Delta Dawn

At least once a week, sometime during the early morning hours, I get an email from Delta Airlines.  That's because there was a time when we earned a lot of sky miles using our American Express card. We put nearly every purchase on that card just for the sky miles.

But not anymore - mostly because almost no business in Europe takes American Express.  Good information for the international traveler.  Get a Visa or Mastercard.

So I now have my Delta Dawn emails sent to Spam.  They almost always involve earning sky miles, but since it takes roughly 100,000 miles for one ticket to fly to the States and back, a few extra miles doesn't help us much anymore.

Before deleting one of my recent Delta emails, I was enticed to read on when I saw "6 bottles of wine".  

The incentives used to inspire me to "earn" those extra miles is, well, not very tempting.  Here's the most recent email I received . . .  

Earn 5,000 miles and 6 bottles of wine!

Hello Mrs. Frazier, For a limited time . . . enjoy great tasting wines delivered right to your front door -  you'll receive 2,000 miles with your first shipment, 3,000 miles with your second shipment  and 5 miles per dollar spent on all other wine orders. The wines in your first shipment are only $6.99 a bottle (that's 50% off) and we'll include the shipping for 1¢.  Also, we'll include 6-piece Cellar Master wine tote (a $37.95 value) with your third wine club shipment. The finer print: You'll find that each shipment is a great value — featuring superb quality wines* at superb prices averaging just $12-$15 a bottle. *Because these wines are all in very limited supply, substitutions for wines similar in character and of equal value may occasionally be made.  So, I know math is hard, especially for me, but  . . . my first shipment of superb quality wine is about $42 with the added bonus of 2,000 sky miles! My second (and future) shipments are at the superb price of $12 - $15 per bottle = $72 - $90 with the added bonus of 3,000 more sky miles! Am I making money yet?  Maybe not, but so far I have 12 bottles of superb quality wine.  Ooh, la, la. Somehow, someone may be able to justify those first two shipments that come with the 5,000 sky miles but . . . - if I earn 5 miles for every dollar spent on wine - and every monthly shipment costs $72 - $90 - I earn 360 - 450 sky miles?! Really?  I'm going to spend nearly a hundred dollars for less than 500 sky miles? Despite the higher math, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this calculates to . . . - 263 monthly shipments (that's 22 years!) at the superb price of $12 per bottle (that's $18,936!)  or  - at the superb price of $15 per bottle (that's $18,990!), I'll need 211 shipments (that's over 17 years!). I do like wine and I'd love that 6-piece Cellar Master wine tote (a $37.95 value) and with this unbelievable deal, I can double all those shipments and have enough sky miles to take Jim with me . . . in 17 to 22 years. Either I've totally missed the math here or I think all the folks 'round Brownsville'd say she's crazy?