We all spent $275 picking up 125,000 Delta miles with the Suntrust debit card deal. Bikeguy and Skynerd have emailed me about a way to convert them to gift cards for a nice return. Here is Skynerd’s email to me:
“I think a useful addition to frugaltravelguy.com’s coverage of the SunTrust Delta promotion would be to mention that ability to redeem those Delta Miles to gift cards at the rate of ~$.009/mile for Delta American Express card holders.
The offer has apparently been around for a couple of months, and there are a couple of flyertalk threads about it. I posted a note about it in the thread about the SunTrust promotion at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/15570428-post440.html .
I do wonder if there might be some unusual US tax issues.”
A further post:
Delta AmEx card holders who accumulated a lot of Delta mlies from the SunTrust promotion might want to check out American Express Gift Cards Now at Delta Marketplace and AMEX GIFT Card with Miles , which seem to indicate that if you hold any American Express Delta credit card, the redemption rate for converting Delta SkyMiles drops to 11,000 miles for a $100 gift card.
For example, if you spent $220 on four SunTrust business Delta debit cards to get 100k SkyMiles and you have another 4k SkyMiles handy, you should be able to redeem that for $1k if you have a Delta AmEx.
I suspect this offer may survive long enough so that one could apply for a Delta AmEx to take advantage of it, but I also suspect the offer will expire before next year’s SunTrust promotion.
Delta elites apparently get a similar deal (13k imles/$100), but I believe that Delta elites get advantages in redeeming SkyMiles that make SkyMiles worth more to them.
You must have a Delta credit card from Amex to make the conversion.
Here is the Skymiles Marketplace link
And Skynerd’s FT post on the math involved.
Thanks Guys for helping convert those Skymiles if award availability is not there.
