arunhn

Ouch, this new MQD waiver number hurts.

And over at his blog, Rene is talking about 'how great of a change this is' and 'how he can think of generating over 21K in manufactured spending per month' in his sleep to put on AMEX. That is crazy! I hope nobody here is seriously considering doing that. Put that kinda time and effort into learning about some real investment opportunities, make a profit and buy your F or J ticket straight out!

This year, I'll have over 80K spend on AMEX and over 200K MQM, but only ~14K MQDs. We will see how 2018 plays out.

yohanson

I always hit the MQD limit before I hit the spending waiver amount. This year I hit the MQDs at the beginning of this month and the waiver amount last week.

josephstern

Yeah, well, as many of us noted at the time, any deviation from his prediction will be proclaimed as his 'win', which he has done.

josephstern

In 16 months maybe. It'll be pretty hard to measure by then with plenty of other changes between now and then.

TheMadBrewer

They are not alone

This year I will fly 6 TATL trips where the total fares are about $2600 (MQD much less since they are international). Add to that 5.5 FC round trips LAX-ATL (1.5 in Y), the odd other flight and 10K MQM from Amex and I will be just over 125K MQM with about $8K MQD.

This year is an aberration because of the low TATL fares (4x$400, 2x$500) but also way more LAX-ATL travel (family issues). I was about the same MQD last year with fewer domestic trips but two discount J trips.

On another note, I am surprised that people with an international address can get still DM without the spend, since $250K is not possible for the vast majority of people it is no waiver, practically speaking.

josephstern

For those of us who pay for their own flights, this is easy.

Recently, there was a $450 fare from LAX to HKG through SEA on Delta.

Assuming all $450 of the fare qualifies for MQD, you fly about 15K miles. That's a little over 8 trips to DM, so let's call it 9 at a similar cost per MQM. 9 times $450 is $4050.

Here's the link:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...81-423-rt.html

benitovacation

With highly competitive TPAC fare and no paid international biz this year, it's the lowest MQD mark to achieve diamond. I guess I'm one of a few Delta intended to thin out or push a little as literally free travel after VDB vouchers, lounge, UGs and choice benefits etc. If I intended to retain the status, I will have to do one of followings:

1)Hit $250K waiver. Probably a bit stretch to put a lot of personal and biz spend on Delta Amex;
2)Buy a few SkyTeam international J (and hopefully someone covers that). Likely more enjoyable and cost-effective than #1
3)Change to foreign residency for MQD exemption. It appears I may legitimately meet Delta's requirement and will inquiry the process soon.

Delta made a fine decision from a business stand point, though it has huge impact on me. Just have to live with ever evolving loyalty program or simply let it go...

bergamini

It absolutely was not fake news. It was pretty close to entirely accurate news. A $250K waiver is essentially no waiver for 99%+. I am guessing that, as someone else posted, the point of the $250K waiver is to honor a contract provision with Amex to still offer the waiver, and maybe honor a few high rolling small businesses. And I mean a few. He was way ahead of the rest of us on that and credit should be given that we had inklings something like this could happen. IDK why people don't like that.

josephstern

Seems meaningfully different.

Case in point: he was very upset about the possibility of the elimination, and now he's ecstatic about the $250K level.

ATOBTTR

We'll see. Don't forget that next year (2018), SC access is not authorized magic with DM membership, but can be selected as one of three (up from two) DM choice benefits. Perhaps some DMs will choose to forego the SC membership in favor of another benefit.

newser

Here’s the thing — and I don’t post often and am not trying to enrage some of you. I am a Diamond. I pay for my own flights. I don’t see mathematically how you could maintain Diamond status without coming pretty close to the $15,000 spend which isn’t changing. The MQD’s through Amex have been nice, but there’s a point where it ends up making next to no difference. Again, not trying to spark controversy, but it seems that those outraged probably aren’t really the Diamond spenders that Delta — which is a business — is trying to retain. But as others have pointed out, if you pay for F class routinely anyway, status relevance is decreased. I have not been on a flight in six months with more than 1 F seat left for upgrading.

Am I missing something?

Statman

Anyone who takes 9 round trip flights that last 15 hours each way at $450 a flight is not the type of flier that Delta wants as a DM. That person makes ZERO money for Delta and actually costs Delta money if that person spends his way to DM status by charging $25k on his/her Amex Delta card.

Dick Ginkowski

I agree that it was not "fake news" and perhaps it was what was being touted at the time the prediction was written. Also agree that it's something that neither worthy of praise or criticism.

GopherMSP

Most of my travel is personal, and while I have hit the DM MQDs in the past, I havent seen the value in doing so for a while since I buy mostly cheap F/J fares that give most of the benefits of status.

Definitely time to play the field. For SkyTeam travel I'm going to look at non-Group 1 partners now because there is no reason to try for 125k MQM.

bergamini

I don't have the context of following his blog and have zero interest in figuring out manufactured spend beyond maybe making a mortgage payment or two that way if I had to (which I don't). But we got meaningful notice from him about a change in waiver for Diamonds. He said eliminated; it was virtually eliminated. None of us would have had any inkling or discussed it prior to today if he had not. His scoop was not perfect but it was substantially correct.