My question concerns traveling as a ST Elite when you don't actually have your Silver/Gold/Platinum card with you. I am currently a Gold Medallion (ST Elite) on Delta and my last trip of the year is on AF over Christmas YUL-CDG-JNB in mid December and JNB-CDG-YUL on Jan. 1/2.

The outbound leg will put me over the 75.000 mile requirement for Delta Platinum Medallion (Elite Plus) and while I know the computer system will reflect the change, I obviously won't have my Platinum card yet with me on the return.

So, has anyone ever encountered any problems with things such as lounge access because they didn't have their physical platinum card with them? Also, do boarding passes reflect Elite Plus status?

Thanks in advance,

DLinYUL

Your problem will be with how fast DL recognizes and updates your status. You may want to print out your account history and status from DL.com before you leave and hold on to your boarding passes. At least this will give you some back-up for the lounge dragons.

I never have to show my PM card at an AF lounge because the boarding pass has Elite Plus printed on it (even with AF) Your problem will be the time it takes for updating the records from AF to DL (for the flight) and then DL to AF (for the status change).