American Airlines, Delta, and United each offer four tiers of elite status, and with each loyalty program, it’s possible to earn up to top tier status through credit card spend alone. I found it interesting to compare the programs side by side to see which requires the least spend. Note that I’m not recommending this approach. Airline elite status isn’t valuable if you don’t fly the airline often, so most would do better earning status through a combination of flying and credit card spend (or other means which vary by program).
Elite Requirements
Here’s a summary of the requirements for achieving each level of elite status with each airline:
| American | Gold | Platinum | Platinum Pro | Executive Platinum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loyalty Points (LPs) Required | 40K | 75K | 125K | 200K |
| Delta | Silver | Gold | Platinum | Diamond |
| Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs) Required | 5K | 10K | 15K | 28K |
| United | Silver | Gold | Platinum | 1K |
| Premier Qualifying Points (PQP) Required | 6K | 12K | 18K | 28K |
| w/ Premier Qualifying Flights (PQF) | 5K PQP +15 PQF |
10K PQP +30 PQF |
15K PQP +45 PQF |
22K PQP +60 PQF |
Credit Cards
Elite earning rates and elite bonuses vary by credit card. Here’s a summary of the earning rates of AA, Delta, and United cards available in the United States:
| AA Cards | Elite Earnings for Spend | Elite Bonuses |
|---|---|---|
| Citi AAdvantage MileUp Card | 1 LP per $ | N/A |
| Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select | 1 LP per $ | N/A |
| CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum Select | 1 LP per $ | N/A |
| Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Red | 1 LP per $ | N/A |
| Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Silver | 1 LP per $ | Up to 15,000 bonus Loyalty Points per status qualification period: Earn 5K bonus LPs at $20K spend, $40K spend, and $50K spend. |
| Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive | 1 LP per $ | Up to 20,000 bonus Loyalty Points: 10K after earning 50K LPs through all channels and another 10K after earning 90K LPs through all channels |
| Delta Cards | Elite Earnings for Spend | Elite Bonuses |
| Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card | 1 MQD per $20 | $2,500 MQDs per year |
| Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card | 1 MQD per $20 | $2,500 MQDs per year |
| Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card | 1 MQD per $10 | $2,500 MQDs per year |
| Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card | 1 MQD per $10 | $2,500 MQDs per year |
| United Cards | Elite Earnings for Spend | Elite Bonuses |
| The New United℠ Business Card | 1 PQP per $20 (max 4K PQP) |
N/A |
| The New United Quest℠ Card | 1 PQP per $20 (max 18K PQP) |
1,000 PQPs per year* |
| The New United Club℠ Card | 1 PQP per $15 (max 28K PQP) |
1,500 PQPs per year* |
| The New United Club℠ Business Card | 1 PQP per $15 (max 28K PQP) |
N/A |
Spend Required
In the following table I’ve documented the spend required to earn each level of status entirely through credit card spend. With Delta I assumed that all spend would be on a Delta Reserve card since the Reserve card earns twice as many MQDs per dollar as the SkyMiles Platinum card. Similarly, with United, I assumed that all spend would be on a Club card which earns 1 PQP per $15 (vs 1 PQP per $20 with other cards).
| American | Gold 40K LPs |
Platinum 75K LPs |
Platinum Pro 125K LPs |
Executive Platinum 200K LPs |
Annual Fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Most AA cards | $40K | $75K | $125K | $200K | Up to $99 |
| Aviator Silver1 | $35K | $60K | $110K | $185K | $195 |
| AA Exec2 | $40K | $65K | $105K | $180K | $595 |
| Silver & Exec3 | $35K | $50K | $90K | $165K | $790 |
| Delta | Silver 5K MQDs |
Gold 10K MQDs |
Platinum 15K MQDs |
Diamond 28K MQDs |
Annual Fees |
| Delta Reserve4 | $25K | $75K | $125K | $255K | $650 |
| w/ 2nd card | $0 | $50K | $100K | $230K | $1,000 |
| w/ 3rd card | $0 | $25K | $75K | $205K | $1,350 |
| w/ 4th card | $0 | $0 | $50K | $180K | $2,000 |
| United | Silver 6K PQP |
Gold 12K PQP |
Platinum 18k PQP |
1K 28K PQP |
Annual Fees |
| Club Business Card5 | $90K | $180K | $270K | $420K | $695 |
| Club Card6 | $67.5K | $157.5K | $247.5K | $397.5K | $695 |
| w/ Quest Card | $52.5K | $142.5K | $232.5K | $382.5K | $1,045 |
2) The AA Executive Card offers 10K bonus LPs after earning 50K LPs through all channels and another 10K after earning 90K LPs through all channels
3) Assumes that the first $50K spend is with the Aviator Silver card in order to earn each of its LP bonuses
4) The Delta Reserve and Delta Reserve Business cards earn twice as many MQDs per dollar as their SkyMiles Platinum counterparts so I assumed that all spend is on Delta Reserve cards. Each card that you have, regardless of whether you put spend on it, gives you a $2,500 MQD Headstart.
5) The Club Business and consumer Club Cards offer 1 PQP per $15 which is better than 1 per $20 offered with the United Quest and United Business cards. Therefore I assumed that all spend is put on Club cards.
6) The consumer United Club card offers a 1.5K PQP head start each year in which your card has been open at least since 12/31 of the prior year. Similarly the Quest card offers an annual 1K PQP head start. Simply having these cards gets you closer to elite status.
Analysis
The amount of spend required to earn United elite status is crazy compared to AA or Delta. If you’re interested in United elite status, I strongly advise looking to earn it through flying rather than spend.
If you don’t mind spending a lot in annual fees, then Delta is the way to go for earning any elite tier short of top-tier Diamond status. By paying four annual fees (for a total of $2,000 per year) it’s possible to get all the way to second tier (Gold) status without any spend at all! And you can achieve third tier (Platinum) status with only $50K spend. AA would require almost double that amount of spend for its 3rd tier (Platinum Pro) status. Even with all four Delta cards, though, AA (with two cards) requires less spend to get to top tier status.
If you want to spend less in annual fees, then AA is clearly the way to go. Just to get started with earning status through Delta credit card spend, you really need a $650 Delta Reserve card. Meanwhile, even the no-annual-fee AA MileUp card earns 1 Loyalty Point per dollar. And if you want all possible credit card elite boosts with AA, you can get them all for a grand total of $790 in annual fees. That’s only $140 more than the annual fee for a single Delta Reserve card!
Conclusion
Most people will find that AA has the best balance of elite earnings for spend and relatively low credit card annual fees. Those who are frequent Delta fliers, though, may find that high annual fees are worth paying in order to get annual companion tickets, club lounge access, etc. If so, it’s pretty remarkable that, without any spend, you can get first tier Silver status with two cards, and second tier Gold status with four cards!
United fliers? They’re out of luck. The amount of spend required to attain United elite status is crazy high compared to AA and Delta.
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Food for Thought:
In year 2, you can bring the required Delta diamond spend down to $140K by using two of your medallion choice benefits for 4000 MQDs. (I’m assuming the 3rd one is being used for Global upgrade certificates.)
Fantastic resource Greg! Can you add Alaska to the mix?
You can only spend your way to 30k EQM currently with Alaska.
When you say 4 delta cards for Delta Gold status, does holding say 4 Delta business platinum cards through product change give 10,000 MQD from the MQD headstart?
It should. But I think the assumption math is here having the Personal/Business Plat/Reserve
Do be aware, in the long run, supposedly only unique card types give separate headstarts. So two platinum business cards would not, but a personal and business platinum would.
Unsure about the year you product change though.