I want to make Delta platinum this year. Suggestions welcome.
 

I want to make Delta platinum this year. Suggestions welcome.
I am a million miler (I guess life long Silver). I used to be a platinum until last year. Retired and am flying less frequently. But miss some of the perks, upgrades, lounge accees on International flights etc.
I usually have about 15,000 miles coming from AmEx Delta Platinum. I have budgeted $5000 this year for travel. How can I use wisely for travel to rack up miles that would get me platinum or at least Gold?
Four trips to Asia? How do non-busines travelers amass miles?
The otherv side is I have over 500K miles, should I focus on using the miles or getting more miles?

My first suggestion is that you ask a moderator to move this thread to the Delta forum.

[Deleted because wrong. If anyone wants to see it to my embarrassment, it's still quoted in the next post.]

Other than that, I agree with kale73 that people who might have more useful suggestions probably hang out in the DL forum - and, as you know, cross-posting is a no-no.

Wrong. If OP gets the 15,000 MQMs from a DL Plat card, it means that OP has spent $25,000 on the card, which then gives the MQD waiver for FO/GM/PM. Spend won't be a problem unless OP decides to shoot for DM.

GM is good enough for lounge access on international SkyTeam (and certain other partner) itineraries, so I would ask whether the higher upgrade priority that PM would get over GM is worth it. OTOH, PMs get one choice benefit, which can be four RUCs, as well as free change/cancel/redeposit on award tickets.

Right. I had forgotten the MQD waiver with the card - stupid of me, because I took advantage of it more than once. Thanks for clarifying.

Platinum
 

Thanks
platinum is only 75K- right?
if I have 15K from AmEx, and one Europe and three Asia trip, the ticket price plus miles should get me there, at least for a year

You need 75,000 MQMs and $9,000 MQDs (or the MQD waiver) to get to Platinum.

I'll just pick some arbitrary trips for your three Asia trips and one Europe trip:

MCO-JFK-FRA: 9,600 mi roundtrip
MCO-DTW-NRT: 14,710 mi roundtrip

So 15,000 + 9,600 + 14,710 * 3 = 68,730.

You then would need to do 6,270 mi worth of other flying to get to Platinum.

Side note: If you (or someone else reading this thread) isn't going to get the MQD waiver, buying VS flights with VS flight numbers in Economy Delight is a really good way to rack up MQDs, since they earn 20% of distance flown as MQDs and are usually about $100 more expensive than Economy Classic.

I guess it depends on where you are going. if you have plans to travel abroad this is a little easier than staying stateside, if you use tier 1 partners. as an example, I am flying to TLV later this year and im booking on VS directly. Flying prem Econ which yields 30% of the miles flown as MQD. For me that ticket costs roughly $2500 but I get just over $4300 MQD for it. the downside to this is if you have a domestic leg as part of the trip - upgrades are only day-of and don't process at the window

aside from the credit card bonuses and options, it's going to be very difficult with all domestic travel

OP, I am also retired and have been able to maintain PM for the last ten years, although it’s always close. I do it with the 10K AmEx Plat card bonus, a few domestic trips, and four or five international flights, mostly to Europe but occasionally to Asia. One thing that helps me is to earn the 50% MQM from flying DL Premium Select or Premium Economy on VS or AF; I also sometimes choose more circuitous routes (MSP-ATL-CDG instead of MSP-CDG) to add miles. Since I am retired and have time, I never do mileage runs, but I do sometimes add an end-of-the-year trip to reach the required MQM.

I thought DL AMEX Plat was no longer 10k MQM and they changed it to RDM instead on Jan 31?

Maybe read that wrong.

Regardless if you’ve got the waiver there are going to be a ton of cheap flights to Japan and Asia generally over the next few weeks. If you aren’t concerned with coronavirus that’ll be an easy pathway.

Looks like folks here are right:

So expect to fly about 11k miles more than your trip to Europe and four trips to Asia, or spend $25k more on the DL Platinum Amex.

OP, from MCO you can also fly AM Discounted Business Class which gives you a 50% MQM Bonus. You can book on AM with your DL SkyMiles number (139 ticket stock). Book through an OTA or a local TA you can get a Senior fare which will give you about a 10% discount.

You might look at something like a cheap positioning flight (you could even use miles) to JFK and do 2 back to back JFK-MEX-UIO-MEX-JFK which would give you just under 25k MQM for less than $2k. Also gives you over $3,000 MQD each so if you do 3 of these trips you'll have the PM MQD and won't need your AMEX waiver and can use a better credit card instead of the $25k spend on the DL Plat card. Lots of other combinations. You can fly AM from MCO but typically fewer MQM and more $.

I do my MQD runs on AM every year and am satisfied with the airline.

Asia will be tough because with the Coronavirus quarantines, you want to think about where you can go on DL or partners, China, Japan and South Korea and dicey because of CV. I'd also do this ASAP since CV will be spreading and more travel restrictions will be put into place.

You can PM me if you want more info.

If you have time and like to travel...

Before the coronavirus hold.
I travel from Montreal to Asia (via Atlanta) for less than 900$cad (700$usd), even sometime less than 800$cad.
This give you around 17,300MQM each time.
If you add an MCO-ATL-YUL, you pass the 20,000MQM.
In this case, you will catch your platinum in 3 asian flights... for less than 5,000usd

I think the real question is “is it worth it to make dl plat by flying several international trips in economy?”

My name is vanity
 

Good question-Moneywise may not be wise as there are plentuy of cheaper flights to wherever I want to go. Besides, Star Alliance seems toi fly to locations I do fly frequently-e.g. Washington DC. There is no direct MCO to DCA.
But, for me the advantages are mostly to satisfy my ego. I like boarding earlier, choosing seats, upgrades, using the lounge, etc. Believe it or not. I had an axe to grind with another major airlinebut have been patronizing Delta for the past 25 years or more. I had minor silly complaints but overall, I think Delta has satisfied my expectations! Flew United/Lufthansa to India and didn't like it a bit.