Head to head · issuer terms as read 2026-08-30
United Explorer vs Delta SkyMiles Gold
Both charge $150 a year. United Explorer earns United MileagePlus miles; Delta SkyMiles Gold earns Delta SkyMiles. One of them is a hotel or airline currency with no cash floor stated on the pages we read, so we show the terms side by side but don't put a dollar value on those points — set your own in the optimizer.
The earn tables are listed category by category below, each in its own currency. Credits, as the issuers state them, add up to $560 a year on United Explorer and $420 on Delta SkyMiles Gold — if you would have spent that money anyway. Monthly credits have breakage; count only the ones you'd really use.
The terms, side by side
| United Explorer | Delta SkyMiles Gold | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $150 | $150 |
| Foreign transaction fee | No foreign fee | Foreign fee: $0 (no foreign transacti… |
| Earns | United MileagePlus miles | Delta SkyMiles |
| Transfers to partners | No | No |
| Credits stated | 11 · $560/yr if fully used | 4 · $420/yr if fully used |
| Welcome offer, as stated | Earn up to 60,000 bonus miles: 50,000 bonus miles after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening, plus 10,000 bonus miles after you add an authorized user within the first 3 months. | 50,000 Bonus Miles and a $250 Statement Credit after you spend $3,000 or more in eligible purchases on your new Card within your first 6 months of Card Membership. Bonus miles and statement credit post 8-12 weeks after reaching the threshold amount. Offer as displayed expires 11/04/2026 at 11:59 PM MST. |
Earn rates by category, as stated
| Category | United Explorer | Delta SkyMiles Gold |
|---|---|---|
| Dining & restaurants | 2X | 2X |
| Travel booked direct | 2X | base rate |
| Everything else | 1X | 1X |
Green = the higher stated multiplier (not shown here: the two currencies aren't the same unit). Brand-specific, promotional and rotating rates are on each card page, not modeled here.
What each nets at sample spend
Three sample monthly budgets, every point at 1.0¢ (the Pay-with-Points floor we paid), fee subtracted, no credits counted. Estimates, not promises — your spend is the input that matters.
Run your own spendQuestions people ask
- Which has the lower annual fee, United Explorer or Delta SkyMiles Gold?
- They're the same: $150 a year, as stated on the issuers' pages on 2026-08-30.
- Does United Explorer or Delta SkyMiles Gold charge foreign transaction fees?
- United Explorer: no foreign fee. Delta SkyMiles Gold: foreign fee: $0 (no foreign transacti…. Read off each issuer's page on 2026-08-30.
- Which earns more on dining?
- United Explorer states 2X; Delta SkyMiles Gold states 2X. The two currencies aren't the same unit, so a bigger multiplier isn't automatically more value.
- Can I transfer points to airline and hotel partners?
- United Explorer: no. Delta SkyMiles Gold: no.
- Which is better for me?
- It depends on where your spend goes. The receipts on this page use sample spend profiles at 1.0¢ per point; the Card Stack Optimizer runs your own numbers against every card we track, net of the annual fee.
- United Explorer: Annual fee is $0 intro for the first year, then $150 thereafter, per the issuer page. The annualFee field above reflects the ongoing $150 fee per this task's instructions; the $0 first-year intro is noted here.
- United Explorer: Network confirmed as Visa via Chase's own /visa-credit-cards listing page and via the issuer page's mention of 'complimentary Visa Signature Concierge Service', indicating Visa Signature tier.
- United Explorer: This is a co-brand airline card earning United MileagePlus miles directly rather than transferable Chase Ultimate Rewards points, so transferPartners is set to false.
- Delta SkyMiles Gold: Two official Amex pages disagree on whether U.S. supermarkets earn the 2X restaurant rate: the get-started/deltagold overview page states '2x miles for each eligible dollar spent at U.S. supermarkets and restaurants worldwide,' but the dedicated earn-rewards subpage lists only 'restaurants worldwide' with no mention of supermarkets. Confirm the current supermarket earn status directly on americanexpress.com before publishing.
- Delta SkyMiles Gold: Welcome offer figure (50,000 Bonus Miles + $250 Statement Credit, $3,000/6-month spend, expires 11/04/2026) was confirmed via direct WebFetch of the official Amex terms page. A separate, unverified web-search results snippet (not independently fetched/confirmed) suggested a higher 80,000-mile offer instead. Welcome offers on this card are frequently personalized/targeted and change often — re-check the live offer immediately before publishing and note it may vary by applicant.
- Delta SkyMiles Gold: The card's full Rates & Fees / APR disclosure page could not be reliably fetched (returned truncated navigation-only content); APR figures are intentionally omitted from this file since they are out of scope for this research pass. A dated (2020) Cardmember Agreement PDF was located at americanexpress.com/content/dam/amex/us/staticassets/pdf/cardmember-agreements/gold-delta-skymiles/delta-skymiles-gold-04-01-2020.pdf but is likely stale and was not used for any figure in this file.
- Delta SkyMiles Gold: The 'In-Flight Purchase Credit' (20% back) and other Amex Offers-style perks may require separate enrollment; confirm enrollment requirements before publishing.
- Delta SkyMiles Gold: Direct fetch of the dedicated rideshare-credit benefit page (global.americanexpress.com/card-benefits/detail/rideshare-credit/delta-gold) returned HTTP 403. The $10/month, up to $120/year, starting-after-first-renewal figure is instead corroborated by two independent WebFetch calls to the get-started/deltagold and uncover-your-benefits pages, which returned matching verbatim text.
- Delta SkyMiles Gold: First checked bag free (and second bag free on domestic Delta flights) and Zone 5 Priority Boarding are real benefits confirmed on official Amex pages but were not included in the credits array because they have no stated dollar value/cadence in the schema's monetary-credit sense; flagging for inclusion elsewhere in content if desired.
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