My elite plans for 2024 (On my mind)

Welcome to 2024. January 1st is the day in which you can revel in the elite status levels you’ve attained (while simultaneously fretting because the airline, hotel, cruise, or train program hasn’t yet updated their systems to show your status achievements correctly). Or, you acknowledge that you didn’t make it to the Gold or Diamond or Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious elite level that you’d hoped, and you convince yourself that you don’t care because chasing elite status is stupid. Either way, you can now look forward to 2024 and decide which elite footballs you’re going to try to kick, or whether you’ll do the smart thing and walk away while Lucy eggs you on.

In this post I’ll show you the elite statuses I achieved in 2023 for the 2024 elite year, and in the process of writing this, I’ll decide and describe which footballs I’ll try to kick this year…

Airline Elite Programs

Alaska

Thanks to Alaska’s incredible status match for disgruntled Delta elites, I currently have near-top-tier MVP Gold 75K status. Since I got an Alaska credit card before the end of 2023, I believe that I should actually have MVP Gold 100K status throughout 2024. But, of course, the system doesn’t yet show that. For details about how I expect to use my status, see Alaska MVP Elite! Now what? Since writing that post, Alaska has actually made it easier to earn status, especially for people like me who don’t live near an Alaska hub. Should I try to requalify? We’ll see what happens, but I don’t expect to fly oneworld carriers enough in the near future for it to make any sense for me to go for it. I think I’ll be one and done with Alaska (while remaining grateful for the opportunity!).

American

AA is the one program in this roundup that doesn’t award elite status based on calendar year activity. Instead, AA’s elite qualifying year goes from March 1 to the end of February (we get an extra day in February this year, by the way). I currently have AAdvantage Platinum status through the end of March, but I’ve only earned 31.5K Loyalty Points so far, which is short of what’s needed for bottom tier Gold. I think I’ll try to earn the remaining 8.5K Loyalty Points by the end of February just to keep my toes in the AA elite pond and stop there. Hopefully in the next elite qualifying year there will be some big exciting Loyalty Point gaming opportunities. Until then, I don’t have any plans to chase AA status any further.

Delta

In the post “The last, great Delta mileage run,” I explained why I was going to manufacture spend like crazy this one last time in 2023 to get my wife to lifetime Platinum status and many years of Diamond status. I followed that up with a post pondering my own great manufactured spending mileage run. I decided to go for it. Using a variety of manufactured spending techniques (where I increased card spend, but got most of the money back), I spent like crazy. Across the four Delta cards that my wife and I have, I maxed out elite earnings on two Delta Reserve cards. Simultaneously, I maxed out elite earnings on two Delta Platinum cards then upgraded them to Delta Reserve cards and maxed those out too.

As things stand now, my wife and I each have earned Delta Diamond status for 2024. She has enough MQMs that will rollover to keep Diamond status for 5 additional years and I have enough for 4 additional years. She has enough lifetime miles (1,918,219) to easily get to lifetime Platinum status before her Diamond status runs out. Finally, I have four Reserve 15K MQM status boosts that I can use either to gift to my wife so that she’ll have enough rollover to get another year of Diamond status or to use for myself to get myself closer to lifetime Platinum status. It’s a tough call. I currently have 1,684,088 lifetime miles. With the status boosts I’ll have 1,744,088 lifetime miles. Then, if I average let’s say 30,000 flown miles for each year of my Diamond status, I’ll end with 1,894,088 miles. It would still take four years of flying beyond that to get to lifetime Platinum. Realistically, I don’t know if that would ever happen. So, do I take the bird in the hand (another year of Diamond for my wife) or the bird in the bush (inching closer to lifetime Platinum)? The clock is ticking on my decision because I have 60 days from when I earned the status boosts to gift them. If my record keeping is correct, I have until January 15 or so to decide.

Regardless of what I decide, I believe that my days of manufacturing spend to earn Delta elite status are done for good. Ironically, though, for those who don’t have huge numbers of rollover MQMs, this is a great year to earn high level elite status through credit cards. See: How to earn Delta elite status without flying in 2024.

Hawaiian

I don’t have elite status of any kind with Hawaiian, nor do I plan to get status. Plus, a few years ago I did a status match to Hawaiian, so I probably couldn’t status match again today. I have this here more as a placeholder for others: it might be worth doing a status match this year. Why? If Alaska’s purchase of Hawaiian goes through, maybe Alaska will give you top status. Or maybe Hawaiian elite status will offer perks on Alaska.

