My Credit Cards Blog

Anyone who has the Regular Gold Delta SkyMiles Card (15K bonus miles) or the Business Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card (15K bonus miles) is automatically a member of Delta Skymiles Club. You can get a free round-trip airline ticket with this 25K bonus Delta Skymiles promotion.

From the website:

When it comes to earning rewards, it’s all about knowing the right people. With over 100 participating non-airline partners, chances are wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, you can be earning miles. And now, between January 15 and March 15, 2008, you can earn 3,000 bonus miles for doing business with just 3 unique Delta SkyMiles partners—and up to 25,000 bonus miles with 25 unique partners. Here’s how it works:

Unique Partner / Activity Bonus Miles Awarded
3 / 3,000
6 / 6,000
12 / 12,000
20 / 20,000
25 / 25,000

Make sure you sign up through the promotion first and then take part in 25 unique partner activities for 25K bonus skymiles. The hard part is finding the easiest and cheapest activities to join. Here’s a list (let me know if you find something simple and easy):

Unique Partner Activites: (got these ideas from Azurik of fatwallet, Volkswankin of SD, and iCorpRoaddie of Flyertalk)

1. Buy one iTunes song through SkymilesShopping
2. Transfered 1,000 AMEX Membership Rewards Points for 1,000 Delta SkyMiles
3. Opened a kodakgallery acct and got 20 free prints
4. Bought fast food using my credit card registered through RewardsNetwork
5. Transfered 1,500 Starwood Preferred Guest points for 1,500 Delta SkyMiles
6. Converted $25.00 to 500 Skymiles using eRewards
7. Free quote from Ameriprise online (no SS# required)
8. Made a purchase at 1-800-Flowers (BONUS: one also earns 25 miles per $1 spent, along with 1,000 bonus miles)
9. AMEX Delta Gold credit card purchase (any Delta-branded card will do)
10. Staples.com purchase (a roll of scotch tape) through SkyMall or Free DVD through Skymall (Search for item 102525820)
11. Points.com (point/mile swap for SkyMiles)
12. SkyMiles Dining by Rewards Network (one restaurant purchase)
13. Purchase minimum amount of SkyMiles through Delta
14. Another iTunes from Shop4miles
15. Join FastBreak @ Budget (seems to generate a unique activity + an “extra” bonus of 1000 miles)
16. Avis
17. Hertz
18. Omni Hotel
19. SkyMall
20. Miles Purchase
21. deltawebmall (http://skymilesshopping.com)
22. Netflix
23. e-reward redemption
24. shutterfly.com
25. Alamo
26. i-Dine
27. Aero Mexico flight

Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card

• Earn 15,000 bonus SkyMiles® after your first purchase with the Card
• Earn 2,500 bonus miles for adding an Additional Cardmember with their application
• Always Double Miles® on every eligible dollar you spend at supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations and more
• Earn one SkyMile for virtually every dollar you spend
• No annual fee for the first year, then $85: $30 if you are a qualified American Express Cardmember
• Express Approval. Get a decision in less than 60 seconds.

Apply Now!

Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from OPEN^SM the small business team

• Get 15,000 SkyMiles with first purchase
• Earn up to 30,000 Bonus Miles in your first year
• Save 5% on all Delta flights with your Card
• One Delta mile for virtually every dollar you spend
• No annual fee for the first year - a savings of $85
• Unlimited fee-free Additional Cards
• Save 3-25% on business purchases at companies like FedEx®, Hertz®, and more.

Apply Now!

My all time favorite travel rewards card is the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. Some people just want an easy 10000 bonus points to convert it to $100 in gift card for signing up. However, I think it’s best to use the points for 2 free domestic flight tickets. Before I got into the how-to details, here is a quick summary with their rewards program:

1. Convert a few miles so they won’t expire and top off to get to the reward ticket level
2. Get 1.25 miles per dollar spent which is 25% more than most other airlines cards.
3. Points can be converted to gift cards, hotel nights, and airline tickets.

Top Reasons Why Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express is the best Airline Travel Card:

1) Starwood points can be easily converted to frequent flier miles

• The Starwood points convert on a 1:1 (1 Starwood point = 1 frequent flier mile) basis on major domestic airlines include Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, Northwest and US Airways/America West.

