Taking Full Advantage of Delta Miles Through Transfer Bonuses


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UPDATE: This offer is no longer available.

Delta has another bonus offer when transferring points to another Delta account. It seems like this MIGHT be targeted, so I cannot promise this will be available to everyone. It is worth checking your email to see if you received a “Get a 100% Bonus When You Transfer Miles” email. Points Miles and Martinis wrote about this in more detail, but here is a quick re-cap:

  • Bonus runs from November 14 – November 30 (update: now December 16)
  • 100% bonus on all transferred miles to another account
  • The person who transfers the miles will receive the bonus, NOT the person whose account they are being transferred to (update: for the 12/16 promotion, the recipient will be the one receiving the bonus miles, not the one who initiated the transfer)
  • The cost to transfer miles is $.01 per mile plus a $30 processing fee
  • You can transfer a maximum of 30,000 points at a time to up to 4 different accounts (update: The 30,000 point maximum no longer applies to the new December 16th promotion, however, you can still transfer to up to 4 accounts during one transaction)
  • Limit on transferring 150,000 out of your account in a calendar year
  • Limit on receiving 300,000 into your account in a calendar year
  • Promotion: Transfer Through This Link

If you have Delta miles you want to use, this really can end up being a great way to essentially purchase miles for cheap!

THE CALCULATIONS BELOW ARE FOR THE PROMOTION THAT ENDED ON NOVEMBER 30TH. NEW CALCULATIONS COMING SHORTLY FOR THE NEW DECEMBER 16TH PROMOTION.

My calculations: Transfer 60,000 miles from Delta Account A to Delta Account B, with Delta Account A receiving a 100% bonus on the points transferred. The one big caveat is that only 30,000 Delta miles can be transferred at a time.

Total miles left in each account:

  • Delta Account A: 120,000
  • Delta Account B: 120,000

Total cost:

  • Delta mile transfer: $1,320 ($0.01 per mile + $120 processing fee – since it has to be done 4 times)

This is equal to purchasing Delta points at $0.011/point. $1,320 for 120,000 is a great deal! This can be used on a business class ticket to Europe round-trip.

I am confident there are ways to even do this cheaper, but I just wanted to throw out the more simple way first. Some other ways to get the biggest bang for your buck is by transferring 30K to multiple people at once (up to 4), since you will only need to pay the $30 processing fee one time. Additionally, you can continue to transfer your miles back and forth between accounts, so that can also get you a bigger value.

I would just make sure to have a Delta award in mind prior to going through the trouble. As many of you are aware, Delta seems to be more and more difficult these days to get those low-level awards. You can put a flight on hold and the points should transfer in time as well!

Goodluck and feel free to comment with your best strategy!

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HikerT
HikerT
12 years ago

Yes it is targeted. I think you’re making this way too complicated. The transfer of MR points should be viewed separately from the share miles promotion. For the share miles promo (if you were targeted) you get 100% of the miles back that you share to someone else. At the end of the day this is essentially a gift miles promotion, not a share miles promotion. All you need is 30K DL miles in a targeted account (it’s highly likely that you wouldn’t have 30K DL miles if you were targeted, so no need to confuse the issue with transfer of MR), and you can basically buy miles for any other account at 1.1 CPM (up to 5 times).

dealswelike
dealswelike
12 years ago
Reply to  HikerT

@HikerT – I hear ya. I wrote about the 30% rebate from Amex – Delta earlier today, so just wanted to tie the two together. I will make it clear though that these are mutually exclusive.

Maury
Maury
12 years ago

I always said that Hiker T should start his own blog.

dealswelike
dealswelike
12 years ago
Reply to  Maury

@Maury – I agree, I have always liked his comments! Side note – the post has been updated to just include the Delta transfer bonus.

HikerT
HikerT
12 years ago

Ha I actually do have a site (a hiking site). I can’t imagine I’d get any work done if I had a FF blog. 🙂

murtuza
12 years ago

I am missing about 12k miles for one of my trip. Anyone who is targeted for this offer and interested in transferring 12k miles? I can pay for the transfer fees.

trackback

[…] Through December 16th, get a 100% bonus when transferring miles to another account. For example, if you transfer 50,000 miles to a family members account, they will receive 50,000 miles while you will also receive another 50,000 miles as the bonus. The charge to transfer miles from one account to another is $0.01/mile plus a $30 transaction fee. If you transfer miles at at the same time to multiple accounts, you will only need to pay that $30 transaction fee once (up to four recipients). Additionally, you are not able to transfer more than 150,000 miles from your account and a recipient cannot receive more than 300,000 miles in total from other accounts in a calendar year. Read my prior blog post for a detailed analysis. […]

A. S.
A. S.
12 years ago

I’m not sure where you saw that the 30K cap has been removed. When I try it, the drop-down list still only shows a maximum of 30K allowed.

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