Just off the phone with American Express, and their contract renewal for the co-brand relationship with Delta means that the anticipated cap on transfers from Membership Rewards to Delta — the limit of 250,000 points transferred per calendar year effective January 1 — will not happen.

Presumably other partner transfers, where the relationship isn’t as significant as the American Express one, will still see this cap implemented. Update 10:38am Eastern: The cap is removed for all transfer partners, not just American Express.

I rarely recommended transferring to Delta. Their awards tended to be tougher to get and cost more than those of many other major currencies. But it was ‘easy’ for many — Delta was the last remaining major U.S. airline that American Express points transferred to. There are a surprising number of people out there with tons of Amex points, many hundreds of thousands and into the seven figures. And for them it’s often the case that just moving points over to the program they know was the simple solution. Nothing to figure out, or so it seemed.

250,000 points isn’t even enough for one business class ticket at the ‘high’ level to many destinations with Skymiles, let alone two tickets.

That’s why I offered The Best Amex Points Transfers by Destination Now That Delta Transfers are Being Capped. The better advice from that post still holds.

But the news today is that there won’t be a cap on Membership Rewards transfers to Delta, after all.

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