Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card review: One step away from premium travel

The Delta SkyMiles Blue card is a passable rewards card for the Delta loyalist who avoids annual fees, flies with Delta often throughout the year and doesn’t need to lean on interest-free periods. 

Rewards: Earn points for everyday purchases and airfare

The American Express Delta SkyMiles Blue Card has a straightforward rewards program. You earn 2X Delta SkyMiles at restaurants worldwide (including U.S. takeout and delivery) and on eligible Delta purchases, and 1X mile on other eligible purchases. This rewards rate compares well to other entry-level travel and rewards cards because it’s slightly boosted in a common purchase category: restaurants. As far as no-annual-fee cards go this is a win, but Amex sweetens the pot by adding Delta purchases at the same earning rate.

Higher-tier Delta cards carry much more value by adding categories and even higher boosted rates, but those cards also charge annual fees. If you’re a Delta customer looking for decent value from your travel card at the lowest cost possible, the SkyMiles Blue is a good choice.

It might be worth looking at the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card if you want to boost both your first-year and ongoing rewards value. For a $150 annual fee ($0 annual fee for the first year) the SkyMiles Gold card adds a boosted rewards rate for U.S. supermarket purchases. Your first two years with the SkyMiles Gold card will cost $150, which you can offset by spending $7,500 in its 2X categories ($3,750 per year). This is by no means an aggressive spending rate and it might be how much you’ll end up spending with the SkyMiles Blue card anyway. That said, you won’t have to worry about offsetting any annual fee if your card costs nothing to hold, like the SkyMiles Blue.

Perks: Plenty of extras for travel and purchase convenience

For a travel credit card that doesn’t charge an annual fee, the benefits are decent and can provide value for many card owners. Here are a few:

• Discount on in-flight purchases: The Delta SkyMiles Blue credit card provides a 20 percent discount on in-flight purchases. Such purchases include food and beverages.
• Flexible payment options: The Pay It® Plan It® tool can help cardholders pay for large purchases using alternate payment plans. Cardholders can split large payments into as many as 10 payments with a fixed monthly fee over a period of time. Your plans won’t charge interest, but you should calculate whether the fixed payment fee will cost more than the potential interest.
• Travel perks: You can benefit from travel perks like insurance for car rental loss or damage and travel accidents. You can also access the 24/7 Global Assist Hotline if you travel more than 100 miles from home. Subject to additional terms, conditions and exclusions. For full Terms and Conditions, see americanexpress.com/CRLDIterms.
• American Express Experiences: Even without an annual fee, you can still be a VIP. Amex cardholders get exclusive access to ticket pre-sales and Card Member-only events, including top concerts, sporting events, Broadway shows and much more.

Although it doesn’t carry nearly as many perks as premium travel cards, it also doesn’t charge an annual fee. If you want convenient value from a no-annual-fee travel card and fly frequently with Delta Airlines, this is a great option.

As mentioned earlier, the SkyMiles Blue is the entry-level Delta card. Costs get higher as you climb the Delta SkyMiles ranks, but so do the rewards and perks. If you step up to the SkyMiles Gold card you’ll have the chance to receive a $200 Delta Flight Credit: After you spend $10,000 in purchases in a year, you can receive a $200 Delta Flight Credit to use toward future travel. This perk alone will offset that card’s $150 annual fee.

Like most entry-level branded cards, the Delta SkyMiles Blue has little to offer general cardholders, and brand loyalists will probably be better off with a more aggressive branded card. Although you won’t pay an annual fee with the SkyMiles Blue card, you’ll have to settle for a low welcome offer and won’t benefit from an intro APR period.

Welcome offer: Low ceiling for your first year’s earnings

You’ll need to spend  $1,000 on purchases in your first six months to earn a 10,000-mile bonus on the Delta SkyMiles Blue card. According to Bankrate’s latest points and miles valuations, the value of this bonus comes out to roughly $130. Many cardholders can hit this spending requirement without drastically changing their usual monthly spending, but this might leave a lot of extra value on the table when you compare it to other cards.

