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While these cards are both offered by American Express, and are branded by well known travel companies, they are very, very different cards.
They both have annual fees, but the Starwood card waives their fee for the first year. As well, the Starwood fee is 70% less than the Delta Platinum card and provides much more in the way of rewards.
The Delta Platinum Skymiles card is very good if you only use Delta, but its rewards beyond Delta and the Skyteam Alliance are quite small. by comparison, the Starwood Preferred Guest provides access to more airlines directly, and dozens of others through partner airlines. While Delta may be your preferred airline, Starwood provides access to Delta as well as many, many other airlines!
Starwood offers a better bonus program as well - they offer up to 25,000 bonus points upon signup and card usage, whereas the Delta card only offers 20,000 miles. Theoretically, you could convert the 25,000 bonus Starpoints you receive from Starwood into 30,000 Delta miles (because Starwood offers a 5,000 point bonus when you convert). Thus, for a smaller annual fee, you would have 30,000 Delta skymiles with the Starwood card vs only 20,000 Delta skymiles if you applied for the Delta Card instead.
This 5,000 point bonus that Starwood offers when you convert 20,000 or more starpoints into airline miles is key - For airfare, Starwood then actually techinically offers 1.25 miles for every dollar of spending, whereas Delta just offers a 1:1 ratio. For spending at Starwood and Delta respectively, you could argue that Starwood offers a 2.5:1 ratio where as spending on Delta only offers only a 2:1 ratio.
Starwood's program is also better because its Starpoints never expire - the Delta skymiles expire with 24 months of inactivity. The Starwood Preferred Guest program offers many more lucrative bonus programs, and provides easy access to upgraded rooms for as little as 1,000 points, whereas the Delta upgrades are much more difficult to get and cost 10,000 plus fees and more.
They both offer the same basic travel protection and securtiy benefits, such as accident insurance, car rental insurance, purchase protection, etc, so these offereings do not alter the premise - that the Starwood Card offers a much better value on all accounts than the Delta Platinum Skymiles card, and as such is ranked much higher in our ratings.
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