Upgrading to DL Reserve AMEX, effect on MQM boosts/certificate timing etc
 

Say it's June 1st (to pick a date) and I've $23,000 spent on my DL Platinum Amex since Jan 1st, and I upgrade to the Reserve card.

For the purpose of earning MQMs, will the spend count reset to $0 and I will have to spend $30,000 starting on June 2nd and before Dec 31st to get the 15,000 MQMs? Or just $7,000?

When I upgraded from the gold to platinum a few years ago mid-year the spending counted towards the $25K. I had to have the card for a year before they would upgrade it and was told by the am ex rep to keep the spend below I believe $20K. I remember there was a RDM bonus and I thought it was after $20K. Whatever it was the rep told me to keep my total spend below it and it would count towards the $25k on the Platinum and if a bonus was issued that spend wouldn't carry over. It is probably the same with upgrading from the Plat to the reserve.


I am wonder what happens if someone has $50K in spend on their Platinum card for the year and received the 20K MQMs and upgrades. If they put another $60K on the reserve after upgrading it will they receive another 30K MQMs?

You are correct, it resets and you must spend thirty thousand ADDITIONAL dollars.

With regard to earning multiple bonuses, it seems much less clear. Some people report being able to spend 25k on the platinum, earning MQM boost, upgrade to reserve, spend 30k, and then earn the full reserve MQM boost in addition. Others report only earning the difference for the second boost. It may depend whether you earned just one or both of the boosts on the platinum card... I have no personal experience so I couldn't say for sure.

Similar to responses above...

I am in a similar predicament in that I have a Gold Delta Amex and I am spending on it to hit 25K to avoid the MQD requirement. I am looking to upgrade to a Platinum Delta Amex, but I am waiting and calling every month for a good upgrade bonus offer - in January, they offered 15k skymiles and 5k MQM's, this month, Febuary, they aren't offering me anything. Ill call again in March.

But of course I asked the major question, if I were to spend 20k on the Gold, and then I upgrade, I would only need to spend another 5k to get the Bonus MQM's b/c Amex keeps track of your spending starting Jan 1st every year.

Don't wait too long. Signing up before May 1 will be the old $150 annual fee. On May 1 that goes up to $195.

I was told the exact opposite last night when I called about upgrading Platinum to Reserve: the spend tracking for MQMs resets to zero with the upgrade. This matches what another poster said yesterday.

So back to my example: if I spend $23K year-to-date on the Platinum, then upgrade to Reserve, I'd have to spend an additional $30K to reach the first Reserve MQM boost threshold. In other words, $53K spend.

That is the opposite of my experience but I upgraded from plat to reserve like 2 years ago. My spending carried over and only had to spend an additional 7k to get to the 30k

I upgraded from the gold to Platinum a couple years ago.

They carried over my spend but I was told by the am ex rep to keep the spend to I believe under $20K or it wouldn't. There was an RDM spend at $20K of spend and I was told that if a bonus was received from the gold card the spending wouldn't carry over. This was in the days of the mint, so I made sure to keep it just under that and it was very easy to get the $5,100 additional spend in thanks to the mint in a couple days:)

In order to upgrade the card you have to have it 12 or 13 months due to the credit card reform laws, so you won't be able to do an upgrade if you have had the gold card less than a year

I'm upgrading tomorrow. My Feb statement ends today and I have between $25-30k for this year. So my spending will reset but since I already hit $25k I'll be good to go--I'll have the Plat 10k bonus and then I'll move on to the Reserve bonus.

I just hope it doesn't reset my MQD waiver. I will be '15 Plat this week.

If you're above $25k but below $30k, I would upgrade to the Reserve and I believe you would get the 15k MQM/RDM bonus at $30k. I upgraded from Platinum to Reserve a few months ago, my counter did not reset, I had spent just under $25k at the time and I got a bonus at $30k. Of course, maybe you're not too worried about having to spend more money if you're hitting $15k/month anyway, but there's other cards out there with threshold bonuses too ...

I did the same. When I realized I would spend above 30K last year, I called and upgraded Plat to Reserve at around 24k. Therefore did not get the 25k threshold from Plat but got the 30k threshold from Reserve. There is no reset if you upgrade before hitting your threshold.

I am a fossil with a green card and the basic Amex SkyMiles card. I have close to 10K spend this year. Do I lose that if I upgrade to DL Plat or Reserve cards?

Not sure what you mean exactly by 'basic AMEX SkyMiles card' (basic now is the Gold card, but I think some folks may have a grandfathered in more basic card?), but based on anecdotal evidence here on FT your spending on your AMEX card would count towards the threshold, but not the spending on your Green Card.

FWIW, in 2012, I had this issue in 2012. I had the DL Plat. I spent $25k, got the boost. Got up to $50k (still on Plat) and got second boost. Then, I switched to the Reserve card (somewhere around $60-65k in spend), crossed the $80k threshold in Dec. and got a boost.

So, in my experience, the spend does NOT reset. Anything not applied to a boost counts toward a boost at whatever threshold applies with your current card.

We should be clear about the distinction between the family of DL AmEx credit cards and all other AmEx credit and charge card products, including other affiliate cards (SPG, Mercedes, etc.). Only the DL branded AmEx cards count toward the MQD waiver, but what is required is a total of $25,000 qualified spend during the your added over all of the DL AmEx cards that are associated with your DL FF account. The rules clearly say that the entire $25,000 is not required to be charged to a single card.

I think the OP is grandfathered into one of the lower annual fee DL AmEx cards not the old basic green unaffiliated AmEx charge card.