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★★★★★
Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.
40,000
Miles as welcome offer
Up to 2x
Miles
$0
Annual fee
intro for the first year ($99 thereafter)
19.99% to 28.99%
Purchase APR (variable)
Annual fee | $0 intro annual fee for the first year ($99 thereafter) |
---|---|
Welcome offer | 40,000 bonus miles after you spend $2,000 in your first 6 months |
Rewards | 2x miles on Delta purchases at U.S. supermarkets and at restaurants worldwide, including takeout and delivery in the U.S., 1x miles on all other eligible purchases |
Purchase APR | 19.99% to 28.99% variable |
Balance transfer APR | N/A |
Minimum credit score | 670 |
Issuer | American Express |
cta text | Learn more |
Review by
Steven Dashiell is a senior personal finance writer at Finder, specializing in all things banking and credit cards. With more than 300 articles under his belt, he aims to help readers embrace credit cards and maximize their banking rewards. Steve is studying to become a Certified Educator in Personal Finance, and is a frequent face on Finder’s YouTube channel, offering the latest in credit card hacks and advice. His expertise has been featured in U.S. News & World Report, Time, CBS, Fox Business, Lifehacker, Martha Stewart Living, among other top publications.
The Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card is a mid-tier Delta card with a $0 intro annual fee, reverting to $99 the following year. It offers 2x miles on Delta purchases, purchases made at restaurants and U.S. supermarkets, and 1x miles on everything else. The card also comes with a strong welcome offer of 40,000 bonus miles after you spend $2,000 on purchases in your first 6 months. Depending on what you redeem your miles for, this can be worth $560 on average based on Finder’s current valuations.
The Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card sits in an awkward position among the Delta cards: For the price of the card, it’s remarkably similar to the “entry” Delta card, the Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card, which also offers 2x miles on eligible purchases and requires no annual fee (see Terms apply, see rates & fees). On the other end of the spectrum, the card is rendered nearly irrelevant by Delta’s mid-level card, the Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card. The Delta Platinum card costs $250 annually (see Terms apply, see rates & fees), but more than pays for itself so long as you use a few of its features — the annual companion pass you get from the Delta Platinum Card is by itself worth far more than $250.
It’s best to think of the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card as the actual entry-level Delta card and disregard the Delta SkyMiles Blue card entirely. While the Delta Gold card carries an annual fee of $99 after the first year intro, it also comes with a few travel perks absent on the Delta SkyMiles Blue card. Notably, your first checked bag fee is waived on each flight. As of April 2021, your first checked bag on a Delta flight costs $30. So if you use this perk four times in a year, you’ll save enough to cover the cost of the card’s annual fee.
At the end of the day, the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card is a perfectly solid entry-point for earning and redeeming Delta SkyMiles. But if you fly enough to make up for the cost of the Delta Gold, you may as well spring for the Delta Platinum. It offers better rewards, more perks and it’s easy to make up for the cost of the card despite the larger annual fee.
Applying for the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card is straightforward:
To qualify for the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card, you’ll need a good to an excellent credit score of 670 or higher.
You can check whether you’re preapproved for the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card by doing the following:
You can’t specifically choose to check your preapproval odds for the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card. Instead, Amex will check your information against the whole suite of available cards. Afterward, you’ll be sent to a new webpage with your eligible preapproval cards.
Here’s a look at the Delta Gold vs. two similar cards to help visualize the major differences between these mid-tier travel cards.
Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card |
United℠ Explorer Card |
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card |
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★★★★★ |
★★★★★ |
★★★★★ |
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Minimum credit score 670 |
Minimum credit score 670 |
Minimum credit score 670 |
Annual fee $99 after the first year intro |
Annual fee $95 after the first year intro |
Annual fee $95 |
Purchase APR Up to 28.99% variable |
Purchase APR Up to 27.74% variable |
Purchase APR Up to 27.24% variable |
Balance transfer APR N/A |
Balance transfer APR 20.74% to 27.74% variable |
Balance transfer APR 20.24% to 27.24% variable |
Rewards Up to 2x miles |
Rewards Up to 2x miles |
Rewards Up to 5x points |
Welcome offer 40,000 bonus miles after you spend $2,000 in your first 6 months |
Welcome offer 50,000 miles after you spend $3,000 in the first 3 months |
Welcome offer 60,000 points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months |
Compare even more credit cards
Users on social media, such as Reddit, generally enjoy this card thanks to the number of travel perks offered for the price. A recurring theme among customers is how easy it is to make up for the card’s annual fee. Flying only twice a year with a companion is enough to wipe out the fee, so long as the both of you check a single bag each flight.The biggest complaints with this card came down to the Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card’s overall superiority. For only $150 more per year, you get better rewards and a companion ticket each calendar year. We agree with this assessment.
American Express has been accredited with the Better Business Bureau since 1948 and earns an A+ rating as of August 2021. It’s average customer review on the site is 1.18 out of 5, with customers citing account and product issues for several of these filed complaints.
The provider earns just a 1.9 out of 5 on Trustpilot as of August 2021. Poor customer service is a common complaint among the logged customer comments. Adrian Tomkins, Senior Product Manager at Finder, echoes these sentiments after a poor experience while using his Delta Gold card: “Last year, I was traveling quite a lot both domestically and internationally and thanks to the card, I almost made status with Delta. Unfortunately, due to personal reasons, I had to cancel a flight in December. Not only did Delta not refund me any of the money for the flight, but they refused to grant me the miles just because I didn’t physically get on the plane — even though I still paid the full fare.”
The Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card is a perfectly solid card that offers travel perks you’d expect for the price. With that said, it’s handily outclassed by the mid-tier Delta SkyMiles Platinum card, which will largely prove the more valuable pick for most Delta travelers.
If neither of these cards suits your needs however, there are plenty of airline card options out there in the same range.
To determine the average value of a Delta Skymile, we looked at the equivalent dollar value a redemption option would cost in the Delta Skymiles program. We calculated this average across all redemption options available through Delta to reach the approximate value you can expect when redeeming these points on average. In this case, the average value of a single Skymile came out to 1.4 cents per point.
Remember that your points could be worth more or less depending on what you redeem them on, so this figure should be used as a general guide.
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Our team evaluates credit cards to determine their value against similar cards on the market.
We rank card types — travel, cash back, business — on a set of factors that are most relevant to that type of card. We create these rankings to help you narrow down a credit card that best suits your spending and budget.