hankmydog

Delta has announced that in 2024 and beyond it is the money spent that counts and not the flying. Clearly, if you buy a ticket on Delta for yourself using your Amex Reserve Card you will be credited the MQDs of that amount. What if you buy your wife's ticket on the same credit card? She has not spent any money for her own ticket so should you be given MQD credit for her ticket also? I have been unable to find any answer to this simple question and the Delta Diamond agents aren't sure either. Logically anyone who buys a Delta ticket on their own credit card for themselves or anyone else should get the MQD credit and not the other person who has spent nothing. This is not the case now under the present program but MQDs were only part of the equation; now they are all of it.

Yellowjj

I seriously, seriously doubt that will be allowed. Delta wants to thin the medallion ranks as it stands; they are not going to add and/or allow a easy backdoor access method to work for status purposes. Paying for someone else's ticket doesn't earn anything under the current rules, and I doubt that changes under the new rules in 2024.

WyomingBound

I hope we get an answer to this......I kind of agree with you in that if you do that you should get MQD credit for both tickets In the past you did not get MQM, MQD or any other credits until AFTER you have flown the flight. I also take this off their page to read.

https://www.delta.com/us/en/skymiles...rogram-updates
Will MQDs be awarded based on transaction date or posted date to qualify for status?

• MQDs will be awarded based on the transaction date of a purchase. American Express relies on the transaction date submitted by the merchant, which may differ from the date you make a purchase, to determine whether the purchase counts toward the MQD threshold in that Qualification Year. This means that in some cases your purchases may not count toward the MQD threshold in the year in which you made the purchases.
  • For example, if you make a purchase on December 31 and the merchant lists the transaction date as January 1 when they submit the transaction data to American Express, your purchase will be counted in the Qualification Year which began on that January 1.

kavok

Im pretty sure 2024 will work like this:

If you buy two $400 Delta tickets on your Delta Reserve Amex, (one ticket for you and one for someone else), ignoring taxes and fees & assuming both the purchase and flight occurs in 2024:

You will get 400 MQD for the ticket plus 80 MQD for the DL Amex Reserve spend (40 MQD x2 tickets at earning rate of 1/10). So 480 MQD in total.

They will just get 400 MQD for their ticket, and that’s it.

xliioper

Flight MQD credit will go to flyer, not purchaser, just as today. No need to hassle agents on this (who are generally clueless)

ffI

But the purchase MQD will go to the buyer with DL Reserve at 1/10 ratio and with DL Platinum at 1/20 ratio.

sydneyracquelle

Correct. Whether you buy DL tickets for someone or milk at the supermarket you get MQD as regular spend towards the required 5/10/15/28,000 MQD if you put the charge through on a DL Amex card. The person flying then gets the full MQD credit after they fly.

Repooc17

This. Can't remember it's not been like this; if so, certainly before my time.

If flight MQD, as in the MQD earned after flight completion, goes to the purchaser, then people flying for work and other OPM flyers would not earn any kind of status.

cre95

Not sure what’s the confusion by the original question. This seems pretty simple. Flight credit goes to the flyer. As for expenditure, the buyer gets the credit at the stated ratio regardless of what they are spending their money on.

To follow this differently, you went to eat and you paid for your companion — would you be happy if only your portion counted? What if your companion paid you for their portion via cash, Zelle, or other means? Should that matter? Of course not, Delta only cares that you spent money on your Amex and they’ll give you the 1/10 or 2/10 MQD credit.

xliioper

No doubt that Amex CC spend MQD credit goes to purchaser. My reading of OP's post suggested they thought maybe passenger MQD flight credit would also be directed to purchaser in new system. The one thing I'm certain of is that if you ask a dozen different agents on how the new system works, you'll probably get a dozen different answers.

FlyAO2

Be interesting to see what happens to your MQDs and status if you have some big credit card refunds after you've qualified (or even in the following year post qualification)

xliioper

If you do this in same year and don't cover it, they'll likely take your status back. If you take refunds in following year, they'll probably take your MQD balance negative until you cover, but won't take away your status (they currently do this with spend for MQD Waiver/MQM Boosts).

clightbo

I was actually wondering a similar thing. Because Delta says that you earn 1:1 on Delta purchases with the Reserve card, shouldn’t a ticket for your companion qualify there? It’s very confusingly written. It seems as though Delta purchases earn MQD at a better rate than the 20:1/10:1 ratio of regular purchases, so it isn’t clear how this earn would work.

That being said, I assume those who have predicted that companion flights would not count are probably correct. But it could certainly be clarified.

DLHubber

I don’t see what’s confusing about it. The 1:1 MQD earn is for Delta purchases. Period. It’s not Delta purchases for yourself, it’s just Delta purchases. It has nothing to do with the actual flight MQD earning, which will go to the person who the ticket is for, the same way it always has.

It’s no different than the current 3x SkyMiles for Delta purchases. You get all of those miles regardless of who the tickets (or whatever else) were purchased for.

Delta wants people using Delta-branded cards to buy from Delta because they save on the merchant fees. This is just a new way to encourage that.

clightbo

Right, but then depending on your read of the rules you could buy 2 RT trips, one for you and one for your companion, at say $500 each. Then you would earn $1000 MQD for the “Delta purchases” and also earn the $500 MQD for your own flight segment. I think that’s where the language is fuzzy.