Delta 40% Rebate On Membership Rewards Transfers Delay

In late July 2011, Delta ran a very lucrative promotion for transferring American Express Membership Rewards points into Delta Skymiles. For every 50,000 MR points transferred, you would receive a 40% rebate on the points spent. The rebate would come in the form of an email certificate for 20,000 MR points that had to be deposited back into your MR account. Essentially, this was equivalent to a 67% bonus, since 30,000 MR points became 50,000 Delta Skymiles... and there appeared to be no limits on how many e-certs you could earn. So transfer a million MR points into Skymiles, and you would receive 20 e-certs back totaling 400,000 MR points.

The terms and conditions stated that you would receive the e-certs in your email within 8 weeks of the transfer, but soon people realized that their 8-week deadline came and went with still no sign of the certificate. I completed my 50,000 MR points transfer on August 4, 2011, so on October 4, 2011 I gave Delta a call to see what was going on. Many people had hoped to see their MR rebate before September 30, 2011 so they could transfer their points to Continental, since the Continental/MR relationship ended that day. Well... no such luck.

The lady I spoke to at Delta said there was a delay in processing the certificates and that I should receive them within another week. A week came and went, then almost another month. I finally called again today and was transferred twice, finally reaching the Delta Promotions desk, where the gentleman I spoke to had to call another department that issued the certificates to see what was going on. After being put on hold for another 10 minutes, he finally came back and said they were manually pushing through the email to me, and that I should receive it within 72 hours. No sign of the certificate in my email yet, but hopefully this time it's finally resolved.

If there are still people out there waiting for their 40% MR rebate certificates from Delta, I would suggest calling the Delta Promotions desk at 1-888-750-3284 directly, instead of the normal Skymiles reservations desk. Unlike the limited hours of the Skymiles reservations line, the Promotions desk is open 24 hours a day, and can help you directly with the issue. Good luck!