Originally Posted by MSPeconomist

Are you certain your one way flight to Germany is over 6K miles? Without knowing your routing, I would have guessed closer to 5K unless your fare class is M or higher. Before planning any further travel for late December, you should verify exactly what the milage will be and then look for relatively cheap ways to earn the needed miles. Will you be based in (and traveling from) Texas or Germany then?

Unless AMEX processes the approval very quickly, I wouldn't count on the MQM from a card posting for 2009. Remember, you must first get the new card and then use it before getting any miles, and they usually also wait to be sure that you haven't returned the items purchases or have really paid for them.