Delta New Member Bonus - My Final Tally

Last August, Delta came out with a promotion for people who had never had a Skymile frequent flyer account. I wrote about the nuts and bolts of the promotion here and here. In summary, the promotion gave you points for completing various tasks ie flying, buying, getting credit card all within the first year. Since I never had a Delta account, I signed-up and it has been a fun ride.

My year ended last month and I earned 69,691 miles due to it.

Earning over 69,000 points in one year with little effort is pretty darn good.

How I Did It

First, I took a flight to Atlanta and earned 6,000 miles (1,000 actual miles + 5,000 First Flight Bonus)

+6,000 miles

Delta.com

Next, I applied and was approved for the Delta Amex Gold. The promotion I went with was 45,000 miles after spending $5,000 in 6 months. I wrote about getting the card here. The New Member Promotion gave 5,000 extra miles for being approved for the Amex Gold card. The 5,000 New Member miles did not post automatically. I had to call and fight for the points.

45,000 AMEX Sign-Up Bonus
5,000 New Member Bonus
5,011 Miles Earned for Spend
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+ 55,011 Miles

The final section of the New Member Bonus I completed was the partner section. I wrote about it here and here. I earned the rest of the miles through various partners.

Super Shuttle Trip                     550 miles - 50 miles for the trip and 500 Partner Bonus Miles
eRewards                               1000 miles - 500 miles transfer and 500 Partner Bonus Miles
Club Carlson Point Transfer      750 miles  - 250 miles transfer and 500 Partner Bonus Miles
Dining Rewards                      1790 miles - 90 from dining, 1,200 sign-up bonus and Bonus
DoubleTree Stay                    1000 miles - 500 miles per stay and 500 Partner Bonus Miles
Hilton Stay                             1000 miles - 500 miles per stay and 500 Partner Bonus Miles
Hilton Stay 2                          1000 miles - 500 miles per stay and 500 Partner Bonus Miles
SkyMiles Shopping                  510 miles -  10 miles from purchase and 500 Partner Bonus Miles
SkyMall Purchase                    520 miles -  20 miles from purchase and 500 Partner Bonus Miles
Fedex Package                        508 miles -  8 miles for cost + 500 FEDEX Bonus
----------------------

+8628

I did not get the partner bonus from FEDEX package because it did not post prior to the close of my year. I wish the terms and conditions were a little more clear about this, but its an interesting story.

As a mathematician might notice that everything above adds up to only 69,639, but my point balance is 69691. The last 52 miles were things I tried to trigger the bonus. My failed attempts included Thanks Again and Transferring 5 US Airways miles into 1 Delta Skymile. Therefore, not all partner bonus will trigger the bonus.

Conclusion

If I could have done anything better, I would have tried to take more flights. The promotion would have awarded me 2,500 miles in addition to miles flown for my next 4 roundtrip flights. Every time I needed to take a flight, I tried to book with DELTA, but it never worked out. Either the price was to high or the routing did not work.

The other regret was the FEDEX slip up. For two months, I wanted to send the package to earn the points, but I didn't. I can only blame myself on this one.

Overall, this promotion was tons of fun and very reminiscent of US Airway's Grand Slam. I am unsure if the promotion is still alive; however, the web page is still up. If it is not, Delta Points has a code for 5,000 miles for new accounts.

Thanks for a fun year Delta!

Now the next challenge, how to spend these Skymiles?

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