longing4piedmont

You have done an excellent job of explaining your situation. However, I would claim that if you choose to fly Delta every week that you would indeed get PM. BUT, I understand you may have other issues with Delta that cause you to choose other carriers other than MQMs and PM qualification.

Just for the heck of it, I priced your sample trip, solely on Delta for one week from today, staying 1 day in each spot. Of course, I know that pricing a particular trip on exact days doesn't always make a fair representation. Anyway.

GSO-CHA in K class
CHA-JAN in H class
JAN-GSO in B class
Total fare $939.60 and 5250 MQMs.

Personally, I think that sounds high as hell but if you fly 240 segments and it is concentrated on a single airline (in this case DL) and only have a few that are not LUT then PM will be easy, but it would still take most of those segments.

Having said that, I am not sure I would use Delta if my flying patterns made it that relatively difficult to achieve that status. I know there are a lot of factors that plays into who one chooses as an air carrier and the MQM and upgrade things are only two of those. You may be choosing US and others based upon other factors.