What we are seeing here is that, for those who do not care about the next Medallion level, there is effectively a penalty for flying more. So people will cut back on Delta flying to avoid passing the threshold.

Seeing how people are intentionally avoiding passing the threshold to carry over up to 49,999 MQMs, DL could be "generous" and gift the remaining MQMs to push the member to Diamond. If that were to happen, would there be a way to refuse such a gift?