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Delta Air Lines is one of the oldest and biggest airlines in the world. As the oldest surviving U.S. airline, Delta serves a wide range of global destinations from nine hubs across the U.S., including its home at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport (ATL). The airline is a founding member of the SkyTeam alliance.
The Delta SkyMiles program is infamous for its devaluations. However, not everything is negative about the airline. For example, it has one of the more generous mileage expiration policies around. Here is everything you need to know about whether Delta miles expire.
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Do Delta Miles Expire?
Delta SkyMiles do not expire due to inactivity. However, Delta may close your account in some circumstances. In these cases, all your miles would be forfeited. Per the Delta Program rules:
“Under the SkyMiles Mileage Expiration policy, miles do not expire. Delta reserves the right to deactivate or close an account (and accordingly remove all miles in the account).”
Track your points and miles expiration for 620+ loyalty programs and get email alerts before your miles expire by signing up for a free AwardWallet account.
Related: Top Reasons to Fly Delta Air Lines
Why Can Delta Close Your Account?
According to the Delta rules page, your account can be terminated — and your miles forfeited — in any of the following cases:
- Fraudulent activity on your account.
- You request account closure.
- Death of the Delta SkyMiles member.
- Repeated failure to respond to communications from Delta.
- Creating more than one account under your name.
- You move to a country that prohibits membership in frequent flyer programs.
- You break the rules of the Delta SkyMiles program.
Delta also notes it can audit your account at any time and without notice to ensure you're following the SkyMiles rules.
Related: The Complete Guide To Delta SkyMiles.
Earning SkyMiles Through Delta Credit Cards
Although you can earn Delta SkyMiles in various ways, the easiest way to earn a pile of SkyMiles quickly is through welcome bonuses or everyday spending on a Delta credit card.
Delta offers four consumer credit cards and three small business cards that earn Delta SkyMiles. Fortunately, if you navigate the new Delta family card rules, you can earn bonus miles from a welcome offer on each one. Delta consumer cards include:
- Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card
- Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card
- Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card
- Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card
$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $150Rates & Fees
(Terms apply)
- 2X miles per dollar spent on purchases made directly with Delta
- 2X miles per dollar spent at U.S. supermarkets
- 2X miles per dollar at restaurants worldwide, plus takeout and delivery in the U.S.
- 1X miles on all other eligible purchases
$350Rates & Fees
(Terms apply)
- 3X miles per dollar spent on purchases made directly with Delta
- 3X miles per dollar at hotels
- 2X miles per dollar at U.S. supermarkets
- 2X Miles per dollar at restaurants worldwide, plus takeout and delivery in the U.S.
- 1 mile on every eligible dollar spent on purchases.
$650Rates & Fees
(Terms apply)
- 3X miles per dollar spent on purchases made directly with Delta
- 1X miles on every eligible dollar spent on purchases.
Small business owners can choose from the following three cards to earn SkyMiles for their business expenses.
- Delta SkyMiles® Gold Business American Express Card
- Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card
- Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card
$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $150Rates & Fees
(Terms apply)
- 2X miles per dollar spent on eligible purchases made directly with Delta
- 2X miles per dollar on eligible U.S. purchases for advertising in select media (annual cap of $50,000 in eligible purchases)
- 2X miles per dollar on eligible U.S. shipping purchases (annual cap of $50,000 in eligible purchases)
- 2X miles per dollar on eligible dining purchases
- 1X miles per dollar on all other eligible purchases
$350Rates & Fees
(Terms apply)
- 3X miles per dollar spent on eligible purchases made directly with Delta
- 3X miles per dollar spent on eligible purchases with hotels
- 1.5x miles on eligible purchases over $5,000 (up to 50,000 bonus miles annually)
- 1.5X miles on eligible transit and U.S. shipping purchases*
- 1X miles per dollar on all other eligible purchases.
$650Rates & Fees
- 3X miles per dollar spent on purchases made directly with Delta
- 1.5X miles per dollar on eligible transit, U.S. shipping, and U.S. office supply store purchases, plus all eligible purchases after spending $150K per calendar year
- 1 mile on every dollar spent on all other eligible purchases.
Related: How to Earn Welcome Offers on Multiple Delta Amex Cards
Other Ways To Earn Delta SkyMiles
Aside from credit card spending, you have many ways to earn Delta SkyMiles. Since Delta Miles don’t expire, you can focus on continuously growing your balance without ever setting foot on a Delta aircraft. You can earn Delta SkyMiles in any of the following ways.
- Fly with Delta or any of its SkyTeam partners.
- Stay at a variety of hotel brands, including Marriott Bonvoy and IHG, as well as Airbnb and reservations through the “hotels” tab on Delta's website.
