American Express Delta Gold Card

Going down another step in annual fee from the Delta Reserve and Delta Platinum cards, it’s time to check out the Delta Gold cards. Like with the Reserve and Platinum, Amex offers both a personal and a business version of this card, and like before, I’m going to cover both flavors of the card here.

These cards lie in the low-tier annual fee cards, with annual fees of $150 (which was just raised from $99 a few months ago).

With Delta’s change to only using Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQD) as its status metric, Delta has been trying to incentivize spending on their cards, like American has (and United to a lesser extent). However, this card is apparently not high enough margin for Amex/Delta to be willing to give holders of this card any spend-based MQDs.

I provide the information here just to give readers a vague idea if the rewards offered by the card might make sense for them to consider the card.  The information on this page has been collected independently, and all information should be confirmed with the card company before applying.

Welcome Offer

At the time of posting, the Delta Gold personal card has a 40 000 bonus mile offer after spending $2 000 in 6 months. The business version of the card has a 55 000 bonus mile offer after spending $4 000 in 6 months. In general, Delta has been trying to normalize the value of their miles and minimize any outsized redemptions, so I value Delta miles at 1.1 ¢/pt.  The current welcome offers are worth at least $440 and $605, respectively. These offers are combined with a $0 intro annual fee, bringing up the welcome offer value to $590 and $755, respectively, which is a solid offering for a $150 annual fee card.

Earnings

The personal version of the Delta Gold card has a somewhat weak earning structure: it earns 2x miles/$ on Delta purchases, dining, and groceries at US supermarkets and 1x mile/$ on everything else. The business version of the card has the same structure but different bonus categories: instead of dining and groceries, it offers 2x miles/$ on shipping and advertising in the US. Neither of these cards offers a great return on spend.

These cards do not earn MQDs based on spending, so if you’re looking to earn status using credit card spend, the Reserve is the better option.

Benefits

These cards offer a few credits to offset their $250 annual fee. The personal version offers a $100 Delta Stays credit, and the business version offers a $150 Delta Stays credit. The other credit both cards offer is a $200 Delta flight credit, but earning that credit requires spending $10 000 in a calendar year (which could amount to effectively an extra 2% back on spend if you spend exactly $10 000)

Like all the Delta credit cards with an annual fee, these cards offer 15% reward flights on Delta, which is a great way to get more value out of SkyMiles. The cards offer 20% off Delta Inflight purchases and a free checked bag.

These cards do not offer the $2 500 MQD “head start” on status qualification each year.

How to use the points

The main use for Delta Airlines miles is to redeem them for Delta Airlines, SkyTeam, and other partners’ flights.  Delta Airlines has dynamic pricing for its own flights and any flight that starts/ends in the United States, but there does still exist an award chart for its partners on non-US itineraries that can provide good value. Delta Airlines is a transfer partner of American Express, but Amex will charge you a fee for points transfers at a rate of $6 per 10 000 miles.

The other type of point earned, MQD, is used for Delta status: this year, you need $5 000 for Silver, $10 000 for Gold, $15 000 for Platinum, and $28 000 for Diamond.

Examples of using the card

These examples assume you spend all your airfare budget on Delta Airlines. And I’m going to base this on the personal card, which is more relevant for my readership.

Spend per month

	Example A		Example B		Example C		Example D
Groceries (2x)	$300	600	$200	400	$600	1 200	$400	800
Gas (1x)	$0	0	$100	100	$200	200	$100	100
Airfare (2x)	$700	1 400	$200	400	$0	0	$400	800
Hotels (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$200	200	$0	0	$300	300
Gen Travel (1x)	$400	400	$0	0	$300	300	$100	100
Dining (2x)	$600	1 200	$300	600	$300	600	$0	0
General (1x)	$1 000	1 000	$500	500	$500	500	$400	400
Total	$4 000	5 600	$1 500	2 200	$1 700	2 800	$1 700	2 500
Average points/$		1.4		1.47		1.65		1.47

This card’s minimal bonus categories mean that the average points earned has a small (and low) range of 1.4 – 1.65 points/$, which is worth 1.54 – 1.82 ¢/$. This earn rate is low for a card with a $150 annual fee, but is not somewhat typical for an airline co-branded credit card. There is a slight advantage to earning SkyMiles through these cards because you don’t have to pay the transfer tax that Amex makes you pay.

Specific examples

Card	Delta Airlines Economy class ($750)  (% return)	Marriott Hotel night ($230/night)	Points values (Delta/Hotel)
No rewards card	3 500 AM (5.1%)	2 200 MP (7.3%)	$38.50 / $16.79
General 2% cashback card ($0)	3 500 + $15.00 (7.1%)	2 200 MP + $4.60 (9.3%)	$53.50 / $21.39
Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95)	3 500 + 1 500 UR (8.1%)	2 200 MP + 460 UR (10.3%)	$61.00 / $23.69
Amex Green Card ($150)	3 500 + 2 250 MR (9.3%)	2 200 MP + 690 MR (11.5%)	$70.00 / $27.14
Delta Gold Card ($250)	5 000 AM (7.3%)	2 200 MP + 230 DM (8.4%)	$55.00 / $19.32

Is this the right type of credit card for you?

I think these Delta Gold cards could make sense if you don’t have status and value the checked bag. If you have status though, the benefits of this card will be pretty duplicative of perks you already have. I don’t think the extra $100 Delta Stay credit was really worth the extra $51 annual fee.

I don’t think these cards are rewarding enough to be worth putting all your spend on, but I could understand the appeal of spending $10 000 on the card to get the flight credit in some situations. If you spent exactly $10 000, your return on spend in the above examples would be 3.54 – 3.82 ¢/$, which is actually really good.