Dom Perignon, My Favorite Use Of Delta SkyMiles!

I redeemed my Delta SkyMiles for champagne yesterday.

13,000 SkyMiles for a bottle of Dom Perignon

We flew from Boston to Tampa on Delta and had time to kill in the SkyClub. Premium alcoholic drinks are also available for purchase at the airline.

SkyMiles can be used for these drinks, and it actually represents a solid use of SkyMiles. I redeemed SkyMiles for a bottle of Dom Perignon yesterday, after writing about my experience in the past.

The SkyClub has a premium list of wine and beer.

You can purchase a bottle of Dom Perignon for either $195 or 13,000 SkyMiles. There are a few things to note.

• $195 is an amazing price to begin with for a bottle of 2010 Dom Perignon, as you can’t even get it for that price at most liquor stores; for example, K&L has among the best prices on champagne, and charges $219.99 for that bottle
• As you can see, each SkyMile is worth 1.5 cents toward an alcohol purchase, and personally I value SkyMiles at 1.1 cents each; funny enough this redemption was devalued in 2021, as previously each SkyMile got you 2.0 cents toward an alcohol purchase
• What’s most surprising to me about the pricing is that a glass is proportionally the same price as a bottle, as there are five glasses in a bottle, and each glass costs one-fifth as much as a bottle; does anyone know how exactly that’s sustainable for Delta… are that many people buying glasses of Dom Perignon that they consistently go through bottles, or do the bottles typically go flat?

The process of buying a bottle of Dom Perignon was easy. I went to the bar and asked if I could buy a bottle of Dom Perignon with SkyMiles. I explained the math to the man sitting at the bar and he seemed to appreciate that it was a good value.

The bartender gave me two glasses of champagne and offered to help me carry it to our seats after putting it in an ice bucket.

I received a receipt for the purchase after I scanned my boarding pass. I tipped the guy some cash, which was appropriate.

We really liked our bottle of Dom Perignon and it made our time in the lounge much more enjoyable.

I tried to make a snack plate to go with the champagne, but I'm pretty sure a five year old could do better.

Is this actually a good deal, though?

I like to crunch numbers and analyze decisions more than I should. I'm going to share my thought process in buying a bottle of Dom Perignon.

• I don’t just redeem SkyMiles for bottles of champagne every time I’m in a SkyClub; quite to the contrary, I haven’t done so in nearly five years
• We usually don’t drink on domestic flights, but we were having a good day, got some great family health news, and were feeling grateful and happy, despite all that’s going on in the world
• I couldn’t tell you the last time that I’ve redeemed Delta SkyMiles; I almost never find SkyMiles to be the best program for international premium cabin awards, so I really view the opportunity cost of SkyMiles as one cent each, redeeming them using the “Pay With Miles” feature

The bottle of Dom Perignon cost me more than the airfare on Delta. It's a lot to spend on alcohol. Sometimes it gets at the beauty of miles. While I try to treat miles as a currency and analyze each redemption, there is an element of miles being a bit like Monopoly money, given their low acquisition cost.

Is there a time when I might spend $130 on a bottle of champagne? For a special occasion. Would I have spent the money on a bottle of champagne? Probably not. I was wondering if I felt bad about SkyMiles. Nope, not at all.

Bottom line

Delta SkyMiles is a revenue based frequent flyer program, where each mile can get you a small amount of money towards a Delta purchase. SkyMiles can be used for alcohol in airport lounges, which is a good deal.

You can redeem SkyMiles for 1.5 cents per purchase if you buy some great alcohol at reasonable cash prices. A bottle of 2010 Dom Perignon was redeemed for 13,000 SkyMiles, and it was a great use of them. I should start thinking of my SkyMiles fund as my Dom Perignon fund. I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

Has anyone redeemed SkyMiles for premium alcohol before? What was your experience like?