Nowadays Delta awards elite status exclusively based on how many Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs) members rack up. In this post, I want to take a look at all the ways you can rack up MQDs with the airline, in order to earn status.
I’m not saying that one should pursue status with Delta SkyMiles, but rather if you are going to, this is how you’d go about it…
Delta Medallion Qualifying Dollars elite status requirements
To start, I should mention that Delta SkyMiles Medallion status is earned based on activity within a calendar year (between January 1 and December 31). If you qualify for status in a particular year, it will be valid for the entire following year, and through the end of January of the year after that.
In other words, if you earn status at any point in 2025, it would be valid through January 31, 2027.
Here are the Medallion Qualifying Dollars requirements for the four published SkyMiles Medallion elite tiers for the 2025 program year (for the purposes of earning status that’s valid throughout 2026):
- Delta Silver Medallion elite status requires 5,000 MQDs
- Delta Gold Medallion elite status requires 10,000 MQDs
- Delta Platinum Medallion elite status requires 15,000 MQDs
- Delta Diamond Medallion elite status requires 28,000 MQDs
Let me emphasize that this is the only metric by which status is awarded nowadays. It doesn’t matter how many miles or segments you fly, as you could even earn elite status without even stepping foot on a plane (though that wouldn’t make much sense).
How to earn Delta Medallion Qualifying Dollars
There are a variety of ways to earn Delta SkyMiles Medallion Qualifying Dollars, including from flying with Delta, from flying with partner airlines, from award flights, from credit card spending, and from booking vacation packages. Let’s go over each of these options.
Earn Delta MQDs for Delta-marketed flights
Delta SkyMiles awards one MQD per dollar spent on the ticket cost of Delta-marketed flights. So this includes all flights that are marketed by Delta, even if they’re on partner airlines (in other words, you’re booking your ticket through Delta).
Government taxes and fees wouldn’t earn MQDs, while carrier imposed surcharges (often referred to as fuel surcharges) would earn MQDs. The only exception is that basic economy tickets don’t count toward elite status.
This is pretty straightforward, as a $100 ticket (before taxes and fees) would earn you 100 MQDs, while a $10,000 ticket (before taxes and fees) would earn you 10,000 MQDs. Delta’s website will list how many MQDs a particular itinerary earns when you go to book.
Earn Delta MQDs for partner-marketed flights
Delta SkyMiles also awards MQDs for partner-marketed flights. This would include flights booked through other airlines, so that would be partner flights that aren’t marketed by Delta. For these tickets, you earn MQDs as a percentage of the distance flown, based on your fare class.
Delta’s airline partners page has all the details. For example, say you’re flying Korean Air roundtrip between New York and Seoul Incheon on a discounted business class ticket. That journey covers a distance of 13,811 miles.
As you can see below, while you’d earn redeemable mile equal to 200% of the distance flown, you’d earn MQDs equal to 30% of the distance flown. In other words, that ticket would earn you 4,143 MQDs (13,811×0.3).
Note that in some cases this presents a great arbitrage opportunity. For SkyTeam airlines that have cheap premium cabin fares, you may often find that you rack up MQDs at a much faster pace than you’d expect based on the revenue, compared to being on a Delta-marketed itinerary.
Earn Delta MQDs on award tickets
Delta SkyMiles is unique in that it awards MQDs for award tickets. If you redeem Delta SkyMiles for an award ticket and have your SkyMiles number on the reservation as the traveler, you’ll earn one MQD for every 100 SkyMiles redeemed.
In other words, for the purposes of elite credit, each mile is valued at one cent. This means that if you redeem 100,000 miles for an award ticket, you’d earn 1,000 MQDs. Note that much like with revenue tickets, basic economy awards don’t earn MQDs.
Earn Delta MQDs on credit card spending
Delta SkyMiles also awards MQDs with select co-branded credit cards:
- The Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card (review) and Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card (review) earn one MQD for every $20 spent
- The Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card (review) and Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card (review) earn one MQD for every $10 spent
- On top of that, for each of the above cards you have, you get an annual headstart of 2,500 MQDs toward earning status
There’s no limit to how many MQDs you can earn with these cards. Obviously there’s a significant advantage to using the Delta Reserve Card rather than the Delta Platinum Card, since the earnings rates toward status are double as good.
Earn Delta MQDs for vacation packages
Delta SkyMiles also awards MQDs when booking a vacation package through Delta Vacations. You earn one MQD per dollar spent on your vacation, before taxes and fees. However, there’s a bit of nuance to this.
The individual passengers will earn MQDs for the flight portion of the package, based on the “exception fares” chart, which essentially awards miles as a percentage of the distance flown based on the fare class (since these are like consolidator fares).
Then the primary passenger also receives MQDs for the entire non-flight portion of the package, such as hotels, rides, cars, and activities. The MQDs earned for the non-flight portion equals the difference between the total package price and the combined MQDs awarded to all passengers for the flight portion.
Bottom line
Nowadays Delta uses the simple metric of MQDs when it comes to awarding status. There are several ways to earn MQDs, including for travel on Delta and its partner airlines, for award flights, for credit card spending, and for booking Delta Vacations packages.
Ultimately many members take a hybrid approach when it comes to earning status, with a combination of revenue flying, award flights, credit card spending, and more. Status can be tough to earn, though frankly I think benefits are somewhat limited, perhaps aside from the Choice Benefits that Platinum and Diamond members can unlock.
What has your experience been with earning Delta MQDs?
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