One interesting benefit of the Black card is the fact that you start off the year with your Gold level status on DL, US, TW and CO, so from day one you are earning double miles. If you would never have reached 50k miles and qualified you're buying the perks of Gold level without the flying commitment. But if you're a heavy traveller on those lines, you're getting up to an extra 50k miles on each - at least in your first year of Gold qualification on each line, since you'll start off the year earning double miles and not have to wait until you hit 50k to start earning double miles. Has anyone tried to quanitfy the value to those extra miles?