April 30, 2025: How much are Delta SkyMiles worth? Whether you’re looking at a Delta credit card welcome bonus or comparing earning SkyMiles against cash back, knowing the value of Delta SkyMiles can help you compare your options.
Delta SkyMiles Valuation
10,000 SkyMiles will get you an average of $115 worth of Delta travel without a SkyMiles credit card and $135 worth of Delta travel with a SkyMiles credit card that carries an annual fee.
When you use Delta SkyMiles to book award travel on Delta, you are likely to get value very similar to these numbers on most searches.
But you’re probably reading our article about the value of Delta SkyMiles because you want just a little bit more than the top-line numbers. So here are the details on the numbers when we last ran them.
The nerdy details and our interpretation
Diving into the statistics a bit can help us understand a little bit more behind the top-line numbers—and help us identify programs where we might be able to cherry-pick awards for more value. All of these numbers are stated in cents per point.
- Without the TakeOff 15 discount, the mean in our dataset is 0.0115 and the median is 0.0114. We compare these numbers to evaluate the quality of our dataset.
- With the TakeOff 15 discount, the mean in our dataset is 0.0135 and the median is 0.0134.
- The standard deviation in our dataset was 0.0005 without the TakeOff 15 discount and 0.0006 with the TakeOff 15 discount. This means that you are highly unlikely to get either exceptionally good or poor value for your SkyMiles.
Comparing the value of SkyMiles to cash back
Many other blogs will state that Delta SkyMiles are worth a set number of cents per point. But the problem with statements like this is that Delta SkyMiles cannot be exchanged for cash.
If someone offered you $400 cash or enough SkyMiles to buy $400 worth of Delta travel, you’d take the cash. The value of Delta SkyMiles is the number at which you would be ambivalent to accepting cash or SkyMiles.
We think that the best away to compare SkyMiles to cash is to apply a discount factor of 83%, based on the sale price of major airline gift cards in the secondary market. When applying this discount factor, here are the numbers you get:
- 10,000 SkyMiles are worth $95.45 when compared to cash if you don’t hold a SkyMiles credit card.
- 10,000 SkyMiles are worth $112.05 when compared to cash if you hold a SkyMiles credit card that qualifies you for the TakeOff 15 discount.
Consider the value of changeability
When you book a ticket with Delta SkyMiles, in many cases, you can cancel and get your miles redeposited to your account for no fee. This means that SkyMiles have additional value for people whose travel plans change.
When you cancel most (generally tickets other than Basic Economy) Delta tickets that you have booked with cash, you’ll receive a Delta eCredit good valid for 1 year from the date you originally purchased the ticket. Additionally, that eCredit will only be usable by the passenger originally named on the reservation.
In contrast, when you cancel any Delta award ticket that originates in the United States, your SkyMiles will be redeposited to your account. Keep in mind that your SkyMiles don’t expire and aren’t attached to the person on the original reservation.
If you book speculatively, especially if you book tickets for others, it can be greatly to your advantage to use SkyMiles, since the type of credit you get when you cancel is much more usable than what you’ll get if you book with cash.
Our methodology: Based on actual trips
We think that data collected from actual trips that we have taken or intend to take provides the best basis for any valuation.
Our analysis of the value of SkyMiles is based on data collected by those who contribute to this site. As we search for trips, we capture data on the price of various itineraries in terms of SkyMiles and the price of the same itineraries, were we to book them with cash.
But we don’t include every data point possible in our analysis. Here’s a bit more on the data we include and exclude:
- We only include trips that we intend to take. This ensures that we’re not inflating our value based on things like business class fare sales that require us to fly half way across the country. Most of our trips are within the U.S. in domestic coach.
- We only compare viable alternatives. Maybe we could get that $800 flight on Delta with a connection for a relatively cheap amount of miles, but if a $79 Southwest Airlines direct flight can get us there, that’s the flight we’re going to take. Since the Delta trip isn’t viable, we won’t consider it in our analysis.
- We collect data on how often we find a viable flight. On Delta, pretty much every itinerary is bookable with miles if it is bookable with cash, and the value you’ll get for your miles is relatively consistent. This point is more relevant for other programs where you might not be able to use points on many trips, but when you do, the value is incredible.
Using trips that we intend to take ensures that our dataset is based on our actual use of the SkyMiles program, rather than some theoretical travel patterns. And it prevents us from selecting trips that inflate our valuation.
Bottom line: Consistent value, easy to redeem.
With Delta SkyMiles, you can redeem for most any Delta flight and you are likely to get consistent value when you redeem them. Some may see this as an advantage—you generally don’t have to worry about whether a SkyMiles award price is “fair.” But others may see the lack of variability as a downside, since you’re vanishingly unlikely to find sweet-spot awards that provide exceptional value with SkyMiles.
