Getting back into the game- should I?
 

Several years ago, I was Platinum on Delta, and fluctuated between Gold and Diamond with Hilton. But then i had a few years where my focus had to be on other things, and now the game has change, with minimum spend requirements and it being much harder to get upgrades and such. And then for a while my available funds for travel dried up. So things have finally started happening in my life, and there is a chance in the next few months that I will have some funds (I am figuring about $10000 total yearly) to start traveling again. I am hoping that I will be able to find the time to get away on weekends. So my question is: Should I get back into the mileage game?

I am a leisure traveler, so nothing is paid for by my employer. In fact the last trip I made for them I gave up getting reimbursed for. Most of my trips I do on weekends - Friday evening to Sunday evening is my favorite, though I can be flexible by a day or two sometimes. I live in central Mass so I can fly out of ORH, BOS, PVD, and even at a stretch MHT and BDL. I even sometimes take Amtrak to NYC. Most of my trips are either Domestic US or Canada. Maybe once a year I like to go to England. Lately I have been flying Jet Blue a lot, because they often have E90s on their flights, which I prefer as they have the widest seats. When I fly mainline lately, it has usually been American, as I have dreams of someday flying BAs 747 in first before they disappear.

For me the big thing with status is seat upgrades. I am not so desperate for more legroom (though that is nice), but I am a wide guy and what I really need is a wider seat. In-flight catering and service are not terribly important for me, assistance with fight changes and irrop recovery are probably more so. Being a leisure traveler does give me the benefit that I can be a bit more flexible in my flights, and I actually prefer connections.

So is it worth getting back in the game? I have occasionally flown this past year, paying for first. I would like to travel more, but I find coach to unbearable for more than an hour in a 737, maybe an hour and a half in a wide seat 320, or up to 2 or so in a E70/90. I'd like ot get back into flying ot the west coast often again, but I can't do that in coach. I'll never meet the MQD requirements for Platinum on Delta or Platinum Pro on American. I probably could meet the 75,000 mile requirements, but without good upgrades I would probably have to push for 50,000. So do I make the leap?

On DL, there's no MQD (spend) requirement if you can put $25,000 on a DL AmEx card annually. Doing this with the DL AmEx Plat credit card also gets you 10,000 MQMs toward status (and often more as a signup bonus, which isn't wasted due to rollover if you reach at least FO). Moreover DL miles don't expire (until you do), so it's hard to see a downside of travel and crediting to DL if you don't pay a lot more to fly on DL and partners.

I'm also a wide guy and feel the same about squeezing into 17" x 29" coach seats. Possible, but no joy. When I was EXP on American I still found that upgrades were hard to score; SEA is not an important AA city, and there were too many business travelers whose companies would happily shell out for them to buy FC, so upgrade seats were generally unavailable, and not available at all during the summer when tourist pressures make SEA unobtainable using most FF programs.

In your case I'd probably do some benefit/cost modeling using some of these factors as inputs:

Lurk on the "premium fare deals" board - https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals-740/ - which often has terrific leads on "cheap" seats up front.

Look for mileage sales. I don't know about Delta, but American has periodic sales for FF miles where you can come away under 2c/mile. AA charges 115K miles for a RT in business class to Europe, so at 2c that's $2300, which is not extraordinary but can be a good deal.

I've been a big fan of RTW tickets as a means of riding up front and saving money in the process. Oneworld's Oneworld Explorer product allows 16 flights over the space of a year, six of which can be in North America (including Central America and the Caribbean). The price of a 3-continent business class OWE started in Japan is $5990, and could give you something like this as an imaginary plan for a year - NRT-HKG-BOS-LAX-DFW-BOS-ORD-SFO-DFW-LHR-MAD-TLV-MAD-HEL-HKG-BKK-NRT

You'd still have several grand in your budget for short-haul travel, and with 40K miles up front you'd achieve elite status in AA (or BA, which would also get you lounge access in the US which AA elites don't). A big RTW every other year could help you maintain status in the off-year, and probably save money overall. Just a thought, anyway.

I don't think chasing status would be the way to go for you, especially if you don't have an employer hooking you up. If you're gonna travel and use credit cards, you're gonna earn miles, and you can easily use those on upgrades. But crediting everything to Delta in the hopes of gaining status is risky should you miss that mark. I'd start earning a flexible point currency like Ultimate Rewards or Membership rewards, and then when you do decide to fly, buy the coach ticket like you normally would, but transfer the points to get an upgrade. That way you aren't changing your habits any, just finding ways to get an upgrade.