Delta Cars & Stays is having quite the push at the moment with trying to get people to book hotel stays and/or car rentals through them. There are multiple different offers that can earn you 5X bonus SkyMiles, 1X Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs), or save you 15% when redeeming SkyMiles for your bookings.
That could make it the perfect time to make use of any Delta Stays credits that you might have on Amex Delta cards.
The Deals
- Delta Cars & Stays is running the following promotions:
- Earn 5X SkyMiles when booking first hotel stay
- Save 15% when redeeming SkyMiles on hotel stays and rental cars
- Earn 1X Medallion Qualification Dollar (MQD) per $1 spent on hotel stays and rental cars
Key Terms
- 5X promo
- Book by August 23, 2026 for stays through December 31, 2026.
- Offer is not eligible for stays booked as part of a vacations package purchased from Delta Vacations or for vacation rentals booked with Airbnb.
- This offer is valid only for SkyMiles Members who have not made and completed a reservation with Delta Stays in the last 24 months (determined on a rolling basis).
- Eligible SkyMiles Members will earn three (3) additional miles per US$1 or equivalent foreign currency spent on the base hotel rate (“Qualifying Dollars”) for their first completed stay booked on carsandstays.delta.com, in addition to the everyday value proposition. “Qualifying Dollars” includes the base hotel room rate charged at the time of booking, but excludes taxes, fees, gratuities, room service, other booking charges, any element of the booking which is paid or reduced by redemption vouchers or discount codes and any booking in which miles are used as a form of payment (whether that booking uses miles for all or only a portion of the transaction). For clarity, if miles are used as a form of payment (whether for all or a portion of the booking), the booking will not be eligible to earn any miles under this offer.
- 15% off with SkyMiles promo
- Book by June 30, 2026 for stays and rentals through December 31, 2026.
- The discount will be automatically applied, and no code is needed to apply this promotion to the reservation of a car rental or hotel stay.
- Miles can be redeemed to cover any or all portions of a car rental or hotel reservation booked with Delta charged at the time of booking, excluding insurance or other add-ons (including, but not limited to, cribs, rollaway beds, infant car seats, toddler booster car seats, GPS and pre-paid fuel), which will not earn any miles. For clarity, this offer does not include any car rentals or stays booked through Delta Vacations, any cruises booked through Delta Cruises, or any vacation rentals booked with Airbnb.
- 1X MQDs promo
- Book by July 20, 2026 for stays & rentals through December 15, 2026.
- Earn Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs) upon the completion of a qualifying car rental, hotel or vacation rental booking. For clarity, this offer does not include any stays or car rentals booked through Delta Vacations or any cruises booked through Delta Cruises.
- SkyMiles Members will earn 1 MQD per eligible US$1 or equivalent foreign currency (“Qualifying Dollars”) spent on the base car rental rate for every completed rental booking, and on the base hotel or vacation rental rate for every completed stay. Qualifying Dollars include the base car rental rate and the base hotel room or vacation rental property rate, before taxes and fees, charged at the time of booking or upon checkout. Taxes, fees, gratuities, room service, other booking charges, or any bookings which are paid or reduced by miles, redemption vouchers or discount codes are excluded from MQD credit and are not included in the Qualifying Dollars. For clarity, if miles are used as a form of payment (whether for all or a portion of the booking), no portion of the booking will be eligible to earn MQDs.
- A qualifying car rental booking includes rentals at a participating location for one or more days at rates other than travel industry rates or discounts, wholesale of tour package rates or discounts, wholesale tour package rates, insurance/dealer replacement rates, corporate and government rates, group travel discounts, or rentals in conjunction with a frequent flyer car award, or other corporate agreements applicable to the respective car company.
Quick Thoughts
If you haven’t ever booked a hotel through Delta Cars & Stays, earning 5X miles—increased from the usual 2X you’ll earn—is a decent return. It’ll be regarded as a booking through an Online Travel Agency (OTA) though, so you won’t earn hotel points, receive elite status benefits, etc. This will therefore make the most sense if you have a Delta Stays credit to use up on an eligible Delta credit card, or if you also want to earn MQDs on the stay.
Speaking of which, earning MQDs is another of the three limited time promotions. You don’t normally earn MQDs towards SkyMiles status, but Delta Cars & Stays does occasionally run these promotions for a short period whereby you can earn 1X MQDs on both hotel stays and car rentals. That’ll also stack with Delta Stays credits on Delta credit cards, along with the 5X first booking offer above. While the 5X offer is only valid on hotel stays, the 1X MQDs offer is valid on both hotel stays and car rentals.
Last, and most certainly least, is the ability to save 15% when redeeming SkyMiles towards hotel bookings and car rentals. That’s very poor value ordinarily and it’s still poor value even with the 15% discount. For the hotel bookings I was looking at, I was seeing values of 0.82-0.95 cents per point of value by redeeming miles—even with the discount—so that’s not at all worth it. That said, it might be worth double checking pricing for any stays or rentals you’re interested in; because I was seeing a range of values, perhaps there are some bookings you can make that’ll give solid enough value when redeeming SkyMiles.
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So basically a $350 credit card and $2500 in hotel or car spend gets you entry level Delta silver status?
Arguably, that had already been the case though because of the MQD boosts. So $1000 for Delta Silver or $2000 for Gold before any Delta spend. Then you are $5K MQD from Platinum and a choice benefit. Like everything, it comes down to how much value one personally gets from a status level.
Not sure I follow – you can get $1000 at platinum and $2000 at diamond as choice benefits, right? And delta vacation is always 1:1 but not delta stays. Thinking about a starting from scratch scenario.
I mean, I guess can get all 4 MQD boost cards (plat and reserve personal and business) for $2000 total and get 10k MQDs that way for Gold. But other than the coupons that’s a lot of sunk cost. But could easily do $700 AF (plat and biz plat) for 5k MQD plus $5k hotel spend and get Delta Gold without stepping foot on a plane, I suppose.
Just thinking out loud as Delta is running these Delta Stays promotions a lot more often these days…
Wonder how they qualify “first” booking I just PC’d a DBP to Biz Reserve($250 DL stays credit) – used 3X since the refreshed the Delta Biz cards adding Resy/RideShare/DeltaStay credits and made CP useable and semi valuable.
The Delta Stays have been decent value (haven’t earned EQN/Pts but have received other Bonvoy Plt benefits (ymmv) Free Breekie and nice upgrades (even using P2s Delta Stays credit booked under my name.
First DeltaStays use after refresh was Shangri-la Vancouver (RiP now rebadeged as a Park Hyatt or other lux Hyatt brand). I didn’t earn Shangri-la Circle points but we did have a nice corner suite (even though the hotel has no real views in Vancouver CBD – the Shangri-la building is the tallest building west of GTA (Toronto) if you want a view you have to find a AirBNB in the Residence portions of the building floors above 9 or 10.iirc.
Turn a skypeso into a skycentavos with this one trick! Lol