Welcome offers can bring a large sum of value to a new card, especially premium travel cards. The Delta SkyMiles Blue has strikingly low first-year value with its meager welcome offer valued at $130 — and that’s a generous valuation. Most no-annual-fee cash back cards have welcome offers worth up to $200, so it might even be worth applying for one of those and then offsetting travel costs with statement credits.

Unless you’re spending a substantial amount on Delta travel, you’ll find more value with general travel or cash back cards.

Delta value: Loyal customers should consider higher-tier cards

If you are spending a lot on Delta travel, then you’ll probably be better off with a higher-tier Delta card. To decide between the low-tier and high-tier branded card options, consider the spending requirements outlined by the issuer. These requirements present a solid baseline for cardholders to gauge card offerings and match them to their needs.

For instance, a $10,000 spending requirement to earn a $200 flight credit indicates that the closer to $10,000 you’re spending on a credit card annually, the more likely you are to benefit more from the SkyMiles Gold card than you are from the SkyMiles Blue card. When you also consider the SkyMiles Gold card has a $3,000 spending requirement on its 80,000-mile welcome offer in the first six-month of card membership, it starts to paint a better picture of the spending volume that matches each card. The SkyMiles Gold has a much higher ceiling on its first-year value because it offers many more miles on its welcome offer.

Fees: No intro APR

The Delta SkyMiles Blue credit card offers no annual fee with decent rewards potential. You’ll also benefit from no foreign transaction fees, which is standard for a good travel card. These are great callouts on this entry-level travel card, but it’s not without its drawbacks. The ongoing APR is 19.99%-28.99% Variable, which can be quite high and it doesn’t have any intro APR offers.

You’ll seldom find intro APR offers on no-annual-fee travel cards, but they’re not unheard of. The Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card offers an intro APR on purchases and balance transfers (See Rates & Fees). Offers like these can add a substantial amount of convenience to your first year with a new card because you’ll potentially be able to carry a balance worry-free for several months. 

If you have travel plans on the horizon but are worried about paying upfront for them, you can finance a trip with a credit card’s intro APR on new purchases interest-free for however long your card’s offer is. Since the Delta SkyMiles Blue card lacks this option, there are more enticing cards available. Regardless, if paying upfront isn’t an issue or you won’t use an intro APR offer then this shouldn’t be a factor in your decision.

If you’re an infrequent flyer or don’t exclusively fly Delta, the Delta SkyMiles Blue American Express credit card may not be for you. Although it has no annual fee, it  lacks key perks available on other top travel cards. But this card can be hard to beat if you’re a frequent flyer and a loyal fan of Delta flights. That said, there are other airline credit cards worth considering.

Since the Delta SkyMiles Blue card only earns rewards on restaurant and Delta purchases, the best card combinations will reward you for other travel expenses and your biggest spending categories while you’re home.

This factor makes almost any rewards credit card a solid partner. You can keep it simple and cover all your bases with a flat-rate cash back card or transfer points from another American Express card to Delta.

Delta customers will most likely make the most of this card, but only up to a certain point. Travel minimalists who aren’t necessarily brand-oriented but wouldn’t mind committing to Delta may find this a favorable choice, too.

The Delta SkyMiles Blue American Express credit card is worth considering if you’re loyal to Delta but don’t travel enough to take advantage of the perks on a more premium Delta SkyMiles card. Since the card skips the annual fee, you can comfortably keep this card long-term without too much strain on your wallet. However, if you regularly fly different airlines or want a travel card with more perks, credits and higher rewards rates, you may want to look at different options.

Eligibility and Benefit level varies by Card. Terms, Conditions and Limitations Apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for more details. Underwritten by Amex Assurance Company.

The information about the Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card has been collected independently by Bankrate.com. The card details have not been reviewed or approved by the card issuer.

We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.

Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). 

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review: