Upto 25,000 Skymiles for Amex Delta Gold card

Hope this is not a repost...

~10,000 bonus miles with your first purchase
~10,000 miles for spending $5,000 within your first 6 months of Cardmembership
~5,000 bonus miles by adding two Additional Cards to your account. Fee-Free
~No annual fee for the first year
~Always Double Miles® on eligible everyday purchases and one mile for every other eligible dollar spent

Applicable for Business card as well. New applicants only.

linky

Since we have the Delta Gold personal cards, I applied for the Delta Business Gold for this offer awhile back and got the bonuses (25K). However, these Delta bonuses apply only once per cardholder per lifetime it seems. Recently, I was sent an upgrade offer to Business Platinum that adds another 15K bonus miles:

- 5,000 Medallion Qualification Miles after the first purchase
- 10,000 MQM after 25K spend annually

- Companion certificate (domestic coach class) upon renewal, without transfer restrictions (ie. can be given to someone else, however tickets must be purchased with your Platinum Delta card). Also unlike past years it seems the companion tickets would apply to Hawaii and Alaska: "Residents of Hawaii and Alaska must originate from there to the 48 contiuous United States."

- Annual fee is $135, or $80 with a qualifying account (business Purchase Account, the Business Gold Card, the Executive Business Card and the Business Platinum Card).

Note: The 10K MQM bonus after 25K spend seems to be a true bonus unlike the 10K additional after 5K spend with the Delta Gold offer, where 10K is really 5K bonus + 5K normal purchase skymiles.

However, before applying for the upgrade, apply for the Business Gold Rewards card first. Don't know if this is a targeted offer, but I was sent an offer that waives the first year fee ($125), and gives $100 statement credit with the first purchase. The $100 credit will cancel out the $80 I have to pay for the first year platinum upgrade. So the 15K MQM bonus will be at no cost.

Not sure whether the Platinum is a significant improvement over the Gold and worth the extra $50 in annual fees for the upgrade. I may cancel the Business Gold after the first year. Or cancel all AMEX cards and use another FFP card? What are your tweaking strategies for FFP?

BTW, I have found it more advantageous to focus our spending using one card, and build skymiles under one account to purchase both skysaver tickets. We have almost 70K miles for another December trip. Hopefully, we'll be able to find skysaver seats and get a bump to first class like last year

Anybody has experience using the companion tickets? The value of this ticket maybe worth the renewal fee. Are there any restrictions on the use of these tickets (like purchase ticket must be full value fare) that would diminish the value of using a companion free ticket?

The reason for this post is to suggest further tweaking beyond the initial signup. I'm sure everyone gets an upgrade offer to platinum, and in this case, what makes it "juicy" is an offer for the Business Gold Rewards that works well with the Platinum Skymiles upgrade. So if you do receive both (they came in the same mail delivery), take a good look at both together.