How I get this monthly credit on my Delta Amex without even trying

16.07.2024 - 20:28 / thepointsguy.com

When I learned the annual fee for my Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card was increasing a full $100 (from $550 to $650; see rates and fees), I faced a tough decision — was this premium travel card still worth it?

Right now, new cardmembers have an easier time justifying the higher annual fee on the Delta Reserve Amex because of its limited-time welcome offer. New cardmembers can earn 95,000 bonus miles after spending $6,000 on the card in the first six months of card membership (ending July 17). Considering TPG's July 2024 valuations, that bonus is worth up to $1,093. For existing cardmembers, however, finding value can be tougher.

I decided to keep my Delta Amex Reserve this year to test the value of its new benefits. While I'm still figuring out the best way to take full advantage of each perk, the monthly Resy (an online restaurant reservation service) benefit has been surprisingly simple to earn. So simple, in fact, that I recently earned the statement credit without even realizing it.

Here's how.

Related: Do you have a Delta Amex card? Here are 9 things you need to do

It's not often that a card makes it this easy to use its perks, but that's exactly what happened to me last month. Before I explain exactly how this happened, let's look at the Delta Amex statement credits and who is eligible to receive them.

The full lineup of Delta and Amex cobranded cards received annual fee bumps and altered perks earlier this year. I will only focus on the cards with the same statement credits as my Delta Reserve Amex.

Here's a closer look at the annual and monthly statement credits:

*Enrollment is required for select benefits; terms apply.

The amount that you can receive for these statement credits varies by card. These are the cards that are eligible to receive all three of these statement credits:

If you have one of these four cards, you can use the listed statement credits to offset the annual fee if you know how to use them. TPG has a must-read guide to help you maximize these credits, so I won't repeat that here. Instead, let's get back to my surprise credit.

With my Delta Reserve Amex, I get up to $240 annually (up to $20 monthly) in statement credits when I dine at a restaurant that participates in the Resy reservations system and pay with my Delta Reserve Amex. You may be wondering how a perk that involves dining at specific restaurants was able to surprise me, but it did.

That's because you don't have to make a reservation through Resy to earn the credit; you only have to pay your bill using an eligible card. I received an email alerting me that I had earned a $20 Resy statement credit, though I had no recollection of dining at a participating restaurant.

My husband was out of town then,