Status strategy for a couple
 

Currently we are both GM and both hold Delta Reserve cards. Depending on how we allocate the MQM bonuses, we could maintain 2 gold statuses, or become Platinum/gifted Silver for next year. The award redeposit fee waiver of platinum is appealing. Any other factors to consider? We primarily fly domestic, maybe 1 international flight per year, and usually fly as a couple.

Your upgrade percentage will be much higher as two GM than as PM/FO, if that is something that matters to you.

Another thing to think about is SDC/standby fee for FO. I don't know if this is waived when traveling with a PM companion, but you should check.

IMO, two GM’s are worth more than PM/FO to most people – primarily because of the 100% RDM bonus (but may disappear next year). Definitely a YMMV situation. Check out the Medallion benefits chart and see which works best for you…

https://www.delta.com/content/www/en...-benefits.html

I'm not convinced about the upgrades if you split the PNR.

Having the Reserve card means a free bag and SC access when flying DL, although international partner lounge access would be a loss for the FO, assuming that the international travel is in coach.

Since OP and spouse don't travel a lot, a question is whether it's worth having two Reserve cards and paying almost a thousand dollars in annual fees to get SC access and one PM or two GMs rather than two FOs or two kettles?

Well, we already know it's disappearing -- there is no question. But it is replaced by an additional 1mpc on the revenue based RDMs awarded.
https://www.delta.com/content/www/en...gram.html#earn

My wife and I are both PM's. We find that equal status makes our life easier for many of the previously mentioned reasons.

IMO, GM is much more valuable than FO and I'd recommend that you both stay with GM.

If you can max your DL Reserve at $60K (check out manufactured spend) and get the additional MQM's you might be able to both get to PM which would have much greater value. (The AMEX spend waiver covers the MQD requirement.) Those additional 15k MQM and a 10K MR would do a lot for you. You can invariably do 10K MQM in MR's for under $600. Take advantage of special offers. Do a long weekend Vacation Run. You don't have to do a crazy MR with your BIS for 24+ hours straight.

Rollover can also help.

It is not. Waived fee for SDC/SDS applies only to the actual GM/PM/DM passenger. Companions must still pony up.

Agree that there's a lot to consider, but as a point of clarity, I believe passengers accessing lounges based on STE+ status get to bring one guest along with them, so if the int'l travel is together, that wouldn't be a factor.

Personally, I maintain the highest level of status that I can (which seems to be PM). Mrs. Lee has no status now but may reach FO this year. We find that it doesn't really matter - when she's travelling with me, she gets the day-of benefits that she cares about. When she travels on her own, it's infrequent enough that she just buys whatever amenities she wants (EC, FC, etc.). But, it seems that OP and Mrs. OP travel together more often than not, so the equation will be different for them.

If you book a big trip each year on miles, or multiple little trips I think having PM and the free award redeposit is a huge benefit. It allows you to book sub optimal routing or portions of a trip, and then modify or add on to it later as seats open up. Or I've often booked trips with a mix of Y/J on various segments, and slowly confirmed all segments into F as seats become available.

But if you are both GM currently, it seems like you should be able to bump one person up to PM and the other should be able to make FO without the gifted status. If you can do that, you'd free up the choice benefit and the 4 RUC's might be very useful. You can apply them up to an hour or two before your flight, so if it looks like you won't get upgraded as PM/FO together, you could move up towards the top of the list.

There's no real right answer to this, and it depends on what type of flying you do or what you want out of the program.

Remember that the award ticket change fee waiver only applies to the PM account, not even to the PM traveling on the other person's miles. Some couples manage to have one person travel on paid tickets to get status while the other one uses award tickets from the elite account. Doing this means separate PNRs of course, but otherwise doesn't matter much as you can still board together, sit together in EC, etc.

So, to summarize, the advantage of PM/gifted FO would be the waived change fees on award tix ($150 per ticket).
For 2015 the RDM earnings would be equal if we fly together on the same fares (9+7 vs. 8+8 miles/$).
The advantage of two GM would be waived SDC fee for the FO ($50).
Upgrade priority for PM>GM>FO, so the chance of a single upgrade is higher, and two upgrades would be lower.
Am I missing anything?

Note that the waived change fees on award tickets apply only to tickets booked from the PM (or DM) account. Under this strategy the PM account will earn more miles, but there will also be miles to use in the FO account.

Some couples in this situation would always send the lower status tier passenger on award tickets and always pay money for the higher tier elite's tickets so as to maximize that person's status, but I suspect that in your case, even this extreme strategy wouldn't make one person DM.

With rollover, there might be a way to play it so that one person drops status for only a few months but then comes back up early in the year due to having a lot of rollover and not using award tickets early in the year, but it's much harder to do this now with the MQD requirement (or AmEx waiver, although perhaps putting all expenses on that person's credit card early in the year could help, although at the expense of switching autopays back and forth between different AmEx accounts). You'd probably also need additional authorized user cards for each others' accounts and then to be very careful about which card to use when.

My wife and I live in Atlanta so we can fly direct to just about anywhere. I am currently GM and my wife has no FF status. Should I use my MQMS to get her FO or use them for me to go PM and if I go PM is it worth it to gift her FO or take the upgrade certs? We mostly fly in the Caribbean and CUSA.

IMO, go for PM. I had the same debate on whether to use my benefits to somehow get Mrs. Lee to FO. What I ended up deciding was that if she doesn't fly enough on her own to get FO, she wouldn't be making the most of the benefits. Plus, 80% of the time she flies it's with me, so she gets the bulk of my PM benefits anyway. When she's alone we just buy EC or a checked bag a la carte, and we also BF when we WF if it's reasonable.

The RUCs, miles, or $200 seem to be more value than FO for an occasional traveler that is also usually a companion of an elite. I think this year I'll be taking the RUCs.

[QUOTE=gooselee;23435802]we also BF when we WF if it's reasonable.

/QUOTE]

huh??:confused:

My man gooselee is trying to say that if they Want First they will Buy First. WFBF! :)