This is one of those posts I just have to put up each year because I know there will be more and more e-mails if I don’t (and I will have a link to e-mail folks who did not check the blog as well). First things first, the history of the day each year rollover MQMs started to hit flyers’ accounts.
- In 2018 it began on Monday January 8th
- In 2017 it began on Tuesday January 10th
- In 2016 it began on Tuesday January 12th
- In 2015 it began on Tuesday January 13th
- In 2014 it began on Tuesday January 14th
- In 2013 it began on Wednesday January 2nd
- In 2012 it began on Sunday January 8th
- In 2011 it began on Wednesday January 5th
- In 2010 it began on Thursday January 14th
So when will it hit for 2019? Looking at the recent trend for the past few years I am reasonably sure we are going to see them on January 7th or 8th. But it could be as late as the Monday the 14th. Feel free to tell me your guess in the comments below.
It is remarkable to think about that this year will be 10 years of rollover elite points and Delta is still the ONLY airline offering this perk to it’s loyal flyers. I personally think it is a wise idea as it motivates a flyer to keep racking up points vs. say trying another airline for status once you max out the top elite level each year.
I know it is hard today to look at your totals and see zeros across the board. It is nice being able to, as you can see from the “big red arrow” above, toggle and see the last year’s totals. Why does this matter?
As well all should know earnings from Delta Amex personal Platinum (learn more) or business (learn more) cards, or Delta Amex personal Reserve (learn more) or business (learn more) cards in 2018, that has a statement close date this month January 2019, will count on LAST YEAR’S totals – not on this year. Only charges made from today onward to 31DEC19 count on this year, that is, earning for the 2020 Medallion year.
Another interesting thing that happened to me in the final days of 2018 was that all my card spend updated that had been stubbornly short about 5k for most of the year. There were some purchases that it seemed, that did credit in the past, were not counting as valid purchases (think creative spending bits). However, in the end, they all counted. I will be testing a bunch this year as well and plan to run $30,000 in spend on my Delta Amex personal Reserve (learn more) in the next few days from many locations.
Anyway, it looks like with what I have booked and with some Amex MQMs I will again be Diamond with Delta by the end of May and have my status until 1FEB2021. You? – René
UPDATE: Confirmed. 7JAN19 was the day rollover MQMs began to post!
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Very interesting about the credit card spend, while I’m seeing it your way, both Delta and Amex customer service told me I would only get credits to my last statement in 2018 and anything after that last statement closed on 12/19/18 would show up in the 2019 spend. I did a horrible MQD run because of this. Guess I learned something!
@Pete – Next time they can read their own T&C on the site. 😉
However, a simple fix that anyone can request is a statement close date of the 1st (will then always close around the 1st). It just makes like better!
Very interesting about the credit card spend, while I’m seeing it your way, both Delta and Amex customer service told me I would only get credits to my last statement in 2018 and anything after that last statement closed on 12/19/18 would show up in the 2019 spend. I did a horrible MQD run because of this. Guess I learned something!
Hi Rene….I took a great mileage run mid-December which put me over the MQM requirement for DM. I had previously requested a waiver for the 250k but was told I needed to reach the MQM goal first.
Just received notification yesterday that I was granted the waiver but this will probably be my last chase for DM….
@Beth – Congrats and thanks for the data point.
Yes, but MQDs don’t roll over, so the incentive to not try other airlines isn’t as strong as you or Delta might hope. They need to fix this if they want true stickiness. I flew Southwest exclusively (4 trips) in December- Delta could’ve had this business.
@Scott – Valid point.
From my January 2018 statement it is obvious that the spending up until December 31st counted towards 2017 and the rest towards 2018. It said
Total Miles Earned xxx Year to Date yyy.
yyy was substantially less than xxx.
Also, immediately underneath it said “Remember, you can earn a Miles Boost of 15,000 Medallion Qualification Miles and 15,000 miles for travel by reaching $30,000 in eligible purchases by December 31st. Your Year-to-Date spend on your Delta Reserve account is yyy”
– yyy being the same as the year to date amount above. Notice that it says December 31st – not “last day of the December statement”
@Barry – The other key bit is charges have to POST by the 31st each year. If you have proof the charge / purchase happened on the 31st (say from a local store) you can work with Amex to get this to credit on the correct date.
Rene thanks to you and Lisa for your patience and understanding when dealing with dorks like me ! Healthy happy new year! YES the rollover is a wonderful concept
@rene I noticed in previous statements that the first charges of the month were shown with a transaction date within the timeframe of the previous statement. IAs long as the transaction date shows as December 31st on the statement (even if it posts today) wouldn’t that count as proof? I’ve almost never seen a transaction date that doesn’t match the actual day of purchase although the post date is nearly always the next day for Amex (which is really annoying when entering transactions in Quicken since the date downloaded into Quicken is the post date not the transaction date and almost every transaction has to be edited manually).
