Am I an idiot? Think I short'ed myself MQMs on my recent long haul
 

So, as many of you know, I recently did an BOS to Banglore sprint. And I think I may have screwed myself on points.

Business Class, ticketed via our travel agent (Amex), Delta ticket, though AF metal on 3 legs (and I was forced to checked in via AF). Tix approx $10k. Just looked online, and my flight redemption code was R, meaning I only accrued 25k MQM miles total (total miles of 90k). The MQMs seem awfully low (tho the total miles are fine).

Would I have faired better if I had called AmEx and had them book me on an AF ticket? I am likely going again in April, want to make sure I am maximizing these trips to earn 2020 Platinum without a MR.

Thx!

MQM's are based on distance flown (150% for discount J) whether DL or AF/KL marketed. It made no difference at all. The question is how you managed to earn 90K RDM when DL has published max of 75K on a single ticket. I'm assuming perhaps you were on separate tickets or maybe there was a re-issue at some point.

Assuming you flew BOS-CDG-BLR-CDG-BOS on a ticket that earns 150% MQM, then just under 25k MQM sounds exactly right. What would you have been expecting otherwise?

I thought it would be 30k. Thank you for the confirmation that I am not a complete idiot :)

If you really want to rack it up you might try to use JFK-PVG-DEL on MU, though you might not have time for all that plus the staging flights and all. Though I suspect you'd save some money in the process.

Unfortunately, MU is not a contracted airline for work, so it would be hard for me to pull that off. Plus, the food on MU is pretty darn terrible But thanks, I had not thought of that idea. When I did a ghost booking, it came out to 30k, but that was also at the general public $13k price, instead of our firm's negotiated price...which is probably where the difference comes in.

Thanks all.