I have been a Delta Platinum Medallion for the past several years, reaching the 75,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles threshold for Platinum status fairly painlessly along the way. Usually I am somewhere between 25k to 40k short of reaching Diamond Medallion status, but elect not to go out of my way to earn the 125,000 MQM’s needed to reach Diamond status. Instead, I have decided to let the miles over 75,000 roll over for qualifying the next year.
This year I even went as far as gifting my wife the 15k MQMs I gained by reaching $60k in spend on my Delta Reserve card. I figured that she needed them more than me (to reach Gold Medallion), with the incremental benefits offered for reaching Diamond Medallion status not being worth all of the extra flying needed to qualify. I will end the year at ~95,000 MQMs as a result.
While I have many reasons for my decision, I know that I am not alone in the sentiment that it may be a good idea to come in just short of Diamond status and rollover the rest of the miles for the next year. Here’s a post from the Points Guy explaining why it’s sometimes a good idea to avoid Diamond status and rollover your miles to make qualifying the next year easier. This Flyertalk thread discusses the reasoning. However, in 2014, achieving Delta Diamond Medallion status is becoming more worthwhile.
Delta Diamond Medallion Status Improves Value Proposition
Beginning in 2014, it now makes complete sense to shoot for Diamond status if you are a frequent Delta flyer.
The first reason is that with the introduction of Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs), rollover miles are only valuable to Delta Amex cardholders who spend $25,000 a year with their cards. In September I wrote about how MQDs and Rollover Miles don’t Mix, which makes the concept of achieving Platinum status but avoiding Diamond Medallion a less sound decision.
The second reason was announced yesterday when Delta rolled out changes to their nearly worthless Systemwide Upgrades program by allowing Diamond Medallion members to choose 4 Global Upgrade certificates upon reaching Diamond Status beginning in the year 2014. Instead of having to purchase a full-fare economy ticket in order to upgrade their flight (which usually costs nearly as much as a business class ticket), these upgrades are on all paid economy tickets outside of the E fare class.
In addition, they are introducing regional upgrade certificates, which Platinum and Diamond Medallion members can use to upgrade from Coach to First class on most domestic coach tickets. Beginning in 2014, I will have the option of choosing 4 regional upgrade certificates as my Platinum Medallion Choice Benefit. If I make Diamond, I could select either 8 additional regional upgrades or 4 global upgrades.
Upgrades Become the Most Valuable Delta Choice Benefit
Compared to the current choice benefit options from Delta, getting 4 guaranteed first class seats (2 round trip tickets) holds more value than the other options, with the potential exception of gifting medallion status to friends and family. The value of an upgrade from coach to first class could be as low as $50 to over $1,000 per ticket. Among the Choice Benefit options, this provides the most upside potential.
For Diamond Medallion members, assuming that a Global Upgrade is truly as easy to use as it appears to be (I am still skeptical given Delta’s IT issues), choosing the Global Upgrades becomes a no-brainer because it can produce a significant amount of incremental value over a standard coach ticket. Take my upcoming trip to South Africa for example. A business class ticket is over $7,000 round trip, while the same flight in coach is less than $2,000. In this case, 2 Global Upgrade Certificates could provide value of over $5,000 per ticket. 4 Global Upgrades provided an opportunity to gain significantly more upside than the other options.
Global Upgrades + Miles = Double Threat
In addition, Global Upgrades make for a nice vehicle to have in your back pocket when prices for a Skymiles Award ticket are at high levels of miles. Since I am on the cusp of booking a flight to South Africa, I will use it as an example here as well. Would you rather pay 380,000 Skymiles for a Peak level award to South Africa or book a ~$1,800 coach fare and apply 2 Global Upgrades to get that seat? I would definitely choose the Upgrades in that case.
When it comes to getting the best values for our travels, it’s all about having options in our repertoire to find the most value. Diamond Medallion members will now have more options for finding value.
Now I Want to Shoot For Diamond Medallion
With the ability to maximize value in the Delta Skymiles program, I now believe it makes complete sense to concentrate on becoming a Diamond Medallion beginning in 2014. Fortunately, I will be starting out with around 20,000 rollover miles and if I can get another 30,000 MQMs with my reserve card + a signup bonus for getting another Skymiles card, I would need to fly less than 75,000 miles to make Diamond in 2014. I can smell Diamond status from here!
