Why Delta will give you 2,500 miles for changing your flight

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Airlines used to be notorious for making it difficult to change a flight — long wait times to talk to a rep and expensive fees made the pain of modifying your travel schedule rarely worth it.

However, one of the few positive impacts that COVID-19 has had on the travel industry is that many of the major U.S. airlines have gotten rid of change fees for good. And now, Delta has announced it will literally pay you (in miles) to change your flight!

(Photo by Philip Pilosian/Shutterstock.)

Delta offering 2,500 miles to change flight online

In the fall, Delta announced that it was permanently getting rid of change fees. If you need to change your flight, you can now jump to another for free — you’ll just have to pay the difference if the new flight costs more. And if you want to outright cancel your plans, you’ll get a Delta flight credit that you can use to rebook when you please (the flight credit does expire 12 months after issue).

Now, Delta will give flyers 2,500 SkyMiles to change their flight through the airline’s website or mobile app. This move pushes customers away from Delta’s call centers and towards its digital platforms which cost less to operate. The airline has seen a large surge of flight changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the reduced change fees.

This one-time offer is only applicable to reservations made before March 2 — meaning you can’t book and rebook a bunch of times to rack up the rewards. It’s valid until June 30, 2021, so you’ll have some time to take advantage of the deal. You can read more about the promotion by clicking here.

To change your flight online, log in to your SkyMiles account and click on the “My Trips” tab, then choose “Modify Flight” to initiate the flight change process. The 2,500 bonus miles should hit your account quickly after you’ve selected your new flight.

This is a solid incentive, especially when you consider Delta was just recently charging over $150 to make flight changes. 2,500 SkyMiles are worth $31 according to our points valuations — not a bad deal to click a few buttons online.

Remember that the quickest way to earn Delta miles is through spending or earning a welcome bonus on a Delta credit card, like the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card and Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card. Also, you can transfer Amex Membership Rewards points to Delta instantly at a 1:1 ratio.

Bottom line

Delta’s flight change policy has vastly improved in the last few months, and this promo makes it even better. If you need to change your Delta flight, make sure you do so online (and before June 30) to earn the 2,500 bonus miles.

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Brendan Dorsey is an editor at Million Mile Secrets. He loves all things travel, points, miles and credit cards. He's worked for TIME and The Points Guy and has appeared on MSN, Yahoo Finance, Readers Digest, USA Today, CreditCards.com and more.

Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)

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