Workarounds for attaining Diamond medallion in 2019
 

With the increase in Amex spending to $250k per year, I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for "workarounds" for this. A couple I can think of:

1) Change your address to outside the US if you have one to waive the MQD requirement entirely
2) Manufactured spend on AMEX to hit $250k. The lowest charge I know is 1.87% for (over) paying income taxes and then waiting 1-2+ months to get the money back from IRS. Based on how much you travel the additional upgrades/ certificates might be worth it.
3) (suggested by thread): Partner flights that earn MQDs based on distance, per the earning charts on the Delta web site.
4) (Investigating): Buy the delta private jet card for $100k and use credit for family/employees for regular delta flights. This will get Delta Diamond for 2 years.

Any other suggestions ?

Partner flights that earn MQDs based on distance, per the earning charts on the Delta web site.

"Mileage run" in PE and J on partner airlines, booked through partner airlines where you earn MQDs as a percentage of distance flown (some can be 25-30% of distance flown). Though I have to wonder if DL will close that somehow or change the earnings.

I've wondered that too, although if you forced me to guess, I'd guess that the number of people who would do an MQD run is proportionally rather less than the number of people who would put $25K on a DL-branded AMEX.

That's a lot of money! That would be $4,675 to manufacture $250K!

You can spend that $4,675 in fees to:
1) Pay to upgrade (FCM) quite a few domestic first class tickets

2) Upgrade one or two international economy tickets to J (instead of GUCs).

3) Put it in your savings account and still enjoy the many benefits of being PM.

The math depends on a bunch of factors. In my example, i spend $100k already. So I need to "spend" $150000 additionally which costs me $2805. Assuming 1 cent a mile, $150000 gives me $1500 in miles. Diamond choice benefits of $200, 25k points is another $450 in benefits. Total cost now is $855 for me for 4 global certificates and priority in upgrades. Probably worth it to me.

4) get 15k MQDs by spending money on flights

that wouldn't be a work around really would it .. unless you know a way for it to cost way less than $15k ;)

As Zorak and I said, use partner flights where MQDs are awarded based on distance flown. I've seen PE fares on Virgin Atlantic to South Africa (JNB) for $2K from the West Coast, which since you'd earn MQDs based on distance flown at 25%, you'd earn $5K+ in MQDs for $2K in spend (and you'd earn 30K MQMs at 150%).

No, the lowest cost is earning money while getting it done if you study up on MS choices.

Take VDBs and use those vouchers.

I don't think this is realistic. I do have an address outside of the USA, but I'm pretty sure that DL would see that all of my itineraries continue to start and end at RDU, like they have been for years, so they'd notice that the "move" wasn't really that.

Yeah they're almost certainly closing that loophole.

DL heavily scrutinizes international address relocations. I doubt anyone is able to really get away with it. Unless you're doing one TATL a month or something in addition to the domestic travel.

Just how far off the MQD mark are these people manufacturing status? I know I saw some pretty ridiculous numbers off the TPAC mileage runners and routine business travelers, but otherwise there’s a really good chance the differences in spend on Delta is less than the cost to MS. It’s certainly a lot more convenient and pleasant!
(Don’t forget to count the annual fees on delta credit cards, the alternative points you could be earning on MS and the flights, etc etc etc.)

This is what I was thinking, if you get to 10K MQD and have the MQM, then probably easier to do a 5K mileage run then kill yourself on 250K manufactured spend