- Rent a car with a wide range of partners, including National, Hertz, Dollar, Alamo, and more.
- Shop through the Delta shopping portal.
- Dine out with Delta’s dining rewards program.
- Book a Delta Vacation package.
- Earn miles on your energy or gas bill with select partners.
- Earn Delta miles on Starbucks purchases after linking your accounts.
- Earn SkyMiles on a Lyft ride.
Since Delta SkyMiles do not expire, you don't have to worry about which of these earning options are “qualifying.” You can focus on earning and getting the best value for your miles.
Related: Best Ways to Use Delta SkyMiles
Boosting Your Delta SkyMiles Balance
If you are a few SkyMiles short of a redemption and want to boost your mileage balance quickly, you have a couple of options. Delta is a transfer partner with just two of the six major flexible points currencies. You can use American Express Membership Rewards or transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to boost your SkyMiles balance quickly.
If you want to quickly boost your miles, transferring American Express Membership Rewards to Delta SkyMiles is the clear winner. Typically, transfers are immediate. We recommend finding your award first. Then, make your transfer and finalize your booking quickly. Transferring Marriott Bonvoy points typically takes one to two days, so it is not ideal if you want to secure an award quickly.
Alternatively, you can buy Delta miles, but we usually don't recommend it.
Use AwardWallet To Track Your Delta SkyMiles Balance
Even though Delta Miles do not expire, it still pays to keep an eye on your balances. Unfortunately, Delta is one of only a few airlines that block AwardWallet from tracking miles balances directly.
Fortunately, there is a workaround to tracking your Delta SkyMiles through AwardWallet. You can check out our comprehensive guide on how to use AwardWallet to track your Delta SkyMiles account balance.
Related: How to Track Your Rewards Using AwardWallet
Our Take
Despite the program's other shortcomings — such as the lack of a published Delta award chart, lounge access restrictions, and harder elite status requirements — Delta has one of the most generous points expiration policies: Delta SkyMiles do not expire.
Years ago, that made Delta stand out amongst its peers. However, many U.S. airlines (such as United, Southwest, and JetBlue) have now ditched mileage expiration. The big exception: American Airlines miles still expire.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card (Rates & Fees), Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card (Rates & Fees), Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card (Rates & Fees), Delta SkyMiles® Gold Business American Express Card (Rates & Fees), Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card (Rates & Fees), and Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card (Rates & Fees)
Actually that article saying Delta elite status is one of the hardest to achieve . . . is actually one of the EASIEST: looks like on the linked chart you can buy your way to Delta status just by holding 2 or more Delta credit cards (and paying their annual fees). At least as far as Gold by holding all the cards, or Silver by holding just 2 cards. Or am I missing something . . .
Fair point! I’m figuring Sam was referring to just how much Delta has increased MQD requirements over the past few years. But indeed, Delta has added credit cards shortcuts.
I was in the Delta Frequent Flyer (FF) program back in the 1980’s/1990’s. My travel method changed, In the early 2000’s my travel method changed again to where I was flying again with Delta. This time, I signed up for the FF program with a new FF number. I have located my previous FF number. Can I get the old FF points added to my current FF number?
I’m assuming that the miles on the old SkyMiles account are long gone. But, it can’t hurt to reach out to Delta SkyMiles and see if you can get any consideration for all of your previous flying.
Can I transfer all of my American Express air miles to my Delta air miles?
Dorothy – yes, you can. You have to transfer in blocks of 1,000 from Amex, so if you have 95,102 Amex MR points you can only transfer 95,000. But yes, you could send all of them to Delta if you want.
It’s great these miles do not ever expire. Do you know if others are planning to change their policy (cosidering COVID and other restrictions).
I’ve had SkyMiles since 2005 never expired that i have noticed however, I do not travel much anymore (I lived in a hotel for 10+ years not to fond of travel anymore) i would like to see a policy that would allow points to be shared with anyone including non profit donations, I believe than you would than have a real benefit delta.
It would be nice if airline programs made it easier to donate miles to charity. One option that you do have for Delta SkyMiles is to transfer miles to Miles4Migrants (https://miles4migrants.org/).
Definitely good to know … I do have miles just haven’t been able to use them yet… I value them as an alternative just in case I can’t find flights out of my main hub
Years ago, I loved flying Delta. But, because of the routing required now, I have to change planes at least one time getting from my starting point to my final destination. Therefore, I tend to fly American because the routes I travel are normally non-stop.
That said, I have always liked Delta Airlines and think it is one of the best airlines to fly; nationally or internationally!
