Originally Posted by MSPeconomist

When you're comparing AA and DL for travel after your move, you might want to consider changing some patterns in order to earn status on DL. The big question would be how much of the $240,000 spend you want to move away from the AmEx Plat charge card (which IMO you should keep regardless of your other decisions).

If you get a Plat Delta AmEx credit card (annual fee probably around $200), you get a free checked bag with DL. If you spend $25,000 on it, you earn 10,000 MQMs in. a normal year (+25% this year) and get a waiver for the DL spend requirement for the FO/GM/PM elite tiers. Another $25,000 spend on the card gets you an additional 10,000 MQMs. The waiver works if the $25,000 spend is divided between DL Plat and Reserve cards (personal and business) in your name and linked to your DL FF account. [Some participants in the DL forum claim to have all four cards, although AmEx tends to disapprove of churning, etc. so I would advise someone to be careful about this.]

If instead you get the Delta AmEx Reserve (credit) card (annual fee about $600), you get 15,000 MQMs for $30,000 spend in a normal year (+25% now), up to $120,000 spend or 60,000 MQMs on a Reserve card. Your $240,000 spend divided equally between a personal Reserve card and a business Reserve card would get you 120,000 MQMs in a normal year, just 5,000 short of DM, although the DM MQD waiver requirement is $250,000 spend, so you wouldn't quite be there.

With minimal effort you could maintain DL PM and AA Plat or PlatPro (or some other combinations, depending on how much spend you want to keep on the regular AmEx Plat charge card), although doing so qould require additional annual fees. Remember too that DL MQMs rollover: *all* of them this year and the number you have over the requirement for your earned status tier, assuming that you earn at least FO (Silver or 25,000 status miles per year) in a normal year.