How to plan your Delta SkyMiles Medallion qualification strategy for 2025

26.06.2024 - 14:05 / thepointsguy.com

It's that time of year again, when elite status junkies' thoughts begin turning to re-qualifying for status in their preferred airlines. With Delta Air Lines, it's an even more fraught decision this year, since Delta announced a slew of changes ... not only to the Delta SkyMiles Medallion loyalty program, but also to its cobranded credit card portfolio.

One of the biggest changes is that Delta is now determining status based solely on one metric: Medallion Qualification Dollars, or MQDs. These are essentially a measure of how much you spend with Delta Air Lines in its many iterations.

But what if you already earned enough MQDs for next year?

That's just one of the many questions we've gotten at TPG from readers about the future for status, and what the strategy should be for the rest of 2024, especially for those elites who may have already hit needed thresholds for status either via flying, credit card spending, or through the not-long-for-this-world MQM rollover.

For me, for example, I've been happily not paying much attention to re-qualifying for top-tier Delta Damond status, since I was able to choose to extend my status by a year via a special one-time Choice Benefit that allowed me to take my unused rollover MQMs and turn them into Diamond status through 2025.

Other Delta elites have already earned status for 2025 the old-fashioned way, by a combination of spend and flying.

Here are some things to think about as you go about planning the rest of the year.

Related: Delta Medallion status: What it is and how to earn it

As a reminder, here are the new requirements for status with Delta.

That's a lot of spend on Delta Air Lines or on its credit cards (more on that below).

The earning metric known as Medallion Qualification Miles (MQMs) is gone as of this year, which means that Delta has also removed the annual rollover benefit. Prior to 2024, Medallion members could begin each year with an MQM boost — specifically, the number of MQMs earned beyond last year's qualification threshold.

The good news is that any extra MQMs from 2023 can still be very useful. Delta made several one-time conversion choices live in your Delta SkyMiles account earlier this year.

You can choose to convert your MQMs to MQDs (10 MQMs = 1 MQD), redeemable miles (2 MQMs = 1 mile) or a combination of both. Here are those choices:

Members with MQM rollover balances over 100,000 can also choose to extend their 2024 Medallion status for one year for every 100,000 rollover MQMs.

Please note that you must make those choices by Dec. 31, 2024. It's a use-it-or-lose-it situation, so be sure to make your choice by then. However, your selection is final — so it's important to carefully consider your options.

I had 108,671 rollover MQMs,