I don’t know how some of you log so many MQMs with so little spend.

This year I have 74 segments and 56,023 MQMs flown (112,966 with rollover and AMEX 15,000) but I have spent $19,800 in MQDs. I will end the year with $25,000 in MQDs and will hit DM again but my rollover won’t be as heavy, making qualifying next year a tall task.

I continue to believe that status should be more heavily heavily weighted on spend, rather than just the distance flown.

It means that there is an imbalance with the relative ease of earning MQMs to MQDs. As several have demonstrated, if you fly internationally you can get a higher multiple of MQMs for each MQD, disproportionately so compared to domestic travel.

If you live in Atlanta and fly frequently domestically then it is very difficult, absent going to the West Coast weekly to rack up MQMs. So my spend is pretty damn high but my MQMs don’t reflect that, which means I have a very low multiplier on my MQDs, whereas others can spend less and travel not as frequent but because of the distance they travel they accumulate a very high number of MQMs.

my multiplier is maybe 2.7x MQMs for MQDs. I’d wager that is on the low end for DM, but my MQDs are on the high end.

I live in Atlanta so 50% of the population of the US is within a 2-2.5 hour flight from here, which means the highest mileage flight in that geographic area is about 700-800 MQMs per segment. We also have options other than Delta here with AA and now Southwest that provide lower cost, albeit fewer, direct flights to more cities. However, select cities like Nashville have Delta as the only direct flight and boy do you get charged for it $700-$900 RT, on average.

Anyway, yes, I get I’m whining in my favor but given my 1) frequency of travel (trips, not segments because I’m not forced to connect 99% of the time) and 2) my spending, it would be great to not get to DM by the skin of my teeth.

I guess it’s how you define your most valuable customers and what you really want to do with your rewards program.

WN does do ATL-BNA nonstop too. But DL knows anyone flying just ATL-BNA is someone who really values their time highly as the time savings of flying ATL-BNA over driving it (as O&D, not for those continuing onward or connecting at ATL) is not that much. You can drive between Nashville and Atlanta in about 4 hours. Flying ATL-BNA as an O&D pair isn't much of a time savings. 20-30 minutes to get from downtown to ATL to drop off at the curb. Even if you get there only 1 hour before the flight, that's already 90 minutes or so. Then a 1 hour hop (with no delays). Estimate another 20-30 min to get from the plane to a cab or your ride to your destination in Nashville (and that assumes not waiting at bag claim and also not spending the time time to get a rental car) - you haven't saved much time. So if your time is valuable enough that you're willing to fly to save at most 1 hour, your one hour of time must be pretty valuable to you or somebody else. No reason for a business not to capitalize on that valuation of your time and DL doesn't need to entice you or reward you for that. They've already received your business by providing what you value most.

Always mileage runs as an option. While I get that some people don't want to spend more time traveling when they already travel that much, it's an option. Take a cheap trip to get the MQMs needed and make a mini-vacation out of it.

If DL went to straight MQDs, I bet you'd have a lot of people who are hub captives who don't fly that often who would all of the sudden qualify for status (unless DL really changed the qualification thresholds), thus enlarging the pool of Medallions. Anyone who flies to Europe on one J ticket or even just one or two domestic transcons in F would be FO after one trip (you already can do this if you do a J trip to Australia or South Africa - you can easily qualify for FO in MQMs and MQDs off one J trip to Australia from ATL or to JNB especially if you route via Europe to JNB - but if just MQDs anyone who did a high value J ticket to F or Europe or Australia or Asia would be GM after one trip). However, this move would alienate customers they currently have to compete for in in markets with lots of competition in favor of customers they don't have to compete as hard for, like in ATL. While I get that it can be frustrating for hub captives like folks in ATL or MSP or DTW, from DL's business perspective, it makes sense.

take this example. Two flyers who live in the same city and fly Delta.

Flyer 1:
23 round trips to San Francisco (46 MQS)
4,268 MQMs RT x 23 = 98,164 MQMs
$655 MQD per ticket (what I just paid) x 23 = $15,000 MQDs (6.54x MQM/MQD)
30,000 AMEX MQM
MQMs + MQDs = Diamond

Flyer 2:
37 round trips domestically to various major MSAs (74 MQS)
1,543 MQM RT x 37 = 56,943 MQMs
$537 MQD per ticket x 37 = $19,871 MQDs (2.87x MQM/MQD)
30,000 AMEX MQM
MQM + MQD = Platinum

so flyer 2 flies more frequently and spends more money but because of the destination they don’t accumulate enough MQMs to hit DM.

So does Flyer 1 have a higher multiplier because a $655 4,200 mile round trip flight is more profitable than a $537 1,600 mile round trip flight??

All I am saying is that for the longest time status has been based on miles flown. After the uproar from travelers who didn’t buy budget tickets so were at a disadvantage did Delta add in the MQD qualifier. However, I think there is another step they could take. So maybe rather than a minimum MQM per segment they have a minimum MQD multiplier. I dunno but it feels like there’s room for them to improve to reward their biggest spenders.