Is American Express Learning That Regular Spend on Delta Cards Just Isn’t Worth It?
I was scanning my Amex Offers and happened upon this interesting Offer on my Gold Delta card.
Get 4 additional Delta miles per dollar spent in one or more eligible transactions by using your enrolled Amex Delta card to pay your U.S. cable or satellite television bill online, directly with the provider.
Which means, no matter which Delta credit card you hold – Gold Delta, Platinum Delta, Delta Reserve or the Blue Delta card – you’ll earn a total of 5 SkyMiles per dollar spent once you add this Offer to your card and use that card to pay your cable/satellite TV bill.
That’s not a bad amount of SkyMiles per dollar spent…if SkyMiles are your thing.
For this specific Amex Offer, there’s a limit of 1,500 SkyMiles that can be earned.
But, considering this Offer is good through 11/30/2019 only, that earning rate’s not too bad.
More to title’s point, though, does Amex realize it’s not that rewarding to put regular spend on a Delta card, and it’s moving toward Offers that’ll entice Delta cardholders to use their cards on more everyday spend categories?
If you’re not aware, unless you’re using your Delta card to pay for Delta purchases, you’re only earning 1 SkyMile per dollar spent on ALL other spend.
That’s a terrible rate when you consider other Membership Rewards earning Amex cards earn multiple Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on different categories depending on the card. And, of course, those Membership Rewards points can be transferred to Delta at a 1:1 rate (with an associated fee depending on the amount transferred).
So, if your goal is to earn Delta SkyMiles, why pay your grocery bill with your Delta card earning 1 SkyMile per dollar when you could use the American Express Gold card and earn 4 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent?
Which makes me wonder if American Express is trying to up the usage of its Delta cards with Offers providing significant SkyMiles earning bonuses for spend in certain areas.
This Offer’s not going to entice my DirecTV spend away from the Chase Ink Cash card (5x Ultimate Rewards points), but some other Amex Offer category bonus just might, depending on what I’m currently earning elsewhere.
Competition is good. And I would think Amex would be smart to offer more Amex Offers on its Delta credit cards just like this.
