Delta has been running around like bull in a china shop this week, managing to make almost every corner of the SkyFans universe angry with massive changes to both its elite program and to SkyClub access for credit cardholders. Evidently, it’s not done.
American Express has a rule that only allows customers to get a credit card welcome offer “once in a lifetime,” which in practice means once every 5-7 years. However, the various flavors of Amex Delta business and consumer cards have been considered different products, thus allowing folks to sextuple-dip the welcome offers. That seems to be changing.
Danny the Deal Guru noticed that there is some “family language” now appearing on Delta consumer cards that prohibits getting a welcome offer on one card if you’ve had other cards within that family. Danny said that it was showing all the Delta consumer cards, but I’m actually seeing different language on each one. Delta Business cards seem to be unaffected.
What’s Changed
I currently see different language on each of the Delta consumer cards, under the terms and conditions:
Delta Gold Card
You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card, the Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card, the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card or previous versions of these Cards.
Delta Platinum Card
You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card, the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card or previous versions of these Cards.
Delta Reserve Card
You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card or previous versions of this Card.
Right now, it looks like the Gold is off the table if you’ve had any of the three cards previously. However, you’d be eligible for a welcome offer on the Delta Platinum card if you’ve already had a Gold (but not the Reserve), while the language on the Reserve card is business as usual.
Quick Thoughts
The specificity in language between the Delta Platinum and Gold cards seems intentional, as opposed to a slow roll-out of a family rule across all cards.
It looks like Delta and Amex don’t want to keep you from moving up to more expensive premium cards, but it does want to keep you from moving in the other direction. Based on how it stands now, if you wanted welcome offers on all three, you’d be able to do that by applying for the Gold, Platinum and Reserve in sequence. However, if you previously had the Reserve or the Platinum and were planning to circle around later and get one of the other cards, you’re now out of luck.
This could change, of course, like it did recently when Amex slowly added more restrictive language to the various flavors of Platinum cards. If anyone sees a change in the language on any of the cards, let us know and we’ll update this post.
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If the issue is overcrowding of the skyclubs, Delta did that to themselves! There was a time, not so long ago, that Sky Club access was based on Mediallion status, not on what credit cards a person had…. there was never overcrowding then….just saying
Get your Hilton cards if you haven’t already… too bad I’m still in pop-up prison on the personal side. This seems to be a VERY BROAD Amex clamp down. Heck I’ve suddenly lost my referral option across all my cards except the crappy blue I recently down graded (might need to try to “lose it” trick).
They also added a 2x multiplier cap on the delta gold card of 50k starting Jan FY24.
Sneaky and another negative change.
Not at all concerned since I’m not renewing my and wife’s (2 total) delta reserve cards and moving bulk of our flying to their competitors.
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Clearly with the new changes and limits on club access down to 10 a year , why pay for the more expensive card . Wonder how many will move down any way and just buy club membership yearly . They sure are squeezing the most loyal, wonder what the fall out will be when the economy begins to slip and we all start ” shopping” again.
Well that’s disappointing /s
“may not” – so how do you know if you get the SUB or not if you don’t get a pop up?
That is my concern as well – I dont want to spend $3k and then find out there are no bonus miles coming
If your application is accepted, with no pop-up, you’re getting the SUB.
The old program incentivized holding multiple Delta cards. You could get extra MQM bonuses, and as long as you held one Platinum or Reserve card, spend from all cards counted towards the MQD waiver.
Now they actively discourage it.
Well they really softened the blow on this one by first imploding their loyalty program. Who wants a Delta CC now anyway? I guess only those who aren’t paying attention, which seems to be Delta’s target market.
My plan is to use up the benefits I have then just use the card to get semi reimbursed for the yearly fee…I used to use it exclusively for all purchases Not much of a benefit for doing that now from what I can tell.
Well… it was fun while it lasted. My wife and I are around 60+ cards deep. I’ll keep taking free money if they want to give it to us. Literally only spend on sign up bonuses.
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