Wondering how to book Delta One with points? Well, you’re in luck because I just booked a long-haul Delta One flight from the US to Japan with only 89,000 points. All I had to pay was $33 in taxes and fees. Today, I’m showing you how you can do it too.
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Earn Delta Air Lines Miles
First, unless you already have a stockpile of Delta Skymiles (in that case, kudos to you), you’ll need to earn enough points and miles to book Delta One with points. There are a couple of ways to do this, but one way is much more efficient that the rest. While you can earn Delta Skymiles by spending on a Delta Skymiles co-branded credit card or making purchases with Delta Air Lines partners, such as Starbucks, this will take a lot of time and a lot of spend to earn enough Delta Skymiles for a Delta One flight. Thankfully, there is a much faster, cheaper option.
The fastest way to earn enough Delta Skymiles for a Delta One flight is to earn the welcome offer on a new travel credit card that earns flexible point and miles, and either transfers directly to Delta Air Lines or to a Delta airline alliance partner, such as Air France or Virgin Atlantic.
Additionally, it’s best to choose a card that has a high and/or elevated welcome offer (70,000 points or more). This is how you’ll earn enough points and miles for a business class flight without spending an absurd amount of money on the card. Welcome offers are bonus-point incentives that credit card companies offer to new cardholders. For example, a credit card may offer 75,000 bonus points for new cardholders who spend $4000 in the first three months of opening the card.
How To Earn Delta Skymiles With AMEX
To book a Delta One flight specifically with points, I would suggest earning the welcome offer on a new American Express or Capital One card. AMEX transfers directly to Delta Air Lines, so AMEX is the simplest way to book a Delta One flight with points. There is no airline alliance strategy involved with this option. Although, you will have to pay a convenience fee to AMEX to transfer your points out to Delta, and AMEX’s credit card annual fees tend to be much higher.
For AMEX, I would recommend opening the AMEX Gold or even the AMEX Platinum if you can swing the annual fee. Better yet, if you own a business and have a lot of monthly spend to put on the card (without spending more than you have in cash, of course), the AMEX business cards could earn you an even higher opening bonus (more free flights). Plus, business cards don’t count toward the Chase 5/24 rule.
How To Earn Delta Skymiles with Capital One
Alternatively, you can transfer Capital One miles to Flying Blue (Air France and KLM’s loyalty program) and Virgin Atlantic to book partnering Delta One award flights. This sounds more confusing than it is, I promise. Basically, instead of transferring your flexible credit card points directly to Delta, you would transfer them to one of Delta’s airline alliance partners, like Flying Blue or Virgin Atlantic. Then, you would book your desired Delta One flight through the partner airline’s website (Air France, KLM, Virgin, etc.). We’ll talk more about this later.
For Capital One, I would suggest opening the Capital One Venture (lower annual fee, earns miles that transfer to Delta partners) or the Capital One Venture X (higher annual fee but great benefits, also earns miles that transfer to Delta partners). Typically, I would recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred for points and miles beginners (see all my beginner recommendations here), but I like to save my Chase Ultimate Rewards points for Hyatt hotel stays, not for flights.
Sign Up For Delta One Availability Alerts
Once you earn the welcome offer, you’ll want to set up Delta One award availability email and/or text alerts for your desired destination and trip dates. My current favorite award availability alert systems are Thrifty Traveler Premium alerts (paid but emails step-by-step instructions to book — get $20 off your first year here) and Pointsyeah.com alerts (there is a free limited version).
Alternatively, if your destination and dates are flexible, you can find Delta One award availability on Pointsyeah.com’s Daydream Explorer flight ideas page by filtering out Delta as your airline and business/first class as your cabin. You’ll also want to filter out bank programs to include only the card points you have earned.
Double Check Award Availability
After you receive an award availability alert that you want to book, you need to make sure that the flight is still available on the airline or airline partner’s website. For instance, when I booked my Delta One business class flight to Japan, I booked the flight through Delta’s alliance partner, Air France. When I got my Thrifty Traveler Premium alert that there were Delta One seats available to book through Air France, I immediately double checked Air France’s website directly to ensure that there was still availability. There was availability, so I continued on to the next step in how to get business class flights for free.
You would mimic this same process if you were booking a Delta One flight with points from another alliance partner. Or, if you’re transferring points directly to Delta from AMEX (or using Delta Skymiles earned from flying Delta or spending on a Delta credit card), you can check award availability on Delta’s website directly.
Transfer Points To Delta Or An Airline Alliance Partner
If you’re redeeming Delta Skymiles without transferring from another bank (meaning, you earned Delta Skymiles by participating in the Delta Skymiles loyalty program and/or spending on a Delta Skymiles earning credit card), you will not need to transfer points anywhere and can skip this step entirely.
Otherwise, once you have confirmed that there is indeed business class award availability for your desired Delta One flight, transfer your flexible travel credit card points to Delta or the corresponding airline alliance partner.
To use my Japan Delta One flight example again, Capital One is transfer partners with Air France Flying Blue. So, I needed to transfer my Capital One miles to my Flying Blue loyalty account to book my Delta One flight. (Again, Delta Air Lines and Air France are alliance partners.) I transferred the exact amount of Capital One miles I needed (once you transfer them out of the flexible card account, you cannot un-transfer). To book this business class flight, I needed 89,000 Flying Blue miles. Therefore, I transferred exactly 89,000 Capital One miles to Air France Flying Blue.
Transferring points out to transfer partners can sound daunting, but I promise, it is not as hard as it sounds. All you have to do is create a loyalty account for the partnering airline (in this case, Delta Skymiles, Flying Blue or the like), locate the “transfer points” or “transfer to partners” tab in your card’s bank portal, and follow the prompts to transfer your points. From my experience, the point transfers are usually quick or even immediate.
Also, keep in mind that AMEX does charge a transfer convenience fee of $0.0006 per point transferred up to $99. So, budget for your Delta One flight on points accordingly if you’ll be redeeming AMEX Membership Rewards points for your Delta One flight.
Book Delta One With Points
Finally, when your points transfer is complete, you can officially book your Delta One flight with points! Book using your newly transferred points and miles. If the flight price is showing up in cash, make sure you toggle “shop with miles” on Delta’s website.
The base fare for the business class flight should be completely covered by points and, therefore, be free. Then, all you have to do is pay taxes and fees. This is exactly how I got a business class Delta One flight for free plus $33 in taxes and fees.
As you could imagine, many points and miles travelers are looking for business and first class award availability. This means that, for most business class award flights, booking is pretty competitive. You’ll want to book as soon as you can after you get a good alert. And by good alert, I mean Delta One award availability for 120,000 points one way or less for a long-haul flight. I personally would skip anything above that and fly economy, but to each their own!
Also note that usually award availability is booked one way. So, you may need to earn more than one signup bonus (i.e. welcome offer) for round-trip business class flights. Not always, but usually. This is easy to do as long as you follow the essential travel hacking rules because you can safely earn a new welcome offer every three-ish months.
More Ways To Get Free Business Class Flights
How To Get Free Business Class Flights Step By Step
Best Travel Credit Cards For Beginners
How To Get More Credit Card Points Without Spending More
How To Get Free Flights For Life (Travel Hacking For Beginners)
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