Book Delta Flights with Chase, Amex or Capital One Points

Which bank reaches Delta, and through which door

A search for 'how to book Delta with Chase points' is a routing question before it is a price question. The bank pages split into one that names Delta and several that do not.

Amex's transfer page lists sixteen airline programs and four hotel programs. It prints a minimum, an increment and an estimated transfer time for each, and the paired minimum fields give the ratio: for Delta SkyMiles the page pairs 1,000 Amex points with 1,000 miles, a 1,000-point increment and 48 hours. Chase's transfer guide names ten airlines and Delta is not among them. Capital One's partner guide names fourteen airlines at 1:1, three at 2:1.5 and JetBlue at 5:3, again without Delta. Bilt's help article lists nineteen airlines, none of them Delta, and Citi's card pages name American Airlines, JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic, Cathay and EVA Air plus unnamed 'others'.

The Amex transfer to Delta: the terms, line by line

The Membership Rewards terms (November 2026) set the mechanics. You must link your Rewards Account with your partner program account first, and the partner account must be in your name or in the name of an additional cardmember whose card was issued at least 90 days before linking. The terms call for a minimum of 1,000 points in multiples of 1,000 in most cases (the transfer page shows JetBlue at 250 and Qantas at 500), say processing typically takes 48 to 72 hours, warn that some programs delay posting, and say points cannot be converted back once transferred.

The fee clause is one sentence long. You pay an excise tax offset fee of $0.0006 per point, up to $99, for points transferred to a U.S. airline frequent flyer program. The terms explain that it offsets the federal excise tax Amex must pay when you transfer points, and that it may be more or less than the actual tax on any one transfer. They do not name the programs. Amex's current transfer page lists two U.S. airline programs, Delta SkyMiles and JetBlue TrueBlue, so those are the two this guide treats as covered. Whether a program joins or leaves that group is the airline's and Amex's decision, not something to assume.

How the fee is collected is where the card terms go quiet. They say 'You'll pay' and stop. They do not say whether the fee lands on the card as a charge, comes out of the balance as extra points, or is netted from what arrives. The terms for Amex checking accounts are explicit that you 'must cover this fee using Membership Rewards points at the time of the points transfer', but that sentence belongs to the checking-account section and should not be carried over to cards. This guide therefore never treats the fee as known cash that survives on the award. The examples below show each result with the fee left out and with it counted as a cash cost, which is the harsher reading.

One more line in the same section matters for planning. A flight booked with frequent flyer miles is not charged to your card, so the insurance and other benefits that may apply when a flight is charged to the card do not apply.

The fee at seven transfer sizes

At $0.0006 a point the fee is a straight line until the $99 cap, which is reached at 165,000 points. The table computes it for seven sizes. The last column is the same fee expressed in cents per point moved, which shows the cap turning a flat rate into a falling one on large transfers.

Delta's $5.60 September 11 Security Fee per one-way trip, printed on its award fee table, is a separate cost and is not in this table.

Delta and JetBlue at the same Amex fee

Because the fee applies to U.S. airline programs, JetBlue TrueBlue carries it too, and JetBlue is the one program where Amex's ratio is not 1:1. The transfer page pairs 250 Amex points with 200 TrueBlue points, a 5:4 ratio, with a 250-point increment. Bilt's help article lists JetBlue TrueBlue at 1:1, and Capital One's guide prints 5:3. Chase lists JetBlue without a ratio on the page read, and Citi names it without one.

The table prices the same TrueBlue award at each bank. JetBlue's own award prices were not read for this guide, so the three award sizes are inputs, chosen to show how the ratios and the Amex fee interact, not JetBlue prices. Amex points are rounded up to the 250 increment, Bilt points to 1,000 and Capital One miles to 1,000.

At Amex the 5:4 ratio means a TrueBlue award costs a quarter more in Amex points than the same award costs in Bilt points, and the fee is charged on the points moved, so it is a quarter higher too: $7.50 for 12,500 points against $6.00 for 10,000 points sent to Delta. Neither number is large. The difference that matters is the ratio, not the fee.

Other SkyTeam doors on the Amex list

Delta is a SkyTeam member, and SkyTeam's members page also lists Air France, KLM and Aeromexico. Amex's transfer page lists two of those programs, Air France-KLM Flying Blue at 1,000 Amex points to 1,000 miles with a 48 hour estimate, and Aeromexico Rewards, where the page pairs 1,000 Amex points with 1,600 Aeromexico points and a 48 hour estimate. Each is a separate program with its own prices, and neither is a Delta account.

