Earn Up To 10,000 Miles Back on SkyMiles Redemptions (Targeted)

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

Delta has launched a promotion for targeted SkyMiles members to get up to 10,000 miles back on award redemptions this spring and summer. The promotion page spells it out, but here are the details.

Get a ten percent mileage bonus for Main Cabin Award Ticket redemptions of 50,000 miles or more when you fly from April 8 to August 31, 2015 - a thank you from us to you.

• First, register here with your SkyMiles number
• Then, redeem at least 50,000 miles for an Award Ticket in our Main Cabin for round-trip travel between April 8 and August 31, 2015
• Earn back up to 10,000 miles per ticket on up to two Award Tickets
• Allow four to six weeks after your travel is complete for your miles to be credited to your account
• (Our own added bullet point from the T&C) Eligible members will receive a bonus mileage award of 10% of the miles redeemed, up to a maximum of 10,000 miles per ticket, on no more than two qualifying tickets.
• (Our own added bullet point from the T&C) Only flights operated by Delta or Delta Connection® carriers are eligible and itineraries may not include segments flown by other airlines.

So the key things to note are that your travel must be:

1. Roundtrip
2. Require at least 50,000 miles
3. In the Main Cabin
4. On Delta-operated flights and no itineraries with other partners
4. Travel completed April 8-August 31

That is quite a few conditions that severely limit the applicability and usefulness of the mileage refund if you are targeted, but it might still be worth looking into if you were planning to redeem your miles for eligible travel anyway. On the plus side, you can earn up to 10,000 miles back per ticket for up to two award tickets, so if you're traveling with another person or have more than one trip planned, that's a handy way to save some extra miles.

Delta pulled its award charts from its site in February, but if you're wondering if you can get the refund on your travel plans, check out this post, which has an old Delta chart on it with the mileage requirements from the continental US and Canada. Because this refund only applies to redemptions over 50,000 miles and for Main Cabin seats, this limits the options. Basically, the only places where it will apply to the lowest Level 1 Saver awards are:

• Europe (60,000)
• Southern South America (60,000)
• Africa (80,000)
• South Africa (100,000)
• Middle East (80,000)
• South Asian Subcontinent (80,000)
• North Asia (70,000)
• Southeast Asia (80,000)
• Southwest Pacific (100,000)

The silver lining if you have to book a higher-level award is that at least you might be within the refund window of minimum mileage.

While this promo is slightly interesting, I'd love to see Delta expand it to one-way and business class redemptions. Not only that, but depending on the popularity of this, it would be interesting if Delta took it into consideration to make this a permanent benefit of its co-branded cards with American Express like the Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express, the Platinum Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express and the Delta Reserve Credit Card from American Express.

Citi and American have done so with their personal co-branded cards like the Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard (find out more about that benefit here), and it is just a flat 10% refund on any mileage redemption - any cabin, any mileage amount, any partner airline - making it a big selling point for that card.The information for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

All in all, I'm not too impressed by this promo given the preponderance of conditions that have been placed upon it, but if you had plans to fly an economy award on Delta anyway, might as well save some miles if you're targeted. I personally tried to register and wasn't eligible, but it never hurts to try.