Delta SkyMiles Platinum American Express Card review 2023

Several paths to value for frequent travelers make this card a clear choice for our list of best airline credit cards. If you’re a frequent traveler on Delta Air Lines, or even an occasional traveler who travels with a companion at least once a year, getting the Delta SkyMiles Platinum card is a solid choice.

Here’s what you need to know about the Delta SkyMiles Platinum American Express card.

• Main Cabin companion certificate.
• Delta TakeOff 15 benefit provides a 15% discount on award tickets.
• Free checked bag benefit for you and up to eight companions.
• Status boost offers up to 20,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles toward airline status.
• Earn three miles per dollar spent on Delta purchases made directly with Delta and on purchases made directly with hotels.
• Earn two miles per dollar at restaurants and at U.S. supermarkets.
• Earn one mile per dollar spent on other eligible purchases.
• No foreign transaction fees.
• Terms apply.

The Delta SkyMiles Platinum American Express card offers plenty of value, but other airlines’ cards offer more generous lounge access and less-restrictive companion certificates at lower price points.

• Delta TakeOff 15 benefit gives a boost to the value of your SkyMiles—not just the miles you’ve earned with the card.
• Card earns three miles per dollar at hotels and on Delta purchases and two miles per dollar at U.S. supermarkets and at restaurants.
• Delta SkyMiles are easy to use and offer predictable value for travel within the United States.
• Free checked bag benefit applies to everyone in your reservation—up to 9 people in total.

• Companion certificate is fare-class restricted, meaning it can be difficult to use for expensive or close-in bookings.
• No complimentary lounge access passes included with the card.

American Express and Delta offer new Delta SkyMiles Platinum cardmembers 50,000 bonus miles after spending $3,000 in purchases on the card within the first six months.

Most American Express cards offer a welcome bonus only if you’ve never had the card before — meaning you might not be eligible for a welcome bonus if you’ve ever held a Delta SkyMiles Platinum card.

The Delta SkyMiles American Express card earns Delta SkyMiles, the frequent flyer currency of Delta Airlines. Reward maximizers will be pleased by the card’s bonus categories — the card not only offers rewards on every purchase, but also offers more bonus categories than any of the other Delta cobranded cards. Here’s what the Delta SkyMiles American Express card earns: 

• Three miles per dollar spent on Delta purchases made directly with Delta.
• Three miles per dollar on purchases made directly with hotels.
• Two miles per dollar at restaurants, including takeout and delivery services in the U.S.
• Two miles per dollar at U.S. supermarkets.
• One mile per dollar spent on other eligible purchases.
• Terms apply.

If you’re looking into a Delta credit card, you’re probably interested in traveling with Delta and its partners. While airline miles can often be redeemed for merchandise, gift cards, or experiences, if your travel rewards card earns airline miles, redeeming those miles for travel usually provides the most value.

You can use your miles to book airline travel on Delta.com. There, you’ll find flights on Delta and its partners.

Delta Air Lines is a member of the SkyTeam Airline Alliance, meaning that you have access to SkyTeam’s 19 member airlines, plus a handful of smaller non-alliance partner airlines.

To search for award travel on Delta.com, start your search with the “Shop with Miles” box checked. Optionally, you can select “My dates are flexible” to see a table showing you the lowest award travel prices across seven departure and return dates.

Once you’ve selected a date, you can browse flight options available on that date. If you’ve searched for a round trip, you’ll select your departure and return flights separately.

From this point forward, purchasing a ticket using your SkyMiles largely follows the same process as buying a ticket with cash. Simply select the flight that you want and continue booking your ticket. After selecting your flights, you’ll be asked to log into your SkyMiles account if you’re not already logged in, prior to paying for the taxes and fees on your ticket.

If you’re looking for a travel deal, take a look at Delta’s SkyMiles Deals. Delta frequently offers deals on U.S.-domestic coach award tickets and the airline occasionally releases international award tickets during unannounced flash sales. At publication, Delta was offering Main Cabin airfares up and down the west coast from San Francisco for under 17,000 miles, round trip.

If you’re looking to get into a more comfortable seat closer to the front of the plane, you can use your SkyMiles to upgrade eligible flights. You can use your miles to upgrade when you’re booking your flight or after your flight is booked through Delta.com. Upgrade prices vary—if an upgrade is available, the price will be displayed when you view your reservation online.

Delta offers more options for redeeming miles than most other airlines, but many of these options offer less value than booking award travel.

• Delta Vacations can be booked with miles.
• Use miles for premium drinks if you want to treat yourself to a premium alcoholic beverage while visiting a Delta SkyClub.
• Pay for fees using miles when you are charged a ticket change fee, same-day confirmed fee, or external ticketing charge.
• Redeem miles for Delta gift cards if you want to treat yourself or another person to travel on Delta with no expiration date.
• Miles for Magazines lets you subscribe to a selection of popular magazines using your miles.
• SkyMiles Marketplace offers a selection of merchandise available for purchase with miles.
• SkyMiles Experiences lets you bid on experiences, some of which are exclusive to SkyMiles.
• Transfer your miles to another SkyMiles member if they need miles to top off an award.
• Donate your miles with SkyWish to benefit Delta’s charity partners.

