Nope, that isn’t a typo. Delta Air Lines announced today a new requirement for the 2018 Medallion Diamond elite EQD waiver. The 2018 requirement of $250,000 represents a 1,000% increase over the current requirement.
What Are MQD’s?
Several years ago Delta Air Lines introduced a revenue requirement to their Medallion loyalty program. This new requirement mean Delta travelers must fly a certain number of miles and spend a certain amount of money with the airline annually to qualify for elite status. Delta named the new revenue requirement Medallion Qualifying Dollars or MQD for short. For 2018 the spending requirement is $15,000. Meaning you must fly at least 120,000 miles and spend $15,000 with the airline to qualify for Medallion Diamond elite status. This idea was revolutionary when introduced in 2014, but is commonplace today.
What Is An MQD Waiver?
Shortly after introducing the MQD requirement, Delta introduced a way to bypass that requirement. The bypass method was for eligible American Express Delta SkyMiles credit card holders to spend $25,000 on their card(s) annually. Once a Medallion member hits the $25,000 in annual spend they no longer need to worry about the MQD requirement. This means medallion members can earn a ton of Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQM) through card spend or deep discount travel and not have to worry about how much money they spend annually on airfare. It’s still going to cost a decent amount of money to reach 120,000 miles annually, but you can probably attain that amount of mileage for less than $15,000.
As you can see from the above image, under the MQD total is the card spend tracker. Just below the tracker is the current MQD waiver requirement of $25,000. That slider will go all the way up to $250,000 for 2018. It’s going to look pretty funny watching that slider slowly creep up throughout the year.
Delta Is Raising The MQD Waiver For 2018
Now that you have a better understanding of what MQD is and what the waiver does, it’s time to discuss the upcoming change. Delta Air Lines announced today that for 2018 SkyMiles card members must spend $250,000 annually to bypass the EQD requirement. As I mentioned earlier, that represents a 1,000% increase over the 2017 requirement.
Honestly, I’m blown away by this decision. I understand Delta Air Lines is trying to make it more difficult for average joes to qualify for Medallion Diamond status, but I think it’s sending the wrong message. It’s basically telling all those elites who flew 120,000 miles in 2017, but didn’t spend over $15,000 on tickets to pay up in 2018 or else.
To me, it also shows that Delta isn’t messing around with this decision. If the change was from $25,000 to $50,000 I’d understand. But they’re going from $25,000 to $250,000! It’s a huge jump that basically tells anyone who spends on their cards just for the MQD waiver to get lost. It’s also going to highly encourage those that do spend $250,000 annually, but put their Delta cards in a drawer after the first $25,000 in spend, to keep the money flowing. Cleary Delta is trying desperately to increase the revenue earned from co-branded credit cards in 2018.
Is This Really A HUGE Deal?
Everyone’s been making a huge deal about this move and clearly here I am writing about it, so it’s noteworthy. However, Delta is keeping the $25,000 MQD waiver alive. Going forward Delta will waive the MQD requirement for up to Medallion Platinum status after just $25,000 in annual spend. All Delta is trying to do here is thin the Medallion Diamond herd. It seems when the dust settles Delta Diamond will be closer to American’s Concierge Key than Executive Platinum.
DO NOT Manufacture Spend $250,000 Annually
I rarely touch on Manufactured Spending because I personally don’t do it. It basically involves buying something to move money to one thing to pay off your credit card… clear as mud I know. Manufactured spending violates most credit card card member agreements and therefore you shouldn’t MS (in my opinion). If you do plan on using MS you better have a good story why you spend $250,000 a year while only making $100,000!
I’ve seen a few different people discuss manufacturing this $250,000 spending requirement and if you’re willing to take on the risk, fine, but I can’t recommend it.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I’m glad to see Delta is trying to curb the Delta Medallion Diamond problem. Clearly the airline believes there are too many top-tier elites in their ranks and they want to thin the herd. By doing so life gets a little worse for those who don’t qualify for Diamond and a whole lot better for those who do.
My issue with this most is simply how drastic it is. Going from $25,000 to $50,000 seems reasonable. Going from $25,000 to $250,000 is just utterly insane. Luckily this goes in line with nearly every drastic overnight change Delta has made over the past few years.
Delta realizes they have a mostly captive audience in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, etc. They don’t have much competition at most of their hubs. So why not keep making their loyalty program worse. Eventually these negative changes will catch up with Delta and customers will leave, but until then, keep ’em coming! (I’m being sarcastic)
