Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
I interpreted the statement to say that he earned DM every year by the segment requirement rather than MQMs, but as someone pointed out, only MQMs count for MM status.
Another historical question for PMDL folks: When did it start to become possible to earn MQMs from DL AmEx credit cards and was there a time when simple spend on a CC became status miles without limit? I know on some airline programs, certain old timers earned lots of miles from CCs back in prehistoric times like the 1980s and 1990s
He might *only* have been top tier DL elite via segments, but maybe he also had a bunch of MM miles from PMNW, and others such as Republic and Piedmont that became part of DL at some point.
To the best of my recollection, the DL Amex MQM boost has been in existence since the introduction of MQMs as a separate concept.
Prior to that, miles fell into one of two categories: Base miles and Bonus miles. Only Base miles counted towards status (which is not unlike the MQM concept of today). Miles generated from CC spend *always* fell into the Bonus miles category, at least as long as I have been keeping track of it.
While I've been a medallion member of one tier or another for the last 20 years, I was never a member of the Frequent Flyer program that preceded SkyMiles, so there are a lot of people here with a longer history than mine.