Whether either program sells seats on Delta-operated flights, and at what price, was not confirmed from an official page for this guide, so nothing is priced here. The ratio is still worth noticing: a program that pays 1,600 for 1,000 can price an award in more points and still cost fewer Amex points. The comparison only works once both programs show the same flight on a search screen, which is the same rule as everywhere else on this site. The transfer ratios guide explains how to read a ratio such as Aeromexico's.

What Delta itself prints about award tickets

Delta's Travel with Miles page and its award fee table, read on October 23, 2026, set the rules for any SkyMiles booking. The page says there are no blackout dates on any Delta Air Lines flight, that miles can be redeemed on Delta Air Lines, Delta Connection carriers and more than 30 partner airlines, and that the flexible award calendar shows the lowest price options for the dates you select. No award chart is published on the pages read, so the miles price for a given flight is the one the search returns on that day.

The fee table lists a Security Fee at $5.60 per one-way trip for all members, a same-day standby fee and a same-day confirmed fee of $75 per ticket for General and Silver Medallion members that is waived for Gold, Platinum and Diamond, and no fees for award ticket redeposit or reissue. The notes say changes to origin, destination, routing, date and time are permitted except for Delta Basic experiences, and that the mileage difference and any applicable taxes for the new ticket apply. Cabin is not on that list, and the SkyMiles rules let an award take an upgrade certificate but not a paid or mileage upgrade, as the rules for upgrading a Delta award ticket set out. For travel originating from the United States and Canada, including flights operated by joint venture and codeshare partners, members may change or cancel award tickets without a redeposit or change fee, excluding Basic. For some travel originating elsewhere, Basic award restrictions vary and may be non-cancelable.

SkyMiles miles do not expire, according to Delta's program overview. That matters for the Amex route because it means a transfer for a flight that you later change leaves miles in a durable account, which is also why the transfer should be sized to the booking rather than to a whole balance. The canceling an award flight guide covers what comes back in each program, and note one asymmetry: SkyMiles return to the SkyMiles account, not to Amex. A SkyMiles award booked through Delta in Main Classic or above (Main Classic is the program rules' name for Main Cabin) also earns Medallion Qualification Dollars at the miles redeemed divided by 100, and the award ticket earning rules set that beside United, Atmos and Virgin.

The co-brand discount a transfer does not get

Delta's Travel with Miles page carries a line that matters when you weigh a transfer against the airline's own card. It says eligible Delta SkyMiles American Express cardmembers save 15 percent when booking Award Travel on Delta flights, and that the saving does not apply to partner-operated flights or to taxes and fees. A Membership Rewards balance moved to SkyMiles is just miles in the account, and nothing on the page says it earns that discount, so the benefit belongs to the cardholder booking, not to the points.

The arithmetic is easy to run on the 22,500 mile award used below. A 15 percent saving takes it to 19,125 miles, a difference of 3,375 miles, which at the Amex 1,000 to 1,000 ratio is 3,375 fewer Amex points moved and about $2.03 less fee at $0.0006 a point. Whether that saving is available to you depends on which card you hold and what Delta's current terms say, so the figure is a reference point for the comparison, not a promise.

Worked example: one domestic one-way, priced through Amex

These are arithmetic illustrations with stated inputs, not a Delta fare. Assume a one-way Main Cabin flight with a cash fare of $289 and an award price of 22,500 SkyMiles plus the $5.60 security fee. Transfers are in 1,000 multiples, so the Amex route moves 23,000 points at 1,000 to 1,000 and leaves 500 SkyMiles in the account.

The fee on 23,000 points is $13.80. With the fee left out, the cash that survives is the $5.60 security fee and the value is ($289 minus $5.60) divided by 23,000, which is 1.23 cents per Amex point. With the fee counted as a cash cost, the surviving cash is $19.40 and the value is ($289 minus $19.40) divided by 23,000, or 1.17 cents. The honest answer is a range of 1.17 to 1.23 cents, and the width of that range is the fee uncertainty.

Against the portal: the site records that flights booked through Amex Travel redeem at 1 cent per point, so the same $289 flight would cost 28,900 points. The transfer uses 5,900 fewer points. Whether that is worth up to $19.40 of fee is a division the reader finishes: $19.40 divided by 5,900 is 0.33 cents of cash per point saved. The Amex Travel guide has the portal's refund rule too.

Chase, Capital One, Bilt and Citi holders: the Virgin Atlantic door

If your points are not at Amex, the confirmed way to a Delta-operated seat is Virgin Atlantic. Virgin's Delta partner page, read on October 23, 2026, tells you to book direct with Virgin Atlantic and select Search for Reward Flights. Redemptions can be made only on flights operated by Delta Air Lines, including Delta Connection, and cannot be booked on a Delta-marketed flight operated by another carrier. All mileage is for a one-way ticket excluding passenger taxes and fees, all reward flights are subject to availability, and blackout dates may apply.

