I just booked Jessie and my flights to St. Petersburg for her annual swim meet. We are flying in and out of Tampa and I used 36,500 Delta SkyMiles per roundtrip flight.
When I went to book the tickets, I needed 73,000 miles but only had 70,000 miles. (Recall I got a big influx of 60,000 SkyMiles last year when I got the American Express Gold Delta SkyMiles Business Card)
I easily and immediately transferred 3,000 American Express Membership Rewards points to my Delta SkyMiles account. Amex transfers to Delta at a 1:1 ratio. The fee for this transfer was $1.80. With American Express Membership Rewards, transfers can be made with no transfer fees to hotel programs. However, when you transfer points into a U.S. airline frequent flyer program, you will be charged an excise tax offset fee of $0.0006 per point (with a maximum fee of $99). American Express states that they charge this fee to offset the federal excise tax that they must pay on transfers.
We also had to pay a tax of 11.20 per flight using the miles. So in total the outlay for the flight was 1.80 plus 22.40, so roughly $25.
This roundtrip flight would have cost $460 per flight, or $920. We saved practically $900 using the SkyMiles. Based on the fact that many valuations value Delta SkyMiles about 1.2 cents per point, this was a good use of Delta SkyMiles. I used miles worth $876 for flights that would have cost $920. However, don’t forget, I often use points and miles, even if I don’t get as good of value. But not this time!
Excited for another swim meet trip!