2) Get that free flight ticket by topping it off or keep your miles from expiring

• Say you want to fly free and you have only 23K delta flier miles, and you need to 2K more to make a free flight. With Starwood points, you can transfer your already earned points to Delta frequent flier program and get your free ticket. Hence, you don’t need to earn the points by doing other spending methods.
• In order to keep your miles from expiring, simply convert a few hundred miles every now and then so your account would be active with other airlines. If not, you could lose your miles for being inactive.

3) Great hotel card reward card

Don’t like gift cards or airline ticket? How about hotel stay for as little as 2000 points per night. There is no blackout date and all taxes are covered. Choose from Hotels such as Sheraton, W hotels, Westin, and St. Regis.

4) Get 25% more miles extra

• Other airline credit cards such Delta and American give out great bonuses but all give you 1 mile per dollar spent. The Starwood does the same with 1 Starwood point for $1 spent. This changes whenever you convert 20000 points, you get an additional 5000 bonus points or 20000 Starwood points = 25000 miles on all airlines flier program. This resulted in an extra 25% more miles per dollar spent.

5) Free 10000 bonus points, another 15000 possible bonus points, and first year membership fee is waived

• If you sign up now, Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express is giving away 10000 Starwood bonus points after first purchase. Your membership fee is waived for the 1st year, and $45 annual fee after that.
• Another current promotion is an additional 15000 bonus points for spending $15K in the first 6 months on top of the 1 dollar per point spent.

Say CC Dude, what about that 40000 points = 2 domestic flights you were talking about? Lets do some math: You will get 10000 bonus points for signing up, get 15000 additional bonus points for spending $15K, and $15K spending money = another 15000 points for per dollar spent.

All together is 40000 Starwood points which can be converted to 50000 flier miles since they give out an extra 5000 points for every 20000 converted points. For every 25000 miles, you will get a free domestic flight ticket in the Continental U.S.

Say what?!! $15K in spending? You are crazy man! Here are a few ways you can get to that $15K in spending in six months.

• Open a new Bank of America account every month and fund your account with up to $1000 from a credit card. Opening and closing BOA account doesn’t hurt your credit score as long as you keep one account open. There is no fee to close and try to sign up to those BOA bonuses. Hmmm…so 6 months = 6 accounts = $6K. **You might try your luck with funding a Citibank account with a credit card too.**
• Make sure you pay everything in your personal daily life with your Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. By doing so, you would roughly spend around $1K a month for 6 months = $6K.
• Buying gift cards you know you will use. E.G. Walmart gift cards, popular store gift cards for the holidays shopping, Home depot or Lowe’s, etc etc
• Look for high cost items such as laptops and resell it on Ebay to make a profit or at least break even and ask family members to let you pay and give you cash in return.

Another easy way to get an extra 10000 bonus points is to apply for the Starwood Preferred Guest Business Credit Card from American Express. By applying for both, you will get 20000 bonus points which is enough to convert to 25000 flier miles for a free ticket. Here’s more information on applying for a business credit card. Now if you want a plethora of free airline tickets, check out this list of best airline miles bonuses.

Delta.com is currently running a promotion whereas you can earn a 15% mileage bonus for transferring Membership Rewards points to your SkyMiles account between October 15, 2007 and November 30, 2007. You can see in more details with full terms & conditions.

Get your mileage bonus in two easy steps:

1. Register for this limited-time offer.
2. Transfer Membership Rewards points to your SkyMiles account.

Those with a frequent flier account from Delta Skymiles, United Mileage, etc, you can sign up to Google Checkout and double your frequent flier miles. The offer is for purchases until Dec. 31st.

Here’s the fine print:

Earn up to 10,000 frequent flyer miles when you shop with Google Checkout this holiday season.*

Once you register, you’ll start earning 2 frequent flyer miles for each $1 you spend with Google Checkout through December 31, 2007.

You can earn up to 10,000 frequent flyer miles through this promotion.

We’ll credit your mileage account and send you a summary of miles earned by January 31, 2008.

Mileage promotion open to US residents only.

Make sure you register your credit card to Google checkout for this special promo. I recommend the Gold Delta SkyMiles (15K points bonus) for those without a frequent flier account.