markcrobinson1955

I've reached Platinum status by spending on my Delta Amex Skymiles Reserve.
Spending 120k has given me the 75k MQM's I need and 25k for the MQD Waiver.

I can get a Diamond MQD waiver by reaching the 250k threshold, but unless I'm missing something, there is no way to reach diamond without flying to get the necessary MQM's.
If that's the case, I want to stop trying and put the charges on my regular Amex.

My question is, are there other ways to Earn 50k MQM's other than flying once I exhausted the 4 MQM's bonuses on the card?
Can I get to Diamond without extensive flying?

Thanks for your help!

WasKnown

With $340K in spend, you can earn up to 160K MQMs every year. There are MQM caps on individual cards but no overall caps across all cards (AFAIK). So in addition to your Delta Reserve, you can earn more MQMs on the Delta Platinum, Delta Platinum Business, and Delta Reserve Business.

Delta Plat/Plat Biz: 10K MQM per $25K spend (total 20K MQMs per card per year)
Delta Reserve/Reserve Biz: 15K MQM per $30K spend (60K MQM per card per year)

I think COVID has elevated the MQM earnings on the cards too. Looks like Delta Reserve caps out at 75K MQM per card per year now. So after you get the Diamond MQD waiver on the first Delta Reserve, you're at 75K MQMs for the year. For the remaining 50K, your best bet is to get a Delta Reserve Biz. Then put $90K new spend on the Delta Reserve Biz for 56,250 MQMs (Reserve is covid elevated to 18,750 MQMs per $30K). You could also open both the Delta Plat and Plat Biz and put $50K spend each on them ($100K total). That would get you 50K MQMs exactly (again with the covid boost) but for a higher spend requirement. Maybe the earning structure works out better? You would need to build this out in excel with your projected spending to optimize.

Make sure it's worth it for you though. That's $340K in spend for Delta Diamond which, at the very least, has an opportunity cost of $15K. If you're chasing SUBs, the opportunity cost is probably closer to $40K. At that level of spend, it may better to just optimize and pay for things directly.

markcrobinson1955

GREAT Information.
Thank you.
The biz card seems like the way to go.
My business runs about 200k/mo through an Amex Gold card-- the first few 100k goes to the double and triple points programs.
I think I need to learn more about "opportunity cost."
The purpose of the miles is so I can travel internationally first class. I typically transfer the Amex miles to Asia Miles (1 to 1) and fly to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific for 85k miles for business ($5,000) or 125k for first ($12,000). That's about $0.10 /mile.
Also JFK to Istanbul business on Turkish Airlines through Air Canada for 92k miles ($8,700) about $.09 /mile.
Is there a better way to do things?

Also, you said
" If you're chasing SUBs, the opportunity cost is probably closer to $40K."
Can you elaborate?
What's a SUB? What's AFAIK?

Thanks again for the response!

WasKnown

Hi Mark. No problem. SUB = sign-up bonus (the welcome offer you get from the card). AFAIK = As far as I know. Opportunity cost = what you could be earning from your card otherwise.

Would you like to roughly break down your general spending categories? For 200K monthly business spend, chasing SUBs is very difficult. I don't recommend it. However, there are definitely ways to optimize your business spend for the long-run. We have a business with credit card spend also in the 7 digits annually (though not as predictable on a month-to-month basis). Happy to discuss via private message, if you would like. There are many resources online for business owners here.

markcrobinson1955

I put my email address in a PM.
As far as categories, my first 100k spend on shipping gets 3X miles and 100k on Advertising (Google Adwords, mostly) gets 2X miles. This is on a Gold business Amex.

Capital One tried to get me away from Amex by promising me unlimited 2% cashback. Is that what you mean by "opportunity cost?"

WasKnown

Apologies, PMs are weird on mobile. I’ll send you an email when I’m at a computer. Opportunity cost is what you could be earning otherwise. The Chase Ink system sounds great for you but UR may not have transfer partners that work for you.

krazykanuck

I'm curious why you'd bother chasing DM via spend if you seem uninterested in actually flying on Delta. As WasKnown alludes to, that's a ton of spend that you'd need to redirect to sub-optimal earnings just to earn a status level that it doesn't seem like you'd get much out of.

markcrobinson1955

Thanks, kk -- I do fly on delta when travel in the US, when I go where they're going. Especially coast to coast on Delta One. Haven't explored delta international yet because I typically go to Hong Kong. Will be doing some European travel when this nonsense is over. IF! As long as I get there on business or first class, I don't care what airline I use.

"...suboptimal earnings..."
This is where I'm a newbie. Ready to learn.
Why would they be sub-optimal? The only other option I've seen is 2% cash back. What would be optimal?

markcrobinson1955

In An earlier thread you said

For 200K monthly business spend, chasing SUBs is very difficult

Can you elaborate? How much do I need too spend?

WasKnown

You have enough spend to hit it, it would just take a very long time for you to manage the cards. Maybe it's fun for you. If it's not, I don't think it's worth the time. The best business SUBs require about 10K-20K spend and award 100K-150K miles/points. With 200K spend a month (assuming subs are at 15K spend and award 125K points), you could feasibly hit 13 subs every month.

That's about 1,625,000 points every month. Doing this, however, would require at least 5-6 "players" (people who will let you apply for CCs on their behalf). I did this for a month on our business and gave up mostly due to the people in our accounting dept that told me this was not tenable. I'll send you an email right now.

jags86

With $200k/mo spend, unless your flying multiple monthly international first class awards, or book flights for employees with awards, I have a hard time believing you are going to be able to spend the points you’re earning. Additionally, if you’re flying First or Business class you’re getting most of the benefits of having top tier status so it makes little sense to make suboptimal spend towards those goals.

Since you already have a Business Gold, I’m guessing you can max out your $150k 4x limit. That’s 600k pts/yr. For the rest of your spend, if you want to stick with MR and you generally have large purchases, a Business Platinum earns 1.5x on all purchases over $5000 (up to 1 million bonus points/$2 million spend). So if you do $150k on 4x purchases, and $2.25mm on $5000+ purchases that gets you 3,850,000 MR every year. I would do an analysis on whether or not you can actually spend that many points. If not, you should look into a business card like Capital One Spark Cash where you can get 2% cashback in order to supplement your MR earning. There’s little point in having 1,000,000s of MR if you can never spend them.

WasKnown

If I were OP, I would shift the first $150K of my shipping and advertising spend onto the Ink Business Preferred. That's 450K UR a year. There are ways to cash this out into your bank through PYB but that's getting into some pretty sketchy stuff that isn't worth the scrutiny IMO.

There's also data points for people getting approved for multiple Biz Gold/Ink Preferred cards for the same business. Even cashed out, the difference between 4.4 cents per dollar and 2 cents per dollar would make it worth trying to chase categories IMO.

But 2% uncapped is definitely pretty awesome and probably the simplest path (vs. something like 2.25 cents uncapped with a CIP+ CSR with weird PYB cashout).

WasKnown

Also, another aspect of the 2% cashback method is the nuance of OP being a business owner that is rebating business spend for personal use. I have consulted many CPAs on this and discussed this in many threads. I genuinely think the best path for business rebates is to earn flexible points currencies. Even cashing those out could be considered an owner draw which would be a taxable event.