Originally Posted by
yaychemistry
Money spent with the MQM purchase count towards MQD. Although be careful, the MQM purchases are different from the regular "buy miles" program.
Click here to see what your offer is, or if you even qualify:
http://dn.delta.com/skymiles/purchasemqms/landing
Do the math here, if you decide to purchase MQM. Since purchasing MQM actually gives you more MQM, depending which offer you get and how much you buy, you may not need to purchase an F flight for to visit your family.
The MQD for a ticket only count after you fly. So to earn MQD in 2016, you'll have to fly the ticket in 2016. Keep in mind taxes and fees don't count as MQD. So if you spend exactly $600 on a ticket, you'll earn less than 600 MQD.
It's fun having status, isn't it! However, spending $600 to keep Silver sounds awful expensive. I'm only $500 short of Gold myself, and I'm having a hard time justifying that expense.
Think about what you can buy for that $600. How much are you flying next year? How much would that be per trip for a chance at an upgrade? Maybe you're just better off buying F or Comfort+ for your trips next year?
If you're going to fly a lot more next year than this year, maybe it's worth it...
You make a good points, and thanks for clarifying how the MQD's work. Very helpful!
I just went to the Delta link and it says I'm not qualified to access the buy miles offers, for whatever reason I don't know.
It's probably not worth the extra $$ on fights at this point. I'm just a bit frustrated to be within a thousand miles and/or dollars and not keep SM next year. I've been Delta Medallion status of one sort another for most of the 26 years I've had a FF account, but Delta is making it a lot tougher with their new rules. I'm not sure it's worth bothering with any longer. Not just the miles/dollars required, but wasting time trying to understand constantly changing rules, and the ongoing deflation of the value of the miles I've accumulated.