Terms apply to all benefits.

When you book your Delta or Delta Connection flight with your Delta SkyMiles Platinum American Express, you and up to eight companions traveling with you will receive your first checked bag for free.

Delta offers its SkyMiles Platinum Amex customers a companion certificate which can be used for round-trip Main Cabin travel within the 48 contiguous United States. When you use your companion certificate to book a second passenger on an itinerary, you’ll pay only taxes and fees of no more than $80 per round-trip ticket.

The companion certificate is restricted to certain discount economy airfares, meaning you might struggle to use it for an expensive last-minute flight. But if you’re booking travel well in advance of your trip, you should have no trouble using this benefit. 

You’ll receive your companion certificate upon renewal of your card — new cardmembers won’t receive a companion certificate in their first year.

When you hold any of the Delta SkyMiles cards that charge an annual fee and book an award ticket using your miles, you’ll automatically receive a 15% discount on the price in miles. The TakeOff 15 discount gets applied automatically when booking if you’re logged into your SkyMiles account and applies only to flights operated by Delta and Delta Connection.

If you’re chasing Delta Medallion frequent flyer status, the SkyMiles Platinum card’s status boost benefit can get you up to 20,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles each calendar year—almost enough to earn Silver Medallion status.

You’ll get 10,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles when you spend $25,000 on the card in a calendar year and a second status boost once you reach $50,000 of spending. You can get up to two status boosts during your cardmember year.

When you use your Delta SkyMiles American Express Platinum card to pay for your travel, you’ll enjoy these travel benefits.

• Delta Sky Club Access – Purchase access to the Delta Sky Club for $50 per person when traveling on a same-day Delta flight.
• Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit – Receive up to $100 back to cover the cost of Global Entry or TSA PreCheck, once every 4.5 years when you charge your membership to the card.
• 20% back on in-flight purchases – Use your card for eligible Delta in-flight purchases and receive 20% back as a statement credit.
• Trip delay insurance – When your round trip is paid for entirely with your card and your travel is delayed more than 12 hours, trip delay insurance can reimburse hotel, meals, and personal expenses, up to $300 per trip.
• Car rental loss and damage insurance – When you pay for your entire car rental with your card and decline the rental company’s collision damage waiver, your card can cover your eligible rental for damage and theft. Coverage is secondary to your personal auto insurance.
• Baggage insurance plan – When you charge your common carrier (bus, plane, ship, or train) ticket to your card, you get coverage of up to $1,250 for carry-on baggage and $500 for checked baggage.

• Extended warranty – When you purchase eligible items using your card, Amex will provide up to an additional year of warranty coverage on eligible purchases that have a warranty of five years or less.
• Purchase protection – When an item you purchase with the card gets stolen or is damaged, you can be reimbursed to repair or replace the item, up to $1,000 per claim.
• Cell phone protection – When you pay your eligible monthly cell phone bill with your card, you can get up to $800 to repair or replace your cell phone if it is damaged or stolen. A $50 deductible applies and this benefit has a limit of two claims per year.

If you can make use of the companion certificate every year, the card can pay for itself. After accounting for taxes and fees, using the companion certificate on a flight that costs $300 or more means you’re getting more than $250 in value — equivalent to the card’s annual fee — from this benefit alone.

For those chasing Delta Medallion status, the SkyMiles Platinum Amex card’s status boost benefit might mean gaining an additional tier of medallion status, unlocking higher upgrade priority and benefits like waived same-day confirmed fees, SkyPriority access, and SkyTeam lounge access when traveling internationally.

If you want a card that just pays for your checked bags on Delta Air Lines, you can opt for the lower-priced Delta SkyMiles Gold American Express card. The Gold card offers a free checked bag benefit at a much lower price point — a $0 introductory annual fee in the first year, then $99 a year.

The mid-tier Delta SkyMiles Platinum American Express card offers plenty of value for both frequent flyers and travelers who take a companion with them on Delta at least once a year. If this is you, you should be able to get more than enough value from the SkyMiles Platinum to justify the card’s $250 a year annual fee.

Editorial Disclosure: All articles are prepared by editorial staff and contributors. Opinions expressed therein are solely those of the editorial team and have not been reviewed or approved by any advertiser. The information, including rates and fees, presented in this article is accurate as of the date of the publish. Check the lender’s website for the most current information.

This article was originally published on SFGate.com and reviewed by Lauren Williamson, who serves as Financial and Home Services Editor for the Hearst E-Commerce team. Email her at [email protected].