This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2004 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Frequent Flyer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
November 9, 2004
Delta has decided on a soft launch (read: little to no fanfare) for its latest member benefit, Mileage Transfer. Frankly, why not shout it from the hilltops? It works, and it remains a heck of a good value for SkyMiles members who need ways to manage their miles.
While SkyMiles has in place a successful program that allows members to “buy up” miles into their account for award redemption and other purposes, this mileage transfer offers the twist that the miles you acquire do not have to come from Delta – they can come from another member.
Got family SkyMiles that need to be consolidated, or a friend begging you for help with an award? Now you can transfer miles among other SkyMiles members. Why I love this: Simply, it’s far less expensive than actually buying miles from Delta. Let’s say you needed 8,000 miles. The old-fashioned way of buying miles would cost you $261.50 by the time you buy them, pay the federal excise tax and the $25 processing fee. Acquiring these same miles from another member or family member would only cost you $105. Now you see why I like this? There are a few rules involved, but nothing that can’t be worked around.
The good news for those of you who seek to pull this off right now is that the program is based on a calendar year. The limit is 10,000 miles into any one account in a calendar year. By taking full advantage of this by year’s end, you can then pump another 10,000 miles into another account in the early days of January, effectively working the calendar in your favor if you need to act fast. Use of this program should help when needing miles for upgrades or for friends, since you can add to their account without being bound by being the “travel agent” for award redemption. Use this to consolidate some of your children’s accounts. Use this at all times rather than purchasing miles (sorry, Delta!). Likely it will spawn a new series of posts on the popular flyertalk.com bulletin board for those members needing and wanting to “trade” miles.
That’s the news; now make it work for you.
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