Delta Plan-it program to delay MQDs?
 

We have a fairly expensive trip we are planning for next year and we have maxed out all possible awards/status for 2024. I want to reserve some seats now but would prefer to have the ticket cost be counted for my 2025 MQDs. I know the MQDs for the flight will not post until the flights are complete but was wondering if I could use the Delta Plan it option to delay the MQDs for the payment? Theoretically I could pay the relatively small monthly fee for two months and then pay off the majority of the bill on January 1. Has anyone tried this? Any idea if the MQDs using this approach get counted at the initial time of purchase or only after the actual payment is made each month and then on Jan 1? Thanks.

Looks to me like this will not delay the actual mileage/MQD credit from purchase. Perhaps PayPal Pay Later option could be used to do this? Not really familiar enough with PayPal to know if this would work.

This just delays payment. MQDs should post for same year as associated flight.

If you mean the 1MQD person $10 spend that posts based on month charge hits the card.

It hits the card right away. You just get to pay it off (no interest, instead a plan fee) in equal payments.

All this is, an AMEX Plan It payment plan, but setup during the actual purchase. Normally you'd go to AMEX after the fact and set it up on the AMEX website.

What MQDs for payment? From a Delta Amex?

OP understands that MQDs from flight will not credit until flight is taken and is talking about MQDs from DL Amex spend. It appears Amex Plan It spend counts all miles/MQDs towards purchase date, and not the payment dates over time.

This is what I’m trying to understand because I didn’t want to go off on a tangent.

Let’s say “fairly expensive” is $20k and it’s a DL Reserve card, that’s 2,000 MQD. Maybe thats significant, but someone who is able to spend $20k on a trip probably also can generate $20k in other household spend next year on the same reserve card.

With that being said, get a regular Amex PLT. Get 5x the points, so 100,000 MR points = at least $1,000 in benefits. Heck, transfer them to DL and take a trip and earn another round of MQDs.

Agreed that Amex Reserve spend is a fairly minor source of MQDs when compared to MQDs earned from the actual travel. It would be helpful to know when OP is looking at traveling. Other than travel for early next year, it doesn't seem all that imperative to book it right now (rather than waiting until the new year to book it).

I am over 40k MQD so far this year and 95%+ of it is Amex spend.

Point is for a $10k plane ticket, 10k mqd are from the ticket itself and 1k is from the Amex reserve. The reserve mqd are indiscriminate of buying airplane tickets or general household expenses.

It won't be until early spring but I want to use my GUC for my wife and me for a 14 hour flight so want to get them before they are no longer available. Getting to Diamond again with the new system will be close, that is why I was thinking about trying to delay the actual card purchase but I probably should just book the flight so I can get that upgrade.