Boy you sure didn’t spend on the Amex like I thought you would, being that you said it was a win and all. But hey, happy new year.
@Francisco – It was and is a win that the spend waver did not go away. As long as partner flights can keep yielding mega points that is a better choice.
Rene, thank you for this helpful post. Could you share , at least in general terms, your strategy on how to achieve the $25k spend on Delta in the next few days (you wrote that you would actually exceed the minimum and hit $30k in the next few days, which is amazing). Any strategy suggestions would be something beneficial to your readers.
Also, do you have any way of using any of your contacts at Delta to pass on the very sharp point made by @Scott (as you note) regarding the “gap” in Delta’s rollover logic: that in fairness they should also roll over the MQD?
Happy New Year to all!
I had the same thing happen in Dec 2017. About $30k in spend after the dec statement. I expected that 30k to count towards 2018 but was surprised to find it posted to 2017. It caused me to hit the $60k mqm bonus unexpectedly.
@rene for me the spending waiver has gone away. Unless your company allows you to put business expenses on your own card, you run your own company, or make a lot more than most people, I don’t see how 250K is a waiver unless you are happy to stay Platinum even when you earn 125K MQM.
@Bernard While I think it would be nice, wouldn’t rolling over the MQD water down the effects of raising the Amex spending waiver and having MQD in the first place?
@Barry & all, Delta is all about $$$. MQD or AMEX card spend, its money in their bank either way. I had 300K card spend and $35K MQDs, so I flew Southwest and got A-List status. The key point is stickiness and top flyers will stray if no incentive to stay.
Best option is to call Amex and ask for statement date of the 28th
Then most of your spend will be in the same year and you can avoid confusion to your self
– both Amex and DL have figured it out by now so no worry from them
AMEX has told me that it’s when the charge *posts* not when the charge is made, that determines which year the spending is attributed to.
So will a charge Dec 31 that has yet to post count toward 2019 spend?
Anyone have experience with this question?
Today enough of the December 31st transactions that were showing as “Pending” yesterday are now posted with a transaction date of December 31st. There is nothing in the transaction detail that says the posting date was later than that. Therefore I had enough eligible purchases in 2018 to qualify for an additional 10K MQM (which will rollover to this year) and 10K miles. Let’s just hope Amex sees it that way. The other glitch is that the chat agent has no record of my getting the extra 10K boost in 2018. Thankfully I still have a copy of that e-mail with the promotion code at the bottom.
Rene, This doesn’t belong here, so you can move it if you want.
I just received a Delta Vacations sale. It doesn’t qualify for MQM???
@Judy – I have not tested or had data points for a long time. Last update I had it was 100% yes – but again – a long time ago! See: https://eyeoftheflyer.com/2014/08/08/confirmed-update-delta-vacations-now-earns-full-mqds-flights/
Rene,
I will carry over enough MQM’s for Diamond and will achieve the requirement for spend by end of March. About the same as last year. I did not request the spend waiver that year and will not request it this year either. Kind of disappointing that are are offering the waiver. What’s the point in even having the requirement if they don’t enforce it.
Thanks for all your help!
Rand.
A question; I’ve been using my DL AMEX Reserve card since January 01, 2019, from what I’m reading this may not account for my 2019 eligable spending? Can you please verify
@Art – All spend as of the 1st count on this year.
@Rene- Is your strategy to rollover as a Platinum and then achieve Diamond for 2 years? Just wondering.
@Sam – I will rollover just shy of DM. I will earn about 75k MQMs this year (for 2020 status).
Here’s an interesting outcome I don’t expect. All of my December 31 spending qualified towards my extra 10000 MQM though it all posted in 2019 with the correct transaction date of December 31st. However whereas I expected them to rollover to 2019 since I made Diamond without them, they are actually showing as 2019 MQM. The net result is the same but it’s lucky I wasn’t relying on them to get Diamond.
@Rand, you don’t “request the waiver”, it’s a benefit of the Delta Amex cards. If you are saying that because you are able to spend 15K on tickets, that others who fly or earn more than 125K miles shouldn’t qualify with the spending waiver, I disagree. The rollover is rather pointless if you can have more than 125K miles and still not qualify for Diamond.
Was working with Diamond Desk support via email and this morning got the following as they were updating the AeroMexico crediting issue taken care of.
“…Also, our SkyMiles
team will begin processing the Rollover MQMs this week. Should the MQMs
post after we process the rollovers no need to worry as we will be
updating accounts on a daily basis for the first few months…”
My MQM have rolled over although they have rolled over way too many. It will kind of hurt to get that fixed (but I will because that’s what a mensch does).
Same for me, but correction appeared this morning 🙁