Showdown: Which Points are Best for this Delta Flight?

One concept that separates beginners from those more experienced in the miles and points game is understanding the value of different points currencies and how those can be leveraged for partner awards. A partner award is using the points of one airline to fly another – one of their partners within an airline alliance or a separate partnership. This can feel counterintuitive at first and may even appear complex or difficult but with the power of transferrable points it is actually very easy and can save you a significant number of points when booking award travel.

To show how this works, let’s look at a very simple, easy, and perhaps boring example just to illustrate how much value can be unlocked with this approach. I need to get home (STL) from Detroit (DTW) on a random Wednesday, June 4th. The two airlines that fly nonstop on this route are Southwest and Delta. We are going to focus on Delta because there are many different ways to book award flights using transferrable points through Skyteam partner airlines.

In this specific example I’ll compare 3 different options which could all be transferred from Amex Membership Rewards points: Delta, Virgin Atlantic, and Flying Blue (KLM/Air France). Note that Virgin Atlantic and Flying Blue points are also transfer partners from many different bank points currencies such as Chase, Capital One, and Citi.

For the week I selected, the nonstop Delta flights are consistently $180 for the one-way flight. How much value can we get out of our transferrable points?

Delta

The obvious choice for an award on a Delta flight would be to redeem Delta Skymiles. Searching the same date and changing the search to Show Price in Miles you can see the flights are available for 15,500 miles and $5.60 in taxes. That works out to 1.1 cents per point value which is actually not horrible, but we can do better!!

Virgin Atlantic

Next, let’s check Virgin Atlantic. Searching for the same flight you can see it is available for less than half as many points, 7,500 and the same $5.60 in taxes. That value comes in at a much stronger 2.3 cents per point!

Flying Blue (KLM/Air France)

Finally, how does Flying Blue compare? Looking at the same flight on Air France’s site you can see that it is available for even fewer miles (6,500) but with higher taxes of $17.35. That value is the highest at 2.5 cents per point.

Which would I pick?

The obvious choice here is “not Delta”. Choosing Flying Blue and paying a bit more in taxes would effectively be buying the 1000 points (more than Virgin Atlantic, 6500 to 7500) for ~1.2 cents per point. While that is compelling given the value over the cash price I would probably consider other factors like cancellation policy, ability to choose seat assignments, current point balances in those programs, and any available transfer bonuses in making my decision (note – Chase currently has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic). I’ve personally used Virgin points for this exact route multiple times in the past so I would probably go that route and minimize my out-of-pocket cost.

The key takeaway though is that either option is more than double the value of Delta when transferring the same Amex point, and any time you can get well over 2 cents per point value for a redemption you are doing well!

TL;DR: Understanding the value of different points currencies and leveraging partner awards can help you book flights for fewer points. Comparing three options for booking a Delta flight using Amex Membership Rewards points transferred to Delta, Virgin Atlantic, or Flying Blue (KLM/Air France) highlights the importance of exploring partner awards for better value. While Delta requires 15,500 miles, Virgin Atlantic only needs 7,500 miles, and Flying Blue requires just 6,500 miles but with higher taxes.