Delta’s revised SkyMiles plans for 2024 and beyond present an incredible opportunity. With considerable cost and effort through the remainder of this year, my wife has the opportunity to earn 7 years of Delta Diamond status, and lifetime Platinum. This is an opportunity we can’t pass up…
Overview
My wife currently has Delta Diamond Medallion status, but she’s on track to drop down to Platinum status in 2024. She currently has over 600,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQMs) sitting in her Delta account, but that’s not enough to earn Diamond status due to the current $20,000 Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs) requirement. Meanwhile, she is about 150,000 MQMs away from earning 2 Million Miler status.
Now, consider two important things we learned about Delta’s revised SkyMiles program:
- Increased status levels for Million Milers starting in 2024:
- 6M+ from Diamond Medallion to Delta 360°™
- 5M from Platinum Medallion to Delta 360°™
- 4M from Platinum Medallion to Diamond Medallion
- 3M from Gold Medallion to Diamond Medallion
- 2M from Gold Medallion to Platinum Medallion
- 1M from Silver Medallion to Gold Medallion
- Rollover MQMs: Members with MQM Rollover balances over 100,000 can choose to extend their 2024 Medallion Status for 1 year per every 100,000 Rollover MQMs.
The first point, above, means that if my wife gets to 2 Million Miler status, she’ll have Platinum Medallion status for life (or until Delta revises the program again). The second point means that if my wife can get to Diamond status now for the 2024 elite year, she can turn in her rollover MQMs for many years of additional Diamond status.
MQDs vs. Diamond MQD Waiver
There are two options for my wife to earn Diamond status this year. One is to pay enough for flights (which must be flown this year) to get to $20,000 MQDs. That’s a very tall order considering that she only has $2,845 MQDs at the moment. If we were planning much earlier in the year, we might have been able to make it work through creative mileage running (currently there are tricks for earning more MQDs with partner bookings, but those tricks go away next year). As things stand right now, though, we simply don’t have time. We already have trips planned and work to do. It’s not going to happen.
The other option is to put $250,000 spend on Delta Platinum and/or Delta Reserve credit cards in order to earn a Diamond MQD Waiver. She has already put $64,000 of spend on her Delta Reserve card and so she is “only” $186,000 short. She will also earn MQMs along the way to hopefully get her to 2 Million Miler status.
Credit card spend approach
My wife needs to spend an additional $186,000 on Delta Platinum and/or Reserve cards in order to get a Diamond MQD Waiver with $250,000 total spend. She currently has a Delta Reserve Business card with $64K year-to-date spend, and a Delta Platinum consumer card with $0 to-date spend.
- Goal: $250,000 Delta card spend | 2 Million Miler
- Status: $64,000 Delta card spend | 1,847K Lifetime MQMs
Delta Reserve Business Card
If my wife spends $56,000 more on her Delta Reserve Business card, she’ll earn two 15K status boosts for a total of 30,000 additional MQMs.
Status compared to goal after completing the spend described above:
- Goal: $250,000 Delta card spend | 2 Million Miler
- Status: $120,000 Delta card spend | 1,877K Lifetime MQMs
Delta Platinum Consumer Card
If my wife spends $50,000 on her Delta Platinum consumer card, she’ll earn two 10K status boosts for a total of 20,000 more MQMs.
Status compared to goal after completing the cumulative spend described above:
- Goal: $250,000 Delta card spend | 2 Million Miler
- Status: $170,000 Delta card spend | 1,897K Lifetime MQMs
Delta Reserve Consumer Card
If my wife upgrades her Platinum card to the Reserve card, she can then earn four 15K status boosts with $120K spend for a total of 60,000 more MQMs.
Status compared to goal after completing the cumulative spend described above:
- Goal: $250,000 Delta card spend | 2 Million Miler
- Status: $290,000 Delta card spend | 1,957K Lifetime MQMs
Delta Platinum Business Card
My wife could downgrade her Delta Reserve Business card to a Platinum card. She can then earn two 10K status boosts with $50K spend for a total of 20,000 more MQMs.
Status compared to goal after completing the cumulative spend described above:
- Goal: $250,000 Delta card spend | 2 Million Miler
- Status: $340,000 Delta card spend | 1,977K Lifetime MQMs
Adjusting the credit card plan (Part 1)
The plan shown above leads to more credit card spend than is needed for my wife to get to Diamond status, but it still leaves her short of 2 Million Miler status. Another approach is to design her plan to get her almost exactly to $250,000 in spend, and then for me to earn status boosts on my own Delta Reserve card in order to gift her the extra MQMs she needs for 2 Million Miler status.
Here’s a revised approach:
- Wife’s Delta Reserve Business Card: Spend $56K, Get 30K MQMs
- Wife’s Delta Platinum Business Card (downgraded from Reserve): Spend $50K, Get 20K MQMs
- Wife’s Delta Platinum Consumer Card: Spend $50K, Get 20K MQMs
- Wife’s Delta Reserve Consumer Card (upgraded from Platinum): Spend $30K, Get 15K MQMs
Status after my wife’s card spend:
- Starting Status: $64,000 Delta card spend | 1,847K Lifetime MQMs
- Goal: $250,000 Delta card spend | 2 Million Miler
- Status after card spend: $250,000 Delta card spend | 1,932K Lifetime MQMs
Then, I could add $120K spend on my own Delta Reserve card in order to get me closer to the Diamond status waiver and to gift four 15K MQM boosts to gift to her.
