Status From Your Couch: Delta Changes Mean You Can Easily Earn Elite Status Just By Having Their Credit Cards!

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As I wrote earlier today, Delta has partially rolled back its widely panned MQD changes.

As part of that, the airline announced that Delta SkyMiles Reserve, Delta Reserve Business, Delta SkyMiles Platinum, and Delta Platinum Business cardholders will receive an annual MQD Headstart of 2,500 MQDs per card, starting on 2/1/24.

Delta confirmed with DansDeals that you can only earn the MQD headstart once for each card type, so having 2 of the same exact card won’t help to get more MQDs, but you can earn the bonus 4 times annually if you have all 4 eligible card types.

That means Delta has gone from making it very difficult to earn status from their credit cards to making it easier than with any other airline!

If you have 2 of those eligible cards on 2/1/24, you’ll get 5,000 MQDs, good for Silver status through 1/31/26. The annual fee on the Platinum cards is $250, so you would be paying $500 in annual fees for those 5,000 in MQDs. Each of those cards comes with a Global Entry/PreCheck credit, a domestic main cabin round-trip companion certificate upon card renewal, and 1 MQD per $20 spent.

If you have all 4 of those eligible cards on 2/1/24, you’ll get 10,000 MQDs, good for Gold status through 1/31/26. The annual fee on the Platinum cards is $250 and the annual fee on the Reserve cards is $550, so you would be paying $1,600 in annual fees for those 10,000 in MQDs. Each of those Reserve cards comes with a Global Entry/PreCheck credit and a domestic First class, comfort, or main cabin round-trip companion certificate upon card renewal. They also each come with 15 annual lounge visits starting in 2025 (unlimited in 2024), Centurion lounge access, upgrade priority, and 1 MQD per $10 spent.

If you have all 4 cards and want Platinum status, you’d have to earn an additional 5,000 MQDs on flights, spend $50,000 on the Reserve cards, or a combination thereof.

If you have all 4 cards and want Diamond status, you’d have to earn an additional 18,000 MQDs on flights, spend $180,000 on the Reserve cards, or a combination thereof.

You can read about Delta status benefits here.

It’s worth noting that AMEX generally only allows someone to have 5 credit cards, so this strategy would take up most of the available slots. However, cards like the AMEX Business Platinum card, AMEX Business Gold Card, AMEX Consumer Gold, and AMEX Consumer Platinum cards do not count towards that limit of 5 credit cards.

Existing cardholders will receive the headstart within 6-8 weeks of 2/1 annually.

New cardholders and upgrading cardholders will be eligible for the bonus as well, within 6-8 weeks of opening or upgrading their card.

Terms:

• Delta reserves the right to cancel, rescind, or void any MQDs or to cancel or downgrade Medallion Status (based on the adjusted number of MQDs earned) if the Card is cancelled or downgraded to a non-Eligible Card within 60 days after the date that MQDs are deposited or within 60 days after the Eligible Card renewal date.
• If Delta and/or American Express determine that you have engaged in abuse, misuse, or gaming in connection with this MQD Headstart in any way or that you intend to do so, Delta may not credit, Delta may freeze, or Delta may take away MQDs from your account or terminate your participation in the SkyMiles Program.
• Regardless of the number of Eligible Cards a SkyMiles Member may hold, each SkyMiles Member may only receive one 2,500 MQD deposit per Eligible Card type each Medallion Qualification Year.
• Card Members who downgrade from an Eligible Reserve or Reserve Business Card to an Eligible Platinum or Platinum Business Card will not be awarded an additional 2,500 MQD deposit for the Platinum or Platinum Business Card.

Will you signup for more Delta cards to earn elite status?