Delta Amex or Blue Sky Amex card

[Floridaski]

We have Delta Amex cards and I am unhappy with the program. We can never get the flights we want without using 50,000 miles. This is fine if it is a 600 dollar plus ticket. But, I used to be able to get FF tickets to place like Eagle (Vail) during Spring Break right at 330 days. Granted I had to call right at midnight - but I as able to get the seats for 25,000 miles. It is almost impossible now!

Anyway I called Amex to cancel the card, the offered the Blue Sky card. It has no fee and the agent claimed I could transfer the miles. One mile for each dollar to any of the normal Amex partners. Has anybody had any experience with this card?

Thanks for the help...

 

[pointsjunkie]

he said you could transfer your skymiles to membership rewards? never heard that. once the FF get into an account they (especially delta) don't leave except tp get a ticket.


call again and speak to a supervisor. then call the delta amex representative and ask again.

 

[Carolinian]

Yeah, DL and US are on the cutting edge of the race to the bottom in ff programs. When my Delta Amex comes up for renewal next month, I have told them not to renew it. Jeff Robertson has proved worse at SkyMiles than even the dreaded Rob Borden was.

I had not heard about this new card, and plan to check into it. Perhaps they are being hit with a tidal wave of people bailing out of DL SkyPiles.

NW has been a great improvement since I left DL during the Rob Borden era at SkyMiles and all of the devaluations (reversed by customer pressure, see www.saveskymiles.com ) then, but now it looks like DL will be hijacking the NW program, sadly. My new program is probably CO, and if this new Amex card can apply miles there, it sounds like it will be worth having.

 

[Floridaski]

Delta has to stay in Delta - Blue Sky more flexible?

Ok, perhaps my first post was not clear enough - sorry about that.

The Delta card miles must stay in Delta - this is where we are unhappy as the Delta 25,000 mile tickets just do not happen anymore in my experience. The 50,000 miles tickets are fine if we are flying from Florida to Vancouver. But to fly from Florida to Colorado - not a good deal at all! We will find a way to us the miles already in the Delta FF accounts.

I called AMEX to cancel the Delta Amex card, we had decided to start using our Southwest Visa. AMEX offered up a "Blue Sky" card which is an Amex card with no annual fee and the AMEX rep said accumulated one mile for each dollar and could be then be transfered into any number of FF programs.

So, if I found a ticket on United - transfer miles, Southwest - transfer miles. It appears to offer us the flexibility of choice of airlines with NO ANNUAL fee.

I wanted to know if anyone has had any experience with the Blue Sky Amex card, I like the flexibility of different airline choices. I love the no annual fee and AMEX is willing to refund the Delta Amex annual fee that has already posted.

We had been happy with the Delta card up until this past year. I have always been able to use their coupon for a free companion ticket. But this year I still have 2 coupons sitting unused on my desk. They NEVER had any fares published in the classes needed for the free tickets. We had used the free companion ticket offer for 5 years with no issues. Not this year, the Delta Amex is just not working for us anymore.

Perhaps the Blue Sky Amex will?

 

[RuralEngineer]

Blue vs Blue Sky

I have had BLUE for a number of years. It rewards high dollar users so you will want to make it your primary card. I have not used the card for any balance transfers.

See: http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2007/05/american_expres.html

You can estimate your rewards using this tool:

https://www124.americanexpress.com/....maximize.new&intlink=bluecashcalc_ReSuPoffer

Stephen

 

[Carolinian]

The cash back provision of this card may be good, but I don't like the miles set up. Instead of being able to transfer airline program miles, you spend Amex programs miles for a ticket, a system I hate. CapOne has that and I did not even bother to add it to my CapOne card. I like being able to put miles directly into an airline ff program.