From 2000 to 2006 I traveled a lot for work. My skymiles piled up quickly to the point that I was Gold Member status. I was told back then they would never expire, I changed jobs and didn’t fly for awhile. Somewhere around 2011, I wanted to use my Skymiles to travel and was told they expired,, lost them all. Now they are saying they won’t expire again. If they want to prove that, GIVE ME MY MILES BACK.
So in short, miles don’t expire even if you don’t have their credit card?
Correct. Delta SkyMiles do not expire.
Somehow it feels that this constant downgrade of program quality will result in cancelling the miles will result in cancelling non-expiring miles.
have it since years but not enough miles on it to do somithing with it – allways fly AA or LH…
The non-expiry is the only reason I have a Skymiles account. It’s very rare that I make a Skyteam flight that is not creditable to AS, so DL is the only program where I’m (eventually) likely to get anything from such flights.
One of the few things I like about Delta! 🙂
Flying Delta in the next couple weeks (only non-stop from MSY to ORD). Since I use them only occasionally, I’m glad these miles don’t expire 🙂
I’m glad they don’t expire. However, I wish there are other ways to get them.
SkyMiles are one of the easiest currencies to accumulate — what other mechanisms out there would you be looking to use to pick more of them up?
A long time ago, in the early 1980’s, when frequent flier programs were fledglings, people joined and began their loyalties to the legacy carriers. Their kids grew up eventually and joined and the ranks of passengers wanting to accrue and redeem their miles increased. Now, those kids’ kids have grown up and instead of one generation participating, we have three. And they all want to fly on miles to Hawaii. Together. With a finite number of airline seats in the sky the competition for those seats is fierce. Given the difficulties in finding attractive itineraries to redeem for, sometimes it requires a long research time to secure FF seats. Having miles never expire is practically a sacrament.
One would almost certainly see their existing miles lose value over time given Delta’s regular devaluations, so I think a sensible recommendation is to redeem SkyMiles as soon as possible.
They don’t expire but value drops every year it seems. Better to earn and burn.
Will there be an CC for Europe too?
Highly unlikely you’ll see a Delta co-branded credit card issued by any European bank.
Has anyone been terminated due to the specific circumstances mentioned?
I love this policy!
It is especially lucky that they don’t expire because DL won’t let Award Wallet keep track for us!
Craig, there is a work-around of sorts: https://awardwallet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2697&start=120&sid=54c26913804b9cce9c80199675428e6d#p5771
It’s nice that Delta miles never expire and I find the service onbord to be much better than on American and United.
I feel that Delta redemption rate is way to high. I have got two tix with AA for what DA wanted for one. Currently DA has better times & nonstop options from NYC so that increases value to me
As much flake as they get, I love this about Delta!
DL miles don’t expire but DL raises the mile requirements for award tickets literally every year, so at the end whether the miles expire or not doesn’t really matter because if you don’t earn and burn quickly, you will never be able to use DL miles even though they don’t expire.
This is one of the few things that sets Deltas ff program apart from others. Other airlines probably save millions of miles by having them expire each year.
I use to be a big fan of AA. However I am now totally frustrated trying to book an AA saver award. I have now successfully booked two Delta saver awards this year, one to Europe for 60,000 Skymiles, and one domestic award for 25,000 Skymiles.
I didn’t even realize this. I only fly Delta occasionally so this is good to know!! Thanks
The simple answer is “No, they don’t expire.”
I think that’s what we said.
I remember that Delta Skymiles used to expire but Northwest worldperks points did not. It seems they may have adopted the Northwest policy on non-expiration of points after the merger. I agree that it is very generous that their miles don’t expire and I hope they don’t change it.
It’s great these miles do not ever expire. Like others though I fear it won’t be long before policy is changed.
Delta tends to change their policy once a while so we will see…
Yeah, that’s the problem. You can never quite stop monitoring and let balances sit there..
i found it easier to book FF miles with Delta for the lowest amount of points compared to AA and United. To get the best times its better to book one way flights than round trip.
IMHO it’s is the best approach to customers. In the past IHG was proud to announce that their points are never expire and changed this rule one day. Let’s hope it remains.
Not having to worry about having your Skymiles expire is a great feature. This is especially a good deal for those who may only fly once or twice a year.
For a period in the past Delta miles did expire but someone came to their senses and switched back to non-expiring miles.
Great that SkyMiles don’t expire. But I suspect that, like all things Delta, this policy likely won’t last very long.
Very good point.
They don’t expire at all and this is such a rarity in the aviation loyalty world that can be considered a real perk!
It would be a real perk if it was any other program but Delta… 😉
JetBlue also has a program which their miles don’t carry an expiration date.