JetBlue

Thanks to JetBlue’s awesome status match for disgruntled Delta elites, I have JetBlue Mosaic 3 status through the end of 2024. Or, rather, I should have that, but JetBlue’s website currently shows me with no status at all. I’m confident that they simply haven’t updated their systems yet for 2024. I’m hoping to use my status to book an economy flight to Europe and upgrade to their business class (Mint) at the time of booking (a new feature of the elite program). I don’t have any plans to try to re-earn status. In my wife’s case, she should have Mosaic 4 status and so I hope we’ll have a chance to use those Blade helicopter transfers again.

Spirit

I don’t have Spirit status nor do I have plans to get any. I put this here more as a placeholder in case JetBlue’s acquisition of Spirit actually happens. If it does, it’s likely that Spirit status will get you automatic JetBlue status.

United

I’ve come to really like United Polaris business class (as can be seen in my slightly crazed eyes, above). But my United Silver status doesn’t do much to help me fly Polaris. Instead, I’ve used United or partner airline miles to book each of the several Polaris flights I’ve flown recently. I have United Silver status only due to having Marriott Titanium status. It’s nice to have, but I don’t fly United domestically often enough for it to really matter much. I’m not going to pursue it unless re-upping Marriott Titanium status turns out to be easier than expected this year.

Hotel Elite Programs

Hilton

I have Hilton Gold status only because it is an Amex Platinum perk. That’s right, I don’t have the Hilton Aspire card (which offers free Diamond status) even though I’ve consistently said that it’s a no-brainer. This may be the year that changes. In the past I’ve been hampered by Amex’s 5 credit card limit.

Now that I’m done spending my way to Delta status, though, I can easily drop one of my Delta cards and go for a Hilton card.

Hyatt

In 2023, I once again earned top tier Hyatt Globalist status and plan to go for the 60 required nights again this year. I expect I’ll again stay often at Hyatt and SLH properties. Additionally, the World of Hyatt credit card gives me 5 nights automatically plus 2 nights for every $5K of spend. Plus, I think I’ll gamble on buying some Mr & Mrs Smith gift cards in order to earn more elite nights.

IHG

I have IHG Diamond status for 2024, but only because I renewed my Ambassador status before that trick for extending Diamond status ended. This year, the question is whether I should re-up my Diamond status through $40K spend on my IHG Premier Business card. It’s not the most rewarding way to spend $40,000 but it’s not too bad. See: Are the IHG Premier cards worth our big spend?

While I haven’t stayed at many IHG hotels since getting Diamond status, I’ve certainly enjoyed getting free breakfasts during my handful of stays, especially at the Kimpton Fitzroy London.

Now that I’m done manufacturing spend towards Delta elite status, I may just send some spend towards IHG…

Marriott

I have lifetime Platinum status with Marriott, so I have little reason to do anything to pursue status further. And, I wasn’t planning to go for 75 night Titanium status in 2023 for the 2024 elite year, but here I am anyway. Two things made it easy: 1) I was one of the lucky ones who were accidentally given 55 elite nights at the beginning of the year (see this post for details); and 2) I took advantage of Marriott’s short term and very generous Homes & Villas promo: I booked three 4 night stays for around $200 each and earned over 120,000 points plus 12 elite nights.

This year will likely be very different. Chances are that Marriott won’t repeat the 55 elite night mistake, nor will they repeat the Homes & Villas deal with no minimum spend requirement. As a result, I think that this year I’ll stick with Platinum status alone unless I just happen to spend many more nights than usual at Marriott properties.

Other Elite Programs

Bilt

Bilt kicked off 2024 with an incredible Rent Day promo: 75%-150% transfer bonuses to Flying Blue, Virgin & IHG. Those with top-tier Platinum status get the full 150% transfer bonus. Since I had earned Platinum status in 2023, I had over 100K Bilt points and was able to turn them into over 250,000 Air France / KLM Flying Blue miles! While there’s no guarantee that Bilt will keep doing amazing promos like this one, it seems very likely they’ll continue. As a result, I’m eager to keep Platinum status beyond this year.

Sadly, starting in 2024, Bilt doubled the number of points you have to earn each year to get and keep Platinum status. Ironically, that doesn’t change my plans for keeping Platinum status. Even before the announcement, my plan was to spend around $4K on my Bilt card on the first of each month. Since they double points every Rent Day, I’ll earn 2x when I pay estimated taxes, Kiva loans, everyday bills, etc. My original plan, then was to spend $50K in order to earn 100K Bilt points and Platinum status (100K points was the old threshold). Now, I’d need to earn 200K points, but there’s another way to earn status: $50K spend will get me to Platinum status too. So, again, I don’t need to change my plans in any way to earn Platinum status again in 2024 for the 2025 year.

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