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Delta Amex Personal Cards – Eligibility Rules
You’ve probably see elsewhere that the Amex Delta line of consumer cards (not yet the small business cards) have new eligibility rules.
It used to be that you could get the bonus on each of the 7 Delta SkyMiles credit cards issued by American Express once per lifetime.
The new rules still allow that, but only if you go in order. For reasons that I don’t quite understand, if you decided the best first card for you – out of all 7 – was the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card, then you are now locked out of all three “lower tier” cards – the SkyMiles Blue, Gold, and Platinum cards.
Yet if you started with the Blue card, you could later get the Gold, then the Platinum, and then the Reserve, scoring all 4 Welcome Bonuses.
Here’s the language on each:
Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card
You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card the Delta SkyMiles® Options Credit Card, the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card, the Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card, the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card or previous versions of these Cards.
Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card
You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card the Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card, the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card or previous versions of these Cards.
Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card
You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card or previous versions of these Cards.
Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card
You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card or previous versions of this Card.
See how in each card, it gets progressively less? Luckily, I’ve only had business Amex Delta cards, so I could still start at Blue or Gold and work up.
That said, I seriously doubt I will given the changes to the Delta SkyMiles Program (and my opinion on the Delta SkyMiles status earning changes).
I guess they have determined that if you had a top end card and now want a lower one, you are only doing it for the Welcome Bonus? After all, you can still take a Reserve and downgrade it to any of the others – you just won’t get a Welcome Bonus.
Delta Amex Business Cards – Eligibility Rules
Note that, for now, these cards still allow you to get them in any order.
You may not be eligible to receive a welcome offer if you have or have had this Card or previous versions of this Card.
I suspect that won’t last.
So if you have a Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Credit Card and want a Welcome Bonus on a Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card or a Delta SkyMiles® Gold Business American Express Card, I would probably do that sooner than later.
HT: I believe the new rules were originally uncovered by Danny the Deal Guru.
Thoughts?
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