The price of those seats is a separate question with its own chart, and this site already answers it in a guide that this one does not repeat: Virgin Atlantic points on Delta flights covers the distance chart, which banks reach Virgin, and a comparison with SkyMiles for one flight. The point for routing is that a Chase, Bilt, Capital One or Citi holder has a door to Delta seats that does not pass through SkyMiles and does not carry the Amex fee clause, because Virgin is not a U.S. airline program under that wording. The terms read do not extend the fee to non-U.S. programs; confirm on your own transfer screen.

A third door, Air France-KLM Flying Blue, is on the Chase, Capital One, Bilt and Amex lists, and Delta and Air France-KLM are both SkyTeam members. Whether a particular Delta flight appears for Flying Blue miles is a search result, and Flying Blue's partner page timed out when requested on October 23, 2026, so no price or rule for it is quoted. If you are comparing doors, put it in the table when you can see the result.

Choosing between SkyMiles and Virgin when you hold Amex points

A reader with Amex points has two doors to the same Delta flight and should price both. The comparison has three parts. First, the miles price: SkyMiles shows the number for the flight on delta.com; Virgin shows its own number from the chart. The two are not related by a fixed ratio, so you read both. Second, the cash: the SkyMiles route adds the Amex excise fee and Delta's security fee, while Virgin's cash line is what Virgin quotes at booking, which its terms say can change. Third, the booking rules: Delta's fee-free change and cancel rule for travel from the U.S. and Canada is Delta's own, and the Virgin rules are Virgin's.

Run both through the same formula, which is the site's usual one: cash fare minus cash that survives, divided by the bank points that leave the account. Use the flight points worksheet to hold the inputs side by side, and keep the rule that the transfer is the last step.

A longer flight: the cap in action (stated assumptions)

The cap only matters on large awards, so a second illustration uses one. Assume a one-way Delta One seat on a long international route with a cash fare of $2,950, an award price of 85,000 SkyMiles and $98 of taxes and fees on the award, which includes the $5.60 security fee. These are inputs, not a quote.

Moving 85,000 Amex points costs 85,000 times $0.0006, or $51.00, below the $99 cap. With the fee left out the value is ($2,950 minus $98) divided by 85,000, which is 3.36 cents per point. With the fee counted as cash it is ($2,950 minus $149) divided by 85,000, or 3.30 cents. The two readings differ by 0.06 cents. Had the award needed 200,000 points, the fee would have stopped at $99 instead of $120.

On a premium cabin the fee is a rounding error, 1.7 percent of the cash fare. On the cheap domestic fare above the same fee is 4.8 percent, which is why the range there is wider. The fee uncertainty therefore matters most for exactly the short, low-fare awards where the margin over a portal is thinnest.

Reading the Delta search before you decide

Delta's Travel with Miles page describes the search in three steps: book on delta.com or the Fly Delta app, check Shop with Miles (Show Price in Miles in the app), and enter your flight preferences. It adds that the flexible award calendar shows the lowest price options for the dates you select, which is where the day-to-day movement of a SkyMiles price is visible. Miles can be redeemed on Delta, Delta Connection and more than 30 partner airlines, so a SkyMiles search can show partner-operated flights that Virgin's Delta page excludes: Virgin sells only Delta-operated flights, so one itinerary can be bookable with SkyMiles and not with Virgin points.

Posting times: Amex's own estimates and the other banks'

A transfer that has not arrived is a seat at risk. Amex's transfer page prints an estimated transfer time per partner: 48 hours for Delta, JetBlue, Aeroplan, Flying Blue, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and most other programs, 72 hours for Avianca and Leading Hotels, 4 days for ANA and 24 hours for Hilton. Those are the only per-program estimates any of the five banks print in the pages read. The table collects what each bank says for the doors in this guide; 'not stated' means the page read printed no time.

Where Delta bookings go wrong

• Transferring before the seat exists. The Amex terms say transfers cannot be reversed, and Delta's calendar shows the lowest price, not a held seat.
• Assuming a Delta-marketed flight is bookable with Virgin points. Virgin's page restricts redemptions to flights operated by Delta and its Connection services.
• Counting the fee as known cash. The card terms do not say how it is collected; compute the range.
• Booking a Delta Basic fare and expecting changes. Delta's no-fee change and cancel rule excludes Basic experiences.
• Counting the rounding as free. A 22,500 mile award leaves 500 miles stranded in SkyMiles at a 1,000 point transfer step.
• Skipping the second door. A holder of Amex and another currency should price the Virgin route too, because the miles price differs; the flight points worksheet holds both prices side by side.