Skystreak

Really only an issue if you are falling short of the 25,000 or 250,000 threshold. I got my $30,000 bonus from Amex right after the close of the statement even though Delta said I was not there yet. I had a little bit of MS in there for paying merchants that don't take Amex. To me it looks like Amex is counting MS toward bonuses but Delta is excluding MS from their waiver. Only a theory but why would they need to send the transactions vs just sending a total spend for the year.

pvn

If they even do it this way they probably just wait until the end of the year (plus some sort of settlement period) and then square it up rather than pushing money around in real time as people hit the number.

josephstern

That would imply that Amex gives Delta pretty granular data, rather than one total per period per account. I seriously doubt it.

sethb

Then why does Delta say $21-22K when Amex knows it's over $26K since February? I haven't done any MS.

josephstern

I don't know, but I don't think it's MS. I've done some, and it was all reported just fine to Delta.

Zorak

Disclaimer: I know zero about the internals so this is pulled out of my ---

But to me the logical way this situation would be set up is that Delta doesn't care. They give the waiver to whoever AMEX tells them to give the waiver to, and I imagine there is some per-person contractual amount AMEX pays.

If this were the case, it would be plausible that AMEX would count MS towards spending bonuses -- they get their processing fee % regardless so it makes no difference -- but impose a stricter subset of eligible purchase categories for the DL waiver, because that's money they have to pay out.

Again, not saying this is how things are, just that it would make sense. (If anyone does know how it actually works I'd be curious to learn!)

kjbrant

Just ran the numbers and here's my own data points for year to date:

$117k - Total spend on two Delta cards
$43k - MQD's shown on Delta
$74k - Missing MQD's on Delta
$74k - MS spend at SM

Missing MQD's = MS spend at SM

This looks like a pretty strong data point that SM spend is being skimmed off the MQD's. MS spend from GC.com and GCM.com is reported fine in the MQDs. I will continue to monitor (does not appear to be related to statement closing dates since this is year to date spending over multiple statements). I'm not calling AMEX or Delta at this point since I don't want eyes on accounts.

kjbrant

One more point: I did get all my MQM bonus points for the $117k spend on the two cards.

josephstern

Well, that's a pretty good indication that Amex runs two counters and sends the SM-less one to Delta. Very interesting.

TheHorta

xolinlevh

Appending my previous post....I went on DL.com again today and it still says my spend is only up to date as of 4/13....even tho the email said otherwise. I know its slow to update but....2 months?

Bradhattan

Perhaps its a DL scare tactic in hopes you spend more directly with DL to ensure proper account posting?

edit: ensure is too strong.....increase the likelihood of properly posting

xolinlevh

kjbrant

Spoke to others having the same issue. One was resolved by 'on line chat' with amex. So, some people are receiving card spend on simon mall purchases. Will try this method too.

rylan

I'm not sure how the CC is able to differentiate the MS portion unless it is obvious coming from a place that only sells gift cards. If you're churning other items purchased a grocery stores or online sites that sell other items, they shouldn't know what you're buying.