My elite plans for 2024 (On my mind)

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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…

Alila Ventana Big Sur Villa Window Seat with Greg
Here I am enjoying my suite upgrade at Hyatt’s Alila Ventana Big Sur thanks to my Hyatt Globalist status.

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

a person holding a sign next to an airplane

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

a man sitting in a chair with credit cards flying in the air

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

a group of people getting off a helicopter

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

a man sitting in a chair

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

a pair of glasses on a counter

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.

Amex card limits: If you apply for a new Amex credit card, you may get turned down if you already have 5 or more Amex credit cards; or 10 or more "Pay over Time" (AKA charge) cards. Both personal and business cards are counted together towards these limits. Authorized user cards are not counted.  The Amex Green Card is weird.  It is technically a Pay over Time card, and it is treated that way when applying for the Green Card, but if you already have the Green Card, it is treated as a credit card towards your credit card limit. See also: Which Amex Cards are Charge Cards vs. Credit Cards?

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

a person's feet on a couch with a flag from a balcony

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

food on a plate
IHG Diamond status includes guaranteed free breakfast

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

a hand holding a phoneI 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

a red cell phone with a white label on the screen

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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Chris

As a Delta Diamond with the Alaska credit card I’m also waiting for Alaska to bump me up to MVP Gold 100K. I have Alaska flights next week and I’m disappointed this has not happened yet. Anyone showing 100k yet who did this match?

Chris

I have an update on this. Alaska Airlines via Twitter support said “The status match is a once in a lifetime promotion. I see you received a status match in 2017. You did receive the promotion, which gave you status until 2/18/2024.”. So although I am a Delta Diamond in 2024 and have an Alaska credit card and applied for the status match on their dedicated Delta offer page, I only received a match to 75k for 90 days.

Chris

Interestingly I did receive an email from Alaska last year that specifically said “Welcome to your new status! You’ve got until February 18, 2024 to enjoy the sweet benefits of being MVP Gold 75K. You have two options to extend your status and keep the perks coming through 2024:
 
1-Apply and get approved for an Alaska Airlines Visa® card by December 31, 2023. When you do, we’ll also bump you up a tier.
 
2-Fly 20,000 miles between now and February 18, 2024.

Chris

FYI, I was finally bumped up to 100K and extended to 12/31/24 :).

Grant

Any plans with elite status for any international airline programs?

firstglobal

Greg, can you confirm that Diamond status with $40k spend is still a benefit of the IHG Premier cards? I’d like to do that in 2024 as well, but no longer see any description of that benefit on Chase’s site.

firstglobal

Nevermind, I don’t see it anywhere in the language without logging in – but when I look at the details for my card and show benefits, it does show up: https://imgur.com/a/scnGoiG

Lee

Delta needs to create tier status incentives for customers to spend in all of its revenue channels — to wit, mimic AA’s Loyalty Points scheme. When Delta released its initial SkyMiles overhaul, spending via its hotel and rental car portal counted towards MQDs. I was ready to move a substantial amount of bookings to Delta’s hotel platform. Poof.

And, looking at the refreshed Citi AA Executive Card, I have absolutely NO incentive to hold (let alone use) the Amex Delta Reserve cards. (United Club cards as well.) Sure, I’ll hold a Delta Gold card for the 15 percent discount. But, having captured the SUBs, hasta la vista, baby.

Stookey

So, no Wyndham Diamond?

Dave Hanson

Congrats, Greg, on successfully grabbing the Delta brass ring!

In my experience, MSing at that level almost always comes a hiccup or two. I hope yours was stress free.

I’m glad to see you’re intrigued by IHG spend. That’s an underrated opportunity, especially if one books other paid IHG stays anyway (which are often richly rewarded, especially when one is a current Diamond).

IHG approaches Hyatt as my most valued top tier hotel status.

Mantis

With such a massive amount of MS on Delta cards , I’m curious if you’ve been able to calculate an overall cost of your MS, both in terms of fees, fraud, gas/mileage, and time? I’d be curious to know how much you are essentially paying for your status.

Amol

Good to see you’re also in Alaska 100K and JetBlue limbo. Funny enough I flew a route today on Delta that JetBlue competes on and actually wanted to fly on JetBlue but their website kept crapping out when I hit purchase. Good thing it didn’t work because I wouldn’t have had my Mosaic 3 status!

DSK

Great post Greg. Too bad you didn’t mention Singapore. My status that I “earned” during the pandemic without flying them rolls off at the end of this month. Goodbye free access to United lounges, * Alliance Gold and access to Lufthansa Senator lounges. Fun while it lasted!

At least the Delta Gold status that I “earned” during the pandemic without flying them was good enough to match to Mosaic Level 2 during 2024, when I have plans for a few JetBlue (and Delta) flights. Hope your Mosaic status ultimately shows up again on JetBlue, since mine actually never disappeared today.

Also LT Plat on AA, LT Titanium (thanks to you) on Marriott, United Silver thanks to Marriott Titanium, Hilton Diamond thanks to Aspire, and Hyatt Globalist thanks in part to the Chase WofH credit card. When I try to explain this to others, their eyes glaze over and they walk away thinking I’m insane.