- Status after MQM gifts: $250,000 Wife’s Delta card spend + $120K of my card spend | 1,992K Lifetime MQMs
Adjusting the Credit Card plan (Part 2)
It occurs to me that we don’t really have to try hard to get my wife to 2 Million Miler status by the end of this year. Thanks to the ability to extend her Diamond status with rollover MQMs, my wife will have top-tier status for years to come. She will get closer to 2 Million Miler status during that time through regular travel. Starting in 2024, progress towards Million Miler status will be based entirely on miles flown. So, let’s assume she flies at least 15K miles with Delta or Delta partners each year. If she gets at least 5 extra years of Diamond status thanks to MQM rollovers, then if you count 2024 as well, she’ll have 6 years of Diamond status in which she’ll be earning 15,000 miles each year towards 2 million miler status. If we end this year with her being about 90,000 miles short of 2 Million Miler, I feel comfortable assuming that she’ll earn 2 Million Miler status before her Diamond status runs out.
So… let’s take my gifted MQMs off the table altogether. She doesn’t need them. That brings us to this plan:
- Wife’s Delta Reserve Business Card: Spend $56K, Get 30K MQMs
- Wife’s Delta Platinum Business Card (downgraded from Reserve): Spend $50K, Get 20K MQMs
- Wife’s Delta Platinum Consumer Card: Spend $50K, Get 20K MQMs
- Wife’s Delta Reserve Consumer Card (upgraded from Platinum): Spend $30K, Get 15K MQMs
- Starting Status: $64,000 Delta card spend | 1,847K Lifetime MQMs
- Goal: $250,000 Delta card spend | 2 Million Miler
- Status after card spend: $250,000 Delta card spend | 1,932K Lifetime MQMs
Calculating Rollover MQMs
My wife currently has 607,608 MQMs. With the card spend plan outlined above, she’ll earn 85,000 additional MQMs for a total of 692,608 MQMs. Then, when she earns Diamond status, she’ll lose the 125,000 MQMs needed for Diamond status. Her rollover total then will be 567,608 MQMs. That’s enough for 5 years of Diamond extensions! It’s also awfully close to 6 years of Diamond extensions. Hmmmm. Maybe I should gift MQMs to my wife after all. If I gift her 30,000 MQMs from two Delta Reserve status boosts, and if she earns at least 2,392 MQMs through flights by the end of 2023 (and I think that she will do so easily), that will give her one more year of Diamond status! Between the status she earns for 2024 and 6 years of extensions, she’ll have a total of 7 years of Diamond status!
Big Big Spend
The plan now requires the following spend:
- Wife’s Delta Reserve Business Card: Spend $56K, Get 30K MQMs
- Wife’s Delta Platinum Business Card (downgraded from Reserve): Spend $50K, Get 20K MQMs
- Wife’s Delta Platinum Consumer Card: Spend $50K, Get 20K MQMs
- Wife’s Delta Reserve Consumer Card (upgraded from Platinum): Spend $30K, Get 15K MQMs
- My Delta Reserve card: Spend $60K, Get 30K MQMs to gift to my wife (note that we could have her spend this amount instead, but by doing the spend on my Delta Reserve card, I also get closer to a Diamond status waiver)
Total spend required: $246,000
Wow.
We can do this through a combination of organic spend, manufactured spending techniques, and overpaying estimated taxes. How much would it cost to generate $246K in spend? Let’s say that, worst case, we end up paying 3% in fees or lost interest (due to money being tied up) altogether. In that case, the cost for my wife to get 7 years of Diamond status will be 3% of $246K = $7,380.
$7,380 sounds like a lot, but I think it’s a bargain when you consider that she’ll earn 7 years of Diamond status plus a lifetime of Platinum status. Above and beyond the status benefits, consider that we’ll also earn 246,000 redeemable miles with all of that spend. That’s worth a minimum of $2,460 in Delta flights. Plus, and much more significantly, we’ll gain 7 years of valuable Diamond status. In my post, “What is Delta elite status worth?” I conservatively estimated the value of Diamond status at $2,600. So, 7 years of Diamond status is conservatively worth $2,600 x 7 = $18,200. And that’s not considering the value of lifetime Platinum status! After her 7 years of Diamond status she’ll have Platinum status from then on. I conservatively value Platinum status at $900, so if she travels for just 10 more years after her Diamond status runs out, that’s another $9,000 in value.
Bottom Line
My wife has a one-time opportunity to earn Diamond status for seven years by putting a huge amount of spend on Delta cards within a very short period of time. Additionally, this will get her within striking distance of lifetime Platinum status. She’ll never have this opportunity again and so she’s going for it. With my help, of course.
Next I need to evaluate my own Delta status to see what I’ll do. I’m not nearly as close to 2 Million Miler status, nor do I have as many MQMs rolling over. Still, this is the last opportunity ever to use credit card spend to get closer to the next Million Miler level, and it’s my only opportunity to get multiple years of Diamond status with a single big push. I still need to run the numbers, but I’m very tempted to go for it. In fact, a careful reader may have noticed that I didn’t exactly optimize my wife’s plans. She could earn more MQMs with around the same spend by reducing spend on Platinum cards and increasing spend on Reserve cards. But with the plan shown above, I’m preserving the possibility of gifting Sky Miles in the other direction. Maybe I’m the one who will need more MQMs and so I’m reserving the possibility of increasing spend on her Delta Reserve cards to gift MQMs to me. To be continued…
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