Delta Gold cardholders still have the option of buying lounge passes for themselves and two guests or their spouse and children under 21 years old. If you spend a lot of time at the airport or have a long layover, a lounge offers a quiet place to wait. In many cases, the lounges offer free food and drinks. The day passes cost $29 per person. In order to be eligible, you need to be traveling on a Delta flight that same day. Enrollment required for select benefits.

Ability to pay with miles for flights

The Delta Gold Amex card unlocks the ability to use the Pay with Miles feature. This allows you to purchase Delta flights with Delta miles at a rate of 1 cent per mile. The 70,000-mile bonus you can earn with this card is worth no less than $700 in Delta flights.

You can generally get more value from your points if you use them to book award flights, but with this option, you won’t have to worry about finding the cheapest Delta low-level awards on the dates you want to fly. And if you can find a good fare sale, you might be able to use fewer miles with Pay with Miles than if you booked an award ticket.

Just note, this perk only applies to Delta flights, not flights with partner airlines. Read our full guide on the Delta Pay with Miles feature.

Extended warranty

When you make an eligible purchase with the card, Amex will extend the original manufacturer’s warranty up to two additional years on eligible warranties of five years or less. That’s a nice savings if you’d otherwise be paying cash to purchase an extended warranty. Enrollment required for select benefits.

ShopRunner membership

With ShopRunner membership, you’ll get free, unlimited two-day shipping at a wide selection of stores. Membership normally costs $79 per year, but you’ll receive this membership at no additional cost as an Delta SkyMiles Gold card member. Enrollment required for select benefits.

Amex Offers

Amex Offers are targeted deals offering statement credits or bonus points for everyday purchases. A deal might offer $10 off a $50 purchase at a certain store or 5,000 bonus Amex Membership Rewards points for purchasing from a website. Jasmin loves using Amex Offers to stock up on household products and snacks for her kids, especially whenever the offers for Boxed.com appear. Meghan has also been able to take advantage of some of these discounts, even turning some of them into a profit. Eligibility for Amex Offers is limited. Enrollment is required in the Amex Offers section of your account before redeeming.

How to redeem miles

You can easily redeem Delta miles at a value of 1 cent each thanks to Pay With Miles, but it’s not unheard of to get more than double that in value by booking award flights directly through the Delta website.

It’s very possible to find amazing deals on Delta award flights. To look up the cost of a flight, you’ll have to look up a specific route and date. You can also book award flights on partner airlines, like Air France and KLM.

There is no Delta award chart, so it’s tricky to tell how much your next award flight will cost. This can be a big problem if you don’t have a flexible schedule that allows you to pick and choose the best deals. But if you have an eligible Amex Delta credit card, you can pay for Delta flights with miles through the Pay with Miles feature. With this tool, your Delta miles are worth 1 cent each toward Delta flights. That’s probably less than what they would be worth if you booked an award flight outright, but when using Pay with Miles you can book any available seat.

If you don’t have enough miles to cover the flight, that’s not a problem with Pay with Miles. You can pay for just part of a flight — as long as you’re using at least 5,000 Delta miles. With award flights, it’s all miles or nothing. Pay with Miles helpful if you’ve got a few extra miles sitting unused in your Delta account. The one drawback is that you have to pay in 5,000-mile increments.

Read our full guide on how to use Delta Miles here.

Is the annual fee worth it?

It’s easy to come out ahead of the $99 annual fee on this card (see rates and fees). You can get significant value from perks such as free checked bags, priority boarding, discounted Delta SkyClub lounge access and more.

With the Delta Gold Amex card getting the primary cardholder and up to eight companions their first checked bag free, this perk could make up for the annual fee after just a single trip.

Who is the Delta SkyMiles Gold for?

Based on reports online, you should have a good chance of being approved for this card even with fair credit. I was able to find a few reports of people being approved with a credit score as low as 630.

Amex has a once-per-lifetime rule when it comes to earning the welcome bonus on a card. This means that no matter how long ago you previously earned the welcome bonus on the Amex Delta SkyMiles Gold card, you won’t be eligible to receive an intro bonus a second time.

Credit cards similar to the Delta SkyMiles Gold

If the Delta SkyMiles Gold American Express isn’t quite right for you, there are a few other Delta credit cards that you could consider:

• Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card (read our review of the Platinum Delta SkyMiles Credit Card)
• Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card (read our review of the Delta Reserve Credit Card)

The Delta SkyMiles Platinum comes with a higher annual fee of $250 (see rates and fees), but offers a few perks not found on the Amex Gold Delta SkyMiles card. You’ll receive a domestic main cabin round-trip companion certificate each year upon renewal of your card, and with Delta SkyMiles Status Boost, you can earn 10,000 Medallion® Qualification Miles (MQMs) after you spend $25,000 or more in eligible purchases on the card in a calendar year.

If you’re looking for the most elite cardmember experience, consider the Delta Reserve. With an annual fee of $550 (see rates & fees), you’ll enjoy perks like complimentary Delta SkyClub access, upgrade priority, a domestic first-class or main-cabin round-trip companion certificate upon renewal of your card and more.

Bottom line

With an annual fee of just $99 and a welcome bonus potentially worth hundreds of dollars, the Delta SkyMiles Gold card is definitely worth considering, even if you only fly Delta a handful of times throughout the year.

You’ll earn a welcome bonus of 70,000 miles after meeting minimum spending requirements.

As a cardmember, you’ll receive access to benefits that will save you time and money at the airport. These include priority boarding, free checked bags, discounted Delta SkyClub lounge access, discounts on certain inflight purchases, ShopRunner membership, Amex Offers and more.

You should have a good chance of approval with this card; we found reports online of people being approved with a credit score as low as 630.

You can apply for the Delta SkyMiles Gold American Express card here.

For rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles Gold card, click here.

For rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card, please click here.

For rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles Reserve card, click here.