Originally Posted by
wringme
This is the approach I am taking. I have been a Diamond as long as the program has existed. I currently have 6.3MM miles and 200,000 MQM's awaiting my MQD's for 2022. Thus far, it looks as though my company will not approve International travel until late fall. I inquired today with Delta as to what they are going to do about my shortfall (it is ridiculous to try and attain 15,000 without the International J fares). I was given no information other than the fact that dollars spent may have a 'kicker' employed to the flights you take. My problem is that although I have had several personal flights domestically, I will not achieve anywhere near the 15,000 required. I am waiting for Delta to react but they are likely going to wait until late in the year since most, will anxiously try to find their way until the allowance is announced. They have to do this or the upgrades will soon be coming to the Platinum's of the world.
The key to meeting the MQD requirement is easy if you have a hoard of RDMs that you don't care about. Carefully read the Accelerator rules and you'll see that if you did no other travel, you could get $15,000 MQDs by flying Domestic Award tickets, booked in C+, F or D1, with a total spend of 860,000 RDMs. Divide 860,000 by 100 to get the Base MQDs and multiply by 1.75 which factors in the 75% bonus for c+, F, or D1 and the result is 15,050. That's how many MQDs you'll get and that will requalify you as DM.
Change your thinking! Don't look for cheap tickets. Be as extravagant as you can. The more ridiculously priced the trip is and the shorter it is, the better it is for you. I did a 12.5 hour trip MSY-ATL-JFK-DTW-MSY in F for 114,000 RDMs. Outrageous cost? Of course - but $1,996 MQD and 8379 MQM and Out of Pocket $ cost = $0. You could probably do it in 3 -4 days of Domestic MR's.
I don't know about you but I almost never use RDMs. I'm always fighting to get to the $15K MQD to requalify as a DM.