How I earned Delta status for the first time in 2024, without really trying

In late November, I clinched Silver Medallion status with Delta Air Lines for the very first time.

Just three days later, my newfound status snagged me an upgrade to first class from Minneapolis to Knoxville, Tenn., en route to a Smoky Mountains holiday aboard an unglamorous CRJ-900.

On the flight back home, I scored a free upgrade to Delta’s Comfort Plus cabin on the same little plane.

I know what you may be thinking. In a year of bad headlines and widespread backlash against Delta, many people have been rethinking their loyalty to the biggest carrier at Minneapolis-St. Paul International. When others have zigged, I zagged.

Minnesotans are a captive audience when it comes to Delta, and a lot of people have one of Delta’s SkyMiles American Express cards. So I decided to find out, on behalf of readers, what it takes to attain the minimum level of Delta status in 2024. Spoiler: It involves the Amex cards a bit more than actually flying Delta.

My ground rule: I wouldn’t go wildly out of my way or change my spending or travel habits — putting aside the weird but normalized concept of spending money on an airline’s credit card.

I wasn’t sure I would pull it off. But with a little strategy, a couple of timely flights and some extra promotions, I slightly overshot my goal, hitting the required 5,000 MQDs — Medallion Qualification Dollars — before Thanksgiving vacation.

As the Dec. 31 deadline approaches, you might be closer to the next tier of status for 2025 than you think. (SkyMiles members can check their progress in the account tab of the Delta app or website.) Here’s how I put together 5,000 MQDs to earn Silver Medallion.

For 2024, Delta set new requirements of 5,000 MQDs for Silver Medallion, 10,000 for Gold, 15,000 for Platinum and 28,000 for the enhanced nirvana state known as Diamond Medallion.

You might be able to earn all those MQDs the old-fashioned way: solely by flying Delta. But leisure travelers may need an assist from one of the higher-tier SkyMiles Amex cards — the Platinum or the Reserve.

The cards are not the most versatile and are not for everyone. My SkyMiles Platinum American Express has a hefty $350 annual fee, but its annual companion pass has saved me $400 to $500 a year. The SkyMiles Reserve Amex ($650 annual fee) has fancier benefits, including 15 airport Sky Club visits a year.

Delta now throws in an automatic annual 2,500-MQD bonus, called the “MQD Headstart,” for both Platinum and Reserve users only. So while Delta had increased the MQDs for Silver from 3,000 to 5,000, after the Headstart, the 2,500-MQD remainder is actually 500 less than the old requirement.

Without doing anything, by February I was automatically halfway to Silver.

(Sorry, the popular SkyMiles Gold Amex — $150 fee, $0 the first year — doesn’t earn MQDs or provide a “Headstart” at all, though it does earn miles and get you a free checked bag.)

Now we finally get to the fun part of flying: the actual aviation. Remember that?

SkyMiles members earn 1 MQD for every dollar spent (pretax) on Delta-marketed flights operated by Delta or its partner airlines. It’s all about the airfare now, not the miles flown.

So, my January family trip to Maui banked 457 MQDs. An April flight to Sound Bend, Ind., for a baby shower was ironically more expensive (c’mon, Buttigieg!), bagging another 529 MQDs.

However, my $524 ticket on Delta’s revived service from MSP to Dublin in June didn’t win any MQDs. It was a Basic Economy ticket, eligible for zero Medallion dollars. The upcharge to Main Cabin was a whopping $200 — and I couldn’t justify spending $600 more for my family of three just to get MQDs. That was annoying.

Nevertheless, with 986 MQDs from the first two trips, by April I was already up to 3,691 MQDs. I was on my way to Silver.

The upper-tier SkyMiles Amex cards also earn MQDs on spending — at painfully slow rates. Still, they’re a piece of the Medallion puzzle. (Keep in mind that if you’re not paying off your balances in full each month, you may not be ready for rewards credit cards.)

My SkyMiles Platinum Amex earns 1 MQD for every $20 spent. The Reserve card is slightly better at 1 MQD for every $10 spent. Delta calls this the “MQD Boost.” It’s more like an “MQD slight lift.”

I haven’t used my SkyMiles Amex for everyday spending. But I do charge my non-escrowed homeowners insurance and my auto insurance on it. I also pay my cellphone bill with the card, because Amex provides free phone insurance, which recently reimbursed me $212 for a cracked screen.

I also paid for most of the costs of our Ireland vacation on the Amex. Life hack: Since the other two adults on the trip paid me back, effectively I was getting other people to help me rack up status points.

I also eventually decided to start pulling out my Platinum card at the co-op, since it also earns a fair 2 SkyMiles per dollar on groceries. I added $3,240 of grocery spending to the Amex, a fraction of this year’s family food bill (inflation, right?).

Altogether, $17,840 on the credit card eked out 892 MQDs. Including the MQD Headstart, my Delta American Express accounted for 3,392 MQDs, or 68% of the requirement for Silver.

This spring, Delta offered a robust promotion: 1 MQD for every dollar spent (pretax) on hotels booked through Delta Stays, their Expedia-powered hotel portal. The offer landed just as I was planning the Ireland trip, and it returned in the fall.

I could have done some serious damage with this promo, smelting Silver in one trip. But the Irish vacation homes and B&Bs I was searching for were generally not available on Delta Stays.

Ultimately, I booked two rooms at Keavan’s Port Hotel in Dublin (nice place!) for a return of 582 MQDs. Again, I was partially reimbursed for that cost by my trip companions.

In October, my MQD balance was sitting around 4,920. That’s when I found a “catchup” offer in my Delta account, offering double bonus MQDs on my Platinum SkyMiles Amex. After opting in, for the remainder of 2024 I would earn one additional MQD (for a total of 2) on every $20 of spending.

This would have come in handy a lot sooner, but now I barely needed it. If you need a year-end boost, check your account for similar offers, which may be targeted to certain customers.

On $800 of spending, I earned 40 base MQDs and 40 bonus MQDs, to hit (and surpass) 5,000.

I’d always ignored airline loyalty, since I’m usually promiscuous when it comes to carriers (not like that, people). In fact, when the Medallion changes were first announced last year, I wrote that they “all but eliminate status-seeking for regular travelers.” It turned out to be easier than I expected.

I got lucky with two upgrades on my Tennessee trip, but I expect that free upgrades on more popular routes may be rarer. And some of the other benefits of Silver are modest: priority check-in and a free checked bag, but no free Sky Club access.

The coming year will reveal whether I find these benefits worthy of another annual Medallion hunt, or if I’ll just return to my usual disloyalty.

But for now, Delta’s got me right where it wanted me: thinking about Delta, flying on its planes, and of course, spending money on its credit card.