Delta SkyMiles Platinum Business American Express Card

Rewards by category

Our take

The Delta SkyMiles Platinum Business American Express Card earns 3x miles per eligible dollar on purchases made directly with Delta and directly with hotels, 1.5x on eligible transit — taxicabs, rideshares, and the like — and at U.S. shipping providers, and 1x on everything else. The annual fee is $350. If a purchase qualifies for more than one accelerator, only the higher one applies, so the tiers never stack.

Two pieces of fine print decide whether the 1.5x is worth chasing. First, it is capped: transit and U.S. shipping draw on one shared bucket of $100,000 in eligible purchases per year, not one cap each, and spending past it earns 1x. Second, the issuer includes a third leg in that same bucket — single eligible purchases of $5,000 or more — that SwipeCaddy cannot rank, because there is no per-transaction minimum in our data model. A $6,000 equipment order really does earn 1.5x on this card; our ranking will show the 1x base for it, so the app under-reports rather than over-promises.

At 1.1 cents per mile, the 3x tier is worth roughly 3.3% and the 1.5x about 1.65%, while the 1x base is around 1.1% — well behind a flat 2% cash-back card, so this is not a card to put general spending on. It is the middle rung of the Delta business ladder: the $150 Gold Business earns 2x with Delta and adds restaurants, U.S. shipping, and advertising, while this card keeps U.S. shipping at a lower 1.5x, drops restaurants and advertising, adds transit and hotels booked directly, and pays a higher 3x at Delta. Route Delta tickets and direct hotel payments here, use it for transit and U.S. shipping until the shared cap, and let something else carry the rest.

The math

Run $250 a month of hotels through this card and you're earning about $99 a year at our conservative valuations. Against the $350 annual fee, that top rate needs roughly $2,250 a month of hotels spend before it beats a no-fee flat 2% card.

Store bonuses

• Delta Air Lines3x

Common questions

Does Delta SkyMiles Platinum Business American Express Card have an annual fee?

Yes — $350 per year.

What does Delta SkyMiles Platinum Business American Express Card earn on hotels?

3x on hotels.

What rewards does Delta SkyMiles Platinum Business American Express Card earn on everything else?

1x on all other purchases, in Delta SkyMiles.

What exactly does the $100,000 cap on the 1.5x cover?

It is one combined ceiling, not several. Eligible transit, U.S. shipping providers, and single eligible purchases of $5,000 or more all draw on the same $100,000 of eligible purchases per year, and once you pass it those purchases earn the 1x base. That is a meaningful difference from the Delta SkyMiles Gold Business card, whose capped categories each carry their own separate limit.

Why doesn't SwipeCaddy show 1.5x on a large single purchase?

Because the rule is a per-transaction minimum — a single eligible purchase of $5,000 or more — and our offer model has no field for that, only for categories, merchants, and spending caps. Rather than guess, we leave that leg out of the ranking and state it in the card's notes, so a big-ticket swipe shows the 1x base. The 1.5x is real; treat it as upside our numbers do not include.

Related reading

• How we value points and miles (and why our numbers are lower than everyone else's)SwipeCaddy ranks cards by reward rate × a conservative cash value per point: 1¢ for cash back and transferable points (Chase, Amex, Citi, Capital One, Bilt), 1.1–1.3¢ for airline miles, 0.4–1.4¢ for hotel points, and 0.8–0.9¢ for store currencies. Optimistic transfer values are recorded for context but never ranked, because most people never achieve them.