Delta SkyMiles Elite Status (MQDs) With Credit Card Spending: Worth It?

It’s a waste of dedicated spend for most frequent DL flyers to use a DL credit card to run up spend. Instead spend on cards for big sign-up bonuses that provide cash back or transferable points and on such cards instead of the airline cards and use the savings/returns to buy what you want when you want instead of counting upon elite status counting for much.

I have top tier elite status in each of the big airline alliances, and the status is worth way less nowadays than it was ten and twenty years ago. In other words, be careful about not overpaying for devalued airline program status.

Chasing Delta and BA status nowadays is a form of financial illiteracy for most frequent flyers, one that the airlines want to exploit more extremely than even before. Actually, loyalty toward an airline is often just that: a sign of poor financial decision-making capability.

In its simplest form, say that your $280k is on a 2X card, you transfer to Air France with a 25% bonus, and you redeem your Air France points for flights on Delta at the same 1.1 cents per point. 280k * 2 * 1.25 * $0.011 = $7700. The Amex Delta Reserve earns 1.5X above $150k, so the $280k becomes (150k * 1 * $0.011) + ($130k * 1.5 * $0.011) = $3795. If points are used for Delta flights, that's about $4000 in opportunity cost.

You’re also forgetting that most Delta cards come with a $2,500 MQD boost just from having the card.

In the alternative, I'd be using Air France points for Air France flights and my typical redemption is 2.5+ CPP. Which, in the end, translates to an opportunity cost of about $13,700. Or, a person might earmark those points for a redemption on EK, EY, or SG at 4 to 6 CPP. In which case, the opportunity cost is even higher. If a person's tier status objective is upgrades, then just buy the upgrade and capture credit card value elsewhere.

Assuming one can offset the annual fee with the statement credits, the MQD boost from each card would reduce the opportunity cost by roughly 9 percent. Still, my highest and best use of points leaves me with an opportunity cost of over $11,000. As GUWonder suggests, what are you really getting with tier status? And, in my case, for that $11k in opportunity cost. As another reader asked in comments to another article, what benefits come with tier status that you don't get with a premium cabin ticket?

In a little bit less simple form, we'd acknowledge the Delta Reserve spending would generate approximately 350k points. If redeemed, a person would receive $3500 MQD credit. Add in the $2500 MQD boost Jeff notes (above as well as for each card). All of this drives one's opportunity cost down. But, it remains significant. Too much squeeze for too little juice.

This post, while making some decent points, leaves out a lot of important information and nuance

1) As Jeff notes, you earn $2,500 MQD by just holding an Amex Delta card (Reserve or Platinum). And importantly, these stack. So if you have both a personal Delta Platinum and Delta Reserve, you start at $5,000 MQD. If you really want to get crazy you can also hold the business versions of each of these cards, and start at $10,000 MQD for the year, before spending a penny on the cards.

2) Comp upgrades may not be worth really striving for, but people can still get good value out of the GUC at the Diamond level. RUC at the Platinum level are a bit harder to use nowadays. That said, the value of RUC and GUC are really critical when figuring out when to go for status.

3) Almost no one is spending "just for status" on Delta (or any other airline). Most people earn a lot of the way for status via flying. So the oppportunity cost analysis needs to just factor in the the spending you actually do use.

4) Another wrinkle this year is the $75K spend threshold for unlimited SkyClub access. Heavy SkyClub users may find some benefit here

So overall, a lot more just to consider than this opportunity cost analysis, which is incomplete at best

Status gets you the most benefit on economy tickets - which many people have to fly for their work or personal travel. With Gold or above status, if I am flying LGA to DFW or LGA to MIA or something, I get faster priority lines and chances for an upgrade. Most corporate policies don't let you buy premium tickets for those kinds of trips, and you aren't redeeming miles for business travel.

Perhaps the biggest material benefit to status ie earning more redeemable miles for the same ticket, which is almost always ignored here. If I am flying $500 LGA to ORD tickets regularly, I would much rather earn 9x or 11x Skymiles than 5x as a regular member.

@ Jeff -- Good point about the headstart. I've updated the post to reflect that, thanks!

For most people, your points are valid. But, I think the intent of the article was to get people thinking. Perhaps to ask when it would make sense. So, I wouldn't be too critical. And, let us not forget the days when $250k of credit card spending was embedded in one route to Diamond . . . and many readily did it. Lastly, there are some in the hobby who don't fly for business and who aspire to book all travel with points and in premium cabins.

Might have been pointed out already but there is an error in the post:

“ Now, people may have different valuations of points currencies, and that’s fine, as you can adjust the math accordingly. But by my math, the opportunity cost of using a co-branded American Airlines credit card is ~2.3%.”

I think you meant ^ delta credit card

To GUWonder…I have EP status with aa, platinum with delta. I was looking to get gold status with UA, to have all 3 airline alliances covered with mid to high (not top) status. My main goal was getting lounge access in the US, and international, and better customer service. I have a lot of biz spend I put on cards in the 4 major eco systems, so I usually get more than a million points in each eco system yearly. Spending a bit more on some airline cards to assist doesnt hurt me too much in the points game.

you can reach diamond by spending $255,000 you say... Are you crazy?