(ThyBlackMan.com) My wife and I have three children under the age of 5. We love our children, and we are so thankful for them, but taking care of three little ones does not leave much alone time for us. On our ninth anniversary, we committed to doing something very special to celebrate our 10th anniversary. However, I was not sure how I would be able to make that happen. My wife stays home with our kids, so we are living on a tight budget. I knew that my wife loves the beach, so I started brainstorming ways to make a couples’ beach vacation a reality.
The first thing that I needed to figure out was our airline tickets. I saw an ad for a Delta American Express SkyMiles rewards card on a website called milecards.com while I was on a business trip, and I was really impressed by what I saw. I was already a loyal Delta customer, and I realized that I could be getting rewarded for my flights and other purchases that I made. Once I saw that there was no fee to hold the card for the first year, I was ready to sign up.
The approval process was quick and easy, and I received my new Delta Gold SkyMiles credit card in the mail in just a few days. I decided to put all of my regular purchases on the card for the next year to see how many miles I could accrue.
My family was traveling the next month to my sister’s wedding in Washington, so I booked all of our Delta airline tickets using the credit card. That really helped boost my total since I received 2x the miles for each Delta purchase. Since I was a SkyMiles card holder, I was also able to check one bag for free for each member of my family. This saved us $200 in baggage fees!
Next, my parents asked for airline tickets so they could come visit us for Christmas. I found a great deal on Delta’s website, and I booked these tickets using my SkyMiles card, too. It was nice to get double the miles just for buying the tickets as a Christmas gift for my parents.
A few weeks later, I was thrilled to open up my statement and see that 30,000 bonus miles had already been credited to my account. I received this bonus just by charging at least $1,000 to my card in the first three months that I was an account holder.
At this point, I really started believing that I would be able to surprise my wife with airline tickets completely through the miles I had earned through my Delta Gold SkyMiles card.
I did not just receive miles for purchases that I made from Delta. I also received miles for every other purchase that I made. I got one mile for every dollar that I spent on my SkyMiles card, so the miles added up quickly. I used the card for my weekly grocery shopping, trips to the gas station, prescription co-pays, and Little League fees for my son, our cell phone bills, preschool tuition and all of the other expenses that are a part of caring for a family.
Two months before our 10th anniversary, I was so excited to see that I had earned enough miles to purchase tickets for my wife and I to visit Florida. I checked our family calendar, requested a week of vacation from work, asked my in-laws to babysit and went to the Delta website to purchase two round-trip tickets to Miami for the week of our anniversary.
My wife was completely shocked when I left an envelope on her pillow containing our itinerary. She works so hard at home with our children all day, and it felt so good to be able to do something special for her. We had so much fun planning out where we wanted to stay and what we wanted to do in Miami. Since we knew we could each check on bag free, we had plenty of room to bring everything that we wanted.
When our departure date finally arrived, we were both more excited than kids on Christmas morning! We had a fairly long layover in Atlanta, but I had one more surprise in store. As a SkyMiles cardholder, I was able to purchase access to the Delta Sky Club for just $25 per person. The beautiful Sky Club was the perfect place to relax, enjoy some snacks and pass the time before our last flight. We also received priority boarding on our flight thanks to the SkyMiles card, so we were able to store our carry-on bags right above our seats.
Thanks to the American Express SkyMiles card, my wife and I were able to enjoy the vacation of a lifetime without having to pay for our airline tickets. I was so impressed with the card that I am definitely planning to keep using it in the future. The miles that we accrue are worth much more than the reasonable $99 fee each year.
Staff Writer; Greg L. Paul