Warning on Global Upgrades
Since Global Upgrades are not even available to Diamond members until March 1, 2014, everything that I am writing (and others are writing) is speculation based on Delta’s announcement. It may turn out that certain terms change or other rules are enforced to make this deal less lucrative. As it stands, I am very excited about the enhancements to Diamond Medallion status, and I am looking forward to making a run at 125k MQMs in 2014.
It should be noted that if you qualified as a Platinum or Diamond Medallion in 2013, your choice benefits will not include the Regional or Global Upgrades. Instead, you will only be able to choose from the options listed in the graphic above. There is no way to gain these upgrades until after you qualify for Platinum or Diamond Medallion in 2014.
There are many other great questions and answers in the comments on Delta Points, so I highly recommend that you check out what Rene has to say.
The Downside of Regional Upgrades
If you travel often between New York’s JFK airport and the west coast on a transcontinental flight, you are now pretty much screwed out of any chance to get an upgrade on this flight. Delta is now treating their transcontinental JFK-SFO, LAX, SEA flights they same way they treat any international flight. That means no complimentary first class upgrades for any Medallion members. While I have never needed to fly these routes, I can imagine that this change will enrage many of Delta’s frequent flyers based on either coast.
Will You Change Your Behavior?
Will these new changes to the Delta program make you change your earning behavior in 2014?
Delta flyers who live in/near a Delta hub like ATL or JFK/LGA may find flying Delta most convenient–and therefore stick with them. But otherwise, Delta offers the least generous benefits for significant frequent flyers in my experience. United and the new American both can offer extensive routes to help flyers reach most destinations–as does Delta. But United and American have offered the chance for regional/systemwide upgrades for years, while Delta is only NOW finally offering. United and American both offer much less costly and more accessible upgrades and free mileage ticket options in ALL classes of service; Delta has horrible offerings in comparison. And United and American offer Star Alliance and OneWorld alliance benefits and opportunities that Delta’s Skyteam alliance can’t even come close to matching…or even approaching.
Delta is the worst of the major US airlines when it comes to redeeming miles for tickets to far-flung destinations. Their redemption options are far more limited–no First Class on alliance members with Skypesos, and higher redemption levels for economy and business class tickets than on United or American partners. Even with the United devaluation and American’s likely coming devaluation, Delta still will offer the least.
If you like to get around the world, Delta is the least productive in helping you get there. Everyone claims Delta equipment is superior, but every time I’ve flown Delta equipment domestically or internationally in the past 3 years, it has been no better or inferior to that on United/American when compared class-to-class. United First is FAR better than Delta BusinessFirst, and United BusinessFirst is pretty close to Delta’s. Delta doesn’t usually offer true First Class, anyway, so you miss out entirely on that nicer option on Delta, while United and American both offer true First Class on international long-haul flights.
Feel free to stick with Delta. But we definitely prefer United and American.
I agree with you, Bill. If I didn’t live in MSP (major Delta Hub), I would be flying on another airline. Since most of my travel is for business, direct flights are my #1 most important factor for choosing an airline at this point. Should I move to another location, I would likely move on from Delta.
Why not get Delta Reserve and Delta Plat cards? $60K on Reserve gets you 30K MQM. $50K on Plat gets you 20K MQM. With 20K MQM rollover, you’d only need 55K BIS.
That’s what I was thinking either that or good old fashioned butt in seat miles.
No Complimentary upgrades on BE Transcons JFK-SFO/LAX/SEA makes this Plat medallion very, very unhappy. Unhappy enough to strongly consider Alaska or American Airlines.
It sounds like American would be your best bet… assuming their “new” Frequent Flyer program doesn’t follow suit with Delta.
Probably but as a plat I could probably use my plat for upgrades and change crediting to Alaska at the airport. So I could potentially leverage my existing status while making the switch to Alaska. Just a thought.
I fly Delta from between SFO and JFK about 20+ trips per year (40 trips). Like being in California and being targeted for higher taxes, Delta has targeted me and decided no more upgrades. I can’t figure out how this actually gets them more revenue since revenue tickets already trump upgrades? How? They think I am going to now buy a business class ticket. Screw You. If I have to buy a business class ticket ANY OTHER airline will get that money not Delta…after 2 million miles they want to squeeze more money from me? CYA.
Yeah, that is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t understand how this would really boost revenue for them. The only thing I can think of is that since it is on an internationally configured plane, they want to treat it more like an international flight. The big difference is that it’s NOT an international flight and there is a TON of competition that you can move away from. Hope you can work something out.