The revamped Delta Amex cards hit the internet today and that comes with increased bonuses and increased fees. While the Delta Reserve card comes with an annual fee a full $100 more ($550 now), it comes with double the elite miles the old offer came with.
The New Delta Reserve Brings Elite Status Much Closer
Link: Delta Reserve Personal (this is a personal referral link – hit the link to see all referral offers and then click the button for the personal cards) | Delta Reserve Business
The business and personal cards come with identical mileage offers – earn 80,000 miles after meeting the spending threshold and another 20,000 elite qualifying miles. After the first year cardmember anniversary, you get another 20,000 bonus miles on both cards.
Getting Elite Status Easier with the New Delta Reserve Card Offers
Here’s the nice thing about these offers – if you were to get both, you would get a total of 40,000 elite miles for your first year. That puts you just 10,000 miles away from Delta Gold status or 35,000 miles away from Delta Platinum status.
To get the remainder, you can earn them with just spending – and you don’t even need to step on an airplane to earn the miles! Both Reserve cards retain the old status boost feature where you will earn 15,000 elite miles after spending $30,000 in a calendar year (and you can double it on both cards). If you were to use one card to put $30,000 on for this year, you would earn the 15,000 elite miles for a total of 55,000 elite miles (if you get both cards).
Hits the Medallion Qualifying Dollar Waiver Also!
The other nice part is that you get the Medallion Qualifying Dollar waiver when you spend over $25,000 on one of these cards in the year. If you don’t have that waiver, you will need to spend $6,000 on base airfare with Delta to complete the requirements for Gold elite status.
What Will All This Cost?
Both versions of the Delta Reserve come with a $550 annual fee. That means that if you go for both the Delta Reserve personal and the Delta Reserve business, you will have to pony up $1,100 in annual fees up front.
While that is a lot of money, if you are serious about earning elite status, this is definitely the easiest way to earn 40,000 elite miles!
Plus, you will need to put $30,000 on one of the cards to get the additional elite miles to hit Gold status. Unfortunately, the new offers have eliminated the award mile boost on that spending so you will just earn the 30,000 miles you get for that $30K in spending. This means you are giving up the better points/cash back you could earn on a different card for that $30k.
Finally, remember that you cannot get either card if you have ever it before (that particular card – if you had the personal, you can still get the business version).
