Currently at 75k MQM (plat), $15k MQD (diamond) - options?
 

I'm at 74,880 miles, and after today I'll be platinum for next year. The funny thing is due to a lot of last minute travel I'm over $15k MQD which is diamond. I wasn't planning on it, but I'm wondering if there are any options short of a crazy mileage run that would make up the difference in MQMs. I started to look at the Delta Amex cards, but tough to weed through the details.

Realistically - barring a big investment in spend and time - you are not going to make Diamond. We are now in the expensive part of the year for mileage runs (the last two weeks in December meaning there are few cheap fares). Even if you could do mileage runs, 50K is more than two trips around the globe - this is 5+ days of time just in the air alone not even talking about layovers, etc. Even in business we're talking about 3 days+ in the air.

If you are able to manufacture spend and put a bunch of money on Amex cards, in theory you could get two Reserve cards (one personal, one business) and get 60K of MQMs. This would require $120K in manufactured spend in less than two weeks - if you even get the card on time and have expenses to post on time.

This would be almost impossible. It would be better to get just 1 Reserve card and shoot for $60k in spending (generating 10k MQMs for the first purchase and 30k MQMs for the spending). You'd still be 10k short so you'd need to do some flying. But even this approach might not be possible because it will take some time to get the card, and most people won't have a credit line capable of supporting $60k in spend in 2 weeks (especially on a brand new account).

There are no cheap MRs left. We're in the blackout period for the holidays (+ past two week advanced purchase when fare buckets become a lot more expensive regardless of availability - at least on DL metal).

Thanks all! My sense was that if 10k, the Amex option or similar might work, but more than double that it wouldn't make sense. I would've been kicking myself if there was a one-time thing. I'm happy to stay at the platinum level again :D

You'd have to do a NYC>SIN China Eastern type mileage run in business....and even that would only net you around 31k (trust me, I just did it). I attempted to reprice my just completed MR, and it would have been well over $3500 for the last week of December. Not really worth it, IMHO

Find a few partner business class long distance deals early in '19 and qualify that way. As per above, it's going to be tough to get 50k more miles in cy18