raehl311

You have to spend $25k between now and the end of the year to get 10,000 EQMs. Someone else suggested they should let you get 10,000 EQMs for $10,000 spend, but that means you'd be getting 2.5 EQMs per dollar. I think it would be more reasonable if you got something like 4,000 EQMs for a $10k spend.

MikeMpls

With no partial awards, this is worthless for most of us in 2008. You need an annualized spend of $75K to get anything.

On a 12-month basis it's a decent deal.

cayenne92

It only gets you a couple thousand but might I suggest the presidential dollars thread. Right now you can get around 3500 for "free". It is certainly a start.

MikeMpls

That's for banked miles. This is about qualifying miles:

mrcimino1

Once again, this thread points out that everyone looks at any of these promotions through their own eyes, in light of their own personal situation. While there appear to be many who are in awe at the thought of spending $50,000 a year on a credit card, to others it is only a drop in the bucket.

There are business travellers who routinely run up travel expenses over $25,000 a month and are reimbursed for them, paying the card off monthly. And there are business owners who consistently charge business expenses in that amount or more each month, and again routinely pay them off on a monthly basis.

I, for one, fall into one of those two categories, and count on earning over 300,000 RDM's each year solely from credit card spending alone, not including the miles I earn from actually flying. For me, this presents an opportunity that NW has never offered before, and one that I will not have to do much out of the ordinary to capitalize on.

In my calculations, I was going to end up 30,000 EQM's shy of another 2 SWU's from Elite Extra Perks. The time is growing short in the year, and I was not very seriously considering trying to pad my EQM's just to reach another plateau. But now, with another 20,000 EQM's virtually guaranteed, it becomes a whole lot easier to plan a long weekend in Europe in early December solely to earn those very valuable SWU's. You could call it a Mileage Run if you like, but not one that is only to earn a particular Elite Status.

However next year will be a whole different story, as far more will be able to capitalize on the $50,000 spend when they have 12 months to do it. And I am like most of the rest of you, that I do not look forward to any swelling of the ranks of Elites by artificial means. I remember all too well what the Double EQM promo did a couple of years ago, and could only count the months and days until the playing field returned to normal and the pseudo-Elites stopped competing with us BIS guys for the upgrades. The effects of this promo are going to be around for a LONG time, even if US Bank is not in the picture post-merger.

Watchful

I think Cayenne meant to use your WorldPerks Visa to purchase the presidential dollars, thus boosting your chance of getting the Visa bonus eqm's. ^

MikeMpls

You are so correct! After almost 16 hours at work & not enough sleep, the thought processes were disengaging.

My apologies to cayenne92!

psychtobe

what is this in reference to?

Watchful

referring to posts 33 and 34 - buying presidential dollars online using a credit card is one way to boost credit card expenditures without busting your budget - because you are basically buying cash which you can then spend or deposit.

poppabear

As I read this, please tell me if I'm wrong, this is ONLY EQM's NOT RDM's, correct?^

CaptainMiles

You always got RDMs, $1 spent on the card = 1 RDM (more on NWA purchases).

Now, in addition to the RDMs, you get EQMs too:
$25K spent on the card = 10,000 EQM
$50K spent on the card = 20,000 EQM

cayenne92

Apology accepted.

jamesteroh

I am surprised it has taken US bank/NW this long to do this. Delta has had this for a long time on their Am Ex.

sany2

Fantastic!
This was just what I needed this year- those 20,000 will put me very close to Platinum, lets see if any more trips come up and I can squeeze in a couple thousand more miles.

For those of you worried about the effect this would have on elite ranks- as has been stated, this promotion is not necessarily going to significantly increase the number of earned EQM's, as there are many who would not meet the spending threshold with this little time left for the year. And though this promotion is "indefinite," it will all but end at the beginning of 2009, when the worldperks program ceases to exist.

mrcimino1

Allow me to disagree. Other threads and other news sources have indicated that the intention is for NW to continue to operate for some time as a subsidiary of DL after the merger. The FAA and other government legalities will not happen overnight, and it will take quite a few months before NW ceases to exist as a separate operating airline, maybe even through the end of 2009.

But no matter how long it takes, the general feeling that has been expressed (or implied) is that NW and Worldperks will not be immediately folded into DL and the Skymiles Program. My guess is that WP and this promotion will be around through the END of 2009, allowing everyone a full year to reach the goals. Beyond that, again my guess is that while DL currently has a strong relationship with AMEX, the entire issue of an affinity credit card will be renegotiated. At this point, there is no indication of who might win that battle.

And now that both airlines seem to have similar and very generous alternative options for earning EQM's, I am fully expecting that both programs in 2009 will change to 25K-50K-100K mile tiers for SE, GE, and PE qualification. Which means that this whole thing will not get sorted out until March 1, 2010!