Yesterday I mentioned a Priority Club promotion and the idea of buying points in advance as a “hedge”. Today I’m going to show you how I used a Delta hedge to save $894 and make the impossible possible: a last minute spring break Grandparent visit.
We had the idea sitting here on the couch just last Sunday. Deal Dad has a large home improvement project coming up, and Deal Grandpa has experience doing just such a project. While they were on the phone wishing Deal Grandpa could help, I fired up the laptop and did some quick searching to make it happen!
Here’s how: In December, Delta airlines was offering a deal that allowed you to buy points at a penny each. We use Delta quite often and the miles don’t expire, so I spent $1000 to buy 100k of miles, even though I didn’t have a specific use in mind. That’s the hedge strategy at work.
But lo and behold, three months later a possible use came up and I was able to secure two tickets on Delta for Deal Grandma and Grandpa to come visit for Spring Break at 25k each. The exact same tickets cost $697 EACH…an impossible to pay price due to it being over Easter/Passover AND last minute. So, that $500 I spent in December for 50,000 miles now seems like a real bargain!
There’s an ever better twist to this story: Delta charged me $20 in taxes for these tickets, but my American Express Platinum refunded that $20 as part of my $200 annual airline benefit!