(EXPIRED) Earn Double Delta SkyMiles With Select Partners Including SPG, Airbnb, Lyft & More

Delta is running a new promotion offering double miles for eligible transactions with select partners. There are a couple of restrictions that make this less lucrative than you might wish, but it’s still worth registering for the promotion anyway.

The Deal

• Earn 2X SkyMiles on eligible transactions with new participating partners from March 20, 2018 to May 31, 2018.
• Registration required – direct link.

Key Terms

• Registered SkyMiles members will earn a 100% bonus on eligible transactions with any new participating partner they earn miles with between March 20, 2018 and May 31, 2018. The term “New” refers to a partner the member has not earned miles with during the period January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017.
• The following non-airline partners are participating in this offer
  • Hotels & Airbnb
  • Car Rental Partners & Lyft
  • SkyMiles Cruises
  • FTD
  • Vinesse
  • SkyMiles Shopping US
  • SkyMiles Dining
• Only accrual partner transactions with an activity date between March 20, 2018 and May 31, 2018 will be considered for this bonus. Activity date is defined as the date of the transaction as reported by the partner regardless of the date the transaction is posted in the member’s account.
• Excluded Transactions: Some transactions from eligible partners are excluded including and not limited to: miles earned from bonuses, events, transfer of partner currency to miles, Airbnb Host transactions and New Guest Bonuses, Hotel Vacation Club transactions, Partner voucher credits, other mileage earning that are not related with hotel stays, Airbnb stays, Lyft rides, car rental bookings, SkyMiles Shopping and SkyMiles Dining transactions.

Quick Thoughts

It’s definitely worth registering for this promotion to make sure you don’t miss out on any easy bonus miles. However, a couple of the restrictions limit how lucrative the promotion will be for you.

First of all, you’ll only earn double miles at partners with whom you didn’t earn any points during 2017. That means I’m not eligible for double miles with Airbnb, so we’ll book those stays through my wife’s account as she didn’t earn with Airbnb last year.

The second restriction that limits this promotion’s usefulness is that it excludes miles earned from bonuses. For example, the (up to) 3,000 SkyMiles earned for joining SkyMiles Dining wouldn’t be doubled to 6,000.

There is the potential for sweet spots though, particularly through SkyMiles Shopping so long as you didn’t earn points from it last year. I’ve found Delta’s portal doesn’t tend to offer particularly good rates compared to other portals, but when doubled there’s a lot more potential.

For example, their portal’s currently offering 10 miles per dollar at Living Social and Sephora. It’s also offering 8 miles per dollar at JCPenney and Neiman Marcus. That means their doubled rates would be 20 miles per dollar and 16 miles per dollar respectively.

One of the exclusions for the promotion is that bonuses aren’t doubled, but I take that to mean that bonuses such as new member bonuses aren’t doubled. I’d therefore expect increased rates through the SkyMiles portal to not be excluded, although I could be wrong.

Another potential sweet spot is buying flowers from FTD.com. The SkyMiles Shopping portal currently offers 30 miles per dollar, so you’d earn 60 miles per dollar when doubled.

Be sure to click through to FTD from SkyMiles Shopping though. There’s a separate Delta / FTD partnership that only offers 20 SkyMiles per dollar, so if you went that route then you’d only earn 40 miles per dollar.

h/t Loyalty Lobby

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