Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well.  On Tuesday, I applied for the American Express Platinum Delta SkyMiles Business Credit Card through a targeted Delta mailer and was instantly approved.  The reason I applied for this credit card is because it comes with the new Delta TakeOff 15 card member benefit that provides a 15% discount on Delta award travel and I haven’t received the sign up bonus on this credit card before.  I have an upcoming Delta flight from San Francisco to Atlanta to Jacksonville (SFO-ATL-JAX) for an upcoming “free” Carnival Cruise and I wanted to save some miles on that award ticket (and future Delta award tickets I will book).

How soon does the Delta TakeOff 15 benefit apply to my Delta account?

I checked my Delta account and the Delta website an hour after being approved for the new credit card, but the TakeOff 15 benefit was not showing up yet.  All I saw were banners to sign up for new Delta credit cards to receive that benefit.  About 24 hours after being approved for the credit card, I tried again and now the TakeOff 15 banner appears at the top of award searches.  I have not received the new credit card in the mail yet.

I then went to my existing reservations and tried to see if I could rebook them with the TakeOff 15 benefit.  My original SFO-ATL-JAX award ticket cost 34,500 miles.  I clicked the Change or Add Flights link to start the change process.

I kept the same routing and departure date, then clicked the Continue button.

I scrolled down to find the same flight but it didn’t give me the option to select the same Main Cabin flight.  If I wanted to change to a different flight, I could have received miles back if the new flight was cheaper than my original flight.

I also learned that the TakeOff 15 benefit will not show up anywhere in the change process if your award ticket was booked before you received the TakeOff 15 benefit.

I decided to do a new award search and found the flight I wanted for 26,300 miles using the TakeOff 15 benefit.  My original award ticket cost 34,500 miles, but it looks like the current price dropped to 31,000 miles, and then the 15% discount lowered it to 26,300 miles.

I went through the award booking process and confirmed the price was 26,300 miles.

My new award ticket was booked and then I went ahead and canceled my original award ticket.  As you can see, I did not use my Delta credit card to pay the taxes/fees, but still received the TakeOff 15 benefit.

I did the same process for my return flight (JAX-ATL-SFO).  On the Account Activity page, I can see that my 2 original award tickets cost 55,000 miles total and my 2 new award tickets cost 43,700 miles total, a savings of 11,300 miles.

When my $250 annual fee posts next year, I plan on downgrading to the $99 annual fee American Express Gold Delta SkyMiles Business Credit Card that also has the TakeOff 15 benefit.  If I am able to save at least 10,000 miles every year with the TakeOff 15 benefit (which requires redeeming 66,667 miles every year), I will come out ahead paying the $99 annual fee.

If you have any questions about the TakeOff 15 benefit, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone!