What is Delta elite status worth?

Most airlines offer extra benefits to their most valuable customers. If you fly enough with an airline, you can become “elite”. Of course, not all elites are equal. Most airlines have multiple elite tiers to differentiate their valuable customers from their really valuable customers. And, of course, airlines offer the best perks to their highest tier elites.

Delta does the same. They offer elite status tiers ranging from Silver Medallion status to Diamond Medallion status. Silver status perks are slightly better than those you get from holding a Delta branded credit card. Diamond perks, though, are very nice.

Lets take a look at Delta’s requirements for each elite tier…

What is Delta elite status worth?

Details of how I came up with each of the above valuations can be found later in this post.

Delta Elite Status Requirements

Definitions:

• MQMs: Medallion Qualifying Miles can be roughly thought of as the actual miles flown. It’s important to understand that these are different from redeemable miles which can be used to book award flights. MQMs are only used for earning elite status.
• MQMs are earned on both paid flights with Delta or Delta partners where the flight is credited to your Delta account, and award flights booked through (and flying) Delta.
• MQSs: Medallion Qualifying Segments are the number of segments flown. Unless you fly a very large number of short flights, you are unlikely to earn elite status through MQSs.
• MQDs: Medallion Qualifying Dollars are the sum total of your base-fare spend (e.g. doesn't include taxes) on Delta-marketed flights.

Explanation:

In general, to reach each elite tier, Delta SkyMiles members must earn the stated number of MQMs or MQSs and spend the targeted amount of MQDs. In other words, its not enough to just fly far or often, you also need to spend a lot of money with Delta.

Additional Details:

• Award Tickets: Flights booked with Delta SkyMiles for Delta's own flights earn MQMs, MQSs, and MQDs.  Award tickets earn MQDs at a rate of 1 MQD per 100 SkyMiles redeemed (e.g. 1 cent per SkyMile).
• Partner Flights: Paid flights booked on Delta partners earn MQMs, MQSs, and MQDs as long as the member's Delta SkyMiles number is attached to the ticket.  MQDs are calculated as a percentage of miles flown rather than the amount paid.  Details, by partner, can be found here.
• Rollovers: Most airlines require that you fully re-earn status every calendar year. Delta is mostly that way too, but with one exception: as long as you earn Silver status or higher, any MQMs not used to reach status are rolled over to the next year. For example, if you earn 70,000 MQMs and meet Gold MQD requirements, you’ll earn Gold status (at 50,000 MQMs), and 20,000 MQMs will be rolled over to the next year to give you a jump start towards re-qualifying.
• MQD Waiver: There’s an easy exception to the MQD requirement for Silver, Gold, or Platinum status: Simply spend $25,000 or more with Delta branded credit cards and the MQD requirement goes away.  This feature requires having a Delta Platinum or Delta Reserve card, but the spend can be on other cards (such as Delta Blue or Delta Gold) or mixed across Delta cards.  Delta Platinum and Delta Reserve credit cards offer bonus MQMs for high spend, so it is possible to tackle both requirements (MQMs and MQDs) through spend without setting foot on a plane. Unfortunately, Delta requires $250,000 in credit card spend (across all Delta cards you have) to get a MQD waiver for top tier Diamond status.

Elite Benefits

Delta elite status value details

Reasonable purchase price for each benefit

The value you get from elite status is extremely subjective.  If you get more legroom, what is that worth?  To a very tall person, it’s probably worth a lot, but to a shorter frequent flyer, not as much.  Elite status value is also extremely dependent upon how often you fly.  The more you fly, the more you’ll benefit from elite perks.

My approach to estimating the value of each level of Delta elite status is to start with a valuation for bottom tier Silver status, and then add estimates for the incremental benefit that each higher level adds.  In a previous post, I estimated that someone who flies enough to earn Silver status may value that status at $260.  Most readers thought that I had drastically undervalued aspects of Silver status.  My approach, though, is not to estimate the total value received, but rather, how much would you reasonably pay for these benefits if they were available through subscription.  For example, you may get $600 in value from flights in which you were upgraded to first class, but you probably wouldn’t pay $600 per year just for the chance of being upgraded that often.

Delta Silver Status Value: $225

• Free Upgrades to First Class: $50
  Rationale: While Silver status first class upgrades aren’t common, they’re great when they come through.
• Free Upgrades to Comfort+: $50
  Rationale: For some, the free alcoholic drinks in Comfort+ can be valuable.  If you’re not a drinker, it’s probably worth less than $50.
• Complementary Preferred Seats: $25
  Rationale: I punted on this and simply estimated half the Comfort+ value.  Note that a number of readers in my previous post on this topic thought that I had far undervalued this benefit.
• Waived bag fees: $50
  Rationale: This is the hardest one to estimate. If you already have a Delta Gold, Platinum, or Reserve credit card, then you already get a free checked bag.  How much is a 2nd bag worth?  Probably not much to most frequent flyers.  But the value isn’t zero.  Having Silver status means that you could optionally drop the Delta credit card and still get free checked bags.  That’s worth something. On the other hand, this feature could be quite valuable for those who don’t have a Delta credit card.  You could save a lot of money, especially when traveling with a group (everyone on the itinerary with you, up to 8 guests, gets a free bag).  But it would be wrong to value it more than the $95 annual fee on the Delta Gold credit card since that’s an alternative way to get the same benefit.  So I picked half of $95 and rounded up.
• Hertz 5 Star Elite Status: $20
  Rationale: It’s nice to get free upgrades and access to Hertz’ 5 Star Aisle (pick your own car) when available.
• Earn 7 miles per dollar on paid flights (2X more than no-status): $30
  Rationale: If you spend $1,500 per year on Delta flights (half the amount required for Silver status MQDs), then this benefit is worth an extra 3,000 SkyMiles.  If we very conservatively value each mile at 1 cent, then this works out to a $30 benefit.
• Total: $225

Gut Check: If I had no status, but was about to fly often on Delta, would I pay $225 per year for Silver status?  Yeah, I think that’s reasonable.

Delta Silver Status Value: $225

Delta Gold Status Value: $225 (Silver) + $175 (incremental Gold benefits) = $400

Looking only at the incremental advantages of Gold over Silver:

• Free Upgrades to First Class Beginning 72 Hours Before Departure: $30
  Rationale: This is my subjective incremental valuation given that Gold elites are more likely to get upgraded than Silver elites.
• Free Upgrades to Comfort+ Beginning 72 Hours Before Departure: $30
  Rationale: Gold elites are more likely to find Comfort+ seats available than Silver members (thanks to clearing 72 hours in advance), so this feature is worth a bit more at the Gold level.
• Waived Same Day Confirmed or Standby Change Fees: $50
  Rationale: I love this feature, especially when I’m already booked into first class.  First class same day changes have fewer restrictions and so it’s usually possible to pick your preferred flight of the day even if you paid for the cheapest flight of the day.  See: Leveraging Delta’s Same Day Flight Changes (It’s good to be Gold)
• SkyPriority Boarding: $10
  Rationale: If you have carry-on bags, this can be key to getting on the plane before luggage space fills up.  I didn’t value this higher, though, because most of Delta’s newer retrofits include large luggage bins that reduce the chance of running out of space.
• SkyTeam Lounge Access on International Flights: $25
  Rationale: I valued this pretty low only because many readers may not fly internationally very often.  Additionally, there are many Delta fliers on international flights who would get access to the SkyTeam Lounge anyway: Business class (Delta One) fliers get automatic access. Delta Reserve (and Amex Platinum, but not Delta Platinum) cardholders get free access to the Delta SkyClub when flying Delta.  If the exceptions don’t fit you or your flying patterns, then you may want to value this much higher yourself.
• Earn 8 miles per dollar on paid flights (1X more than Silver): $30
  Rationale: I valued Silver at $30 based on Silver earning 2 miles per dollar more than non-elites, so that would argue for valuing this at only $15 (since the extra earnings are only 1X more).  However, we can also assume that Gold elites fly more often than Silver and so it seems reasonable to assign $30 here.
• Total: $175

Gut Check: If I had Silver status, would I pay $175 to jump to Gold status?  Definitely.  If anything, the valuation should be higher, but I prefer to keep my valuations conservative.

Delta Gold Status Value: $225 (Silver) + $175 (incremental Gold benefits) = $400

Delta Platinum Status Value: $400 (Gold) + $500 (incremental Platinum benefits) = $900

Looking only at the incremental advantages of Platinum over Gold:

• Free Upgrades to First Class Beginning 120 Hours Before Departure: $50
  Rationale: This is my subjective valuation of the incremental chance of getting upgraded as a Platinum elite rather than a Gold elite.
• Free Upgrades to Comfort+ Shortly After Ticketing: $50
  Rationale: Getting the upgrade to Comfort+ immediately after ticketing is a big benefit since it’s then possible to pick your flight based on which one has the best Comfort+ seats available.  Additionally, Comfort+ often gets filled up, so you’ll have much better luck getting into Comfort+ as a Platinum elite than Gold.
• Dedicated Higher Priority Phone Line: $25
  Rationale: I don’t have any way of knowing how much better the Platinum “higher priority” phone line is than the Gold “high priority”. But I guess I’d throw in at least $20 for the promise of better phone service.
• Hertz President’s Circle Elite Status: $25
  Rationale: I have no good way of knowing how much better President’s Circle status is compared to 5 Star status, so this estimate is a complete guess.
• Earn 9 miles per dollar on paid flights (1X more than Gold): $30
  Rationale: Same reasoning as Gold, above.
• Waived award change/cancel fees: $20
  Delta offers free award changes and cancellations to everyone for flights from North America.  Platinum elites, though, get free award changes and cancellations for all awards regardless of the flight departure point. Those who often book award flights that originate outside of North America may see a lot of value in this benefit.  I wouldn’t be willing to pay much, in advance, for this extra capability, but I’d throw in $20.
• Choice Benefits: $300
  Rationale: My favorite Platinum Choice Benefit is the 4 regional upgrade certificates. Now that it’s possible to find upgrades online and apply upgrades to award tickets and companion tickets, these certificates offer solid value (See: Best uses for Delta’s Regional Upgrade Certificates).  Alternatively, 25K bonus miles are worth about $375 in flights thanks to SkyMiles being worth 1.5 cents each for cardholders, so it can make sense to pay $300 for 25K miles.  Also, $300 is a reasonable price to pay for a $400 Delta Vacations voucher.
• Total: $500

Gut Check: If I had Gold status, would I pay $500 to jump to Platinum status?  Yes, that seems reasonable to me.

Delta Platinum Status Value: $400 (Gold) + $500 (incremental Platinum benefits) = $900.

Delta Diamond Status Value: $900 (Platinum) + $1,700  (incremental Diamond benefits) = $2,600.

Looking only at the incremental advantages of Diamond over Platinum:

• Free Upgrades to First Class Beginning 120 Hours Before Departure: $50
  Rationale: This is my subjective valuation of the incremental chance of getting upgraded as a Diamond elite rather than a Platinum elite.
• Free CLEAR Membership: $50
  Rationale: I like having CLEAR since it speeds me through security even when TSA pre-check’s ID verification lines are very long.  I don’t value this higher because CLEAR is available for free for those with an Amex Platinum or Green card.
• Dedicated VIP Phone Line: $40
  Rationale: It’s great to have the phone answered right away when you call.  Plus, they’re often willing to bend the rules for Diamond elites.
• Earn 11 miles per dollar on paid flights (2X more than Platinum): $60
  Rationale: Since the difference between Platinum and Diamond is twice the difference between Gold and Platinum, I valued the incremental value at twice as much.
• Choice Benefits: $1,500
  Rationale: When you reach Diamond status, you can choose three Choice Benefits.  In my opinion, the most valuable choice is the 4 global upgrade certificates that can be applied to any paid fare (when flying Delta or certain partners) or award ticket (when flying Delta marketed flights).  Other valuable choices include: $500 statement credit for those with a Delta Platinum or Reserve card; Gift Gold status to two people, $500 Delta Vacations voucher; and 25,000 SkyMiles.  I would be willing to pay up to $600 per year for the 4 global upgrade certificates (Due to no longer being able to advance confirm upgrades from economy to Delta One, $150 each is way down from a previous valuation of $400 each), and up to $500 to gift Gold status to two people (even though I valued Gold status at $425 above, I didn’t value this at $850 because I’m assuming that there’s less value to gifting Gold to others who may not fly as much as you).  The $500 statement credit is worth face value for anyone with a Delta Platinum or Reserve card.  Those three add up to $1,600.  My gut tells me that $1,600 is just a bit high, so lets bring it down to $1,500 with the idea that it’s worth paying an average of $500 per Diamond Choice Benefit selection.
• Total: $1,700

Gut Check: If I had Platinum status, would I pay $1,700 to jump to Diamond status? Yep.  Now that one of the Choice Benefits is a cool $500 back (for Delta Platinum or Reserve cardholders), I think that Diamond is well worth the extra $1,200 for the extra Diamond benefits plus two more Diamond Choice Benefits such as global upgrade certs, gifting Gold status to two, 25K miles, or the $500 Delta Vacations voucher.

Delta Diamond Status Value: $900 (Platinum) + $1,700 (incremental Diamond benefits) = $2,600.

What is Delta elite status worth: Conclusion

High level Delta elite status can be extremely valuable, but any dollar estimate of the value is highly subjective.  The value you get will depend upon how much the perks are worth to you, how much you could have paid for the benefit outright, and how often you fly Delta.  The more you fly, the more valuable your status will be.

See also: How to earn Delta elite status through credit card spend.

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