Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and may earn compensation when a customer clicks on a link, when an application is approved, or when an account is opened. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Reader comments reflect the views of the individuals who wrote them, are not reviewed or endorsed by Eye of the Flyer or by any advertiser, and should not be treated as advice. Some links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
Don’t get too excited.
Delta Air Lines isn’t rolling over this year’s MQD or Delta SkyMiles Amex spend to 2021.
(Whether or not they will is a question René and I are frequently asked.)
But I was (very pleasantly) surprised last night when I saw this post from fellow Boarding Area blogger Jon Nickel-D’Andrea at No Mas Coach!
Basically, Mr. Nickel-D’Andrea contacted Delta’s Twitter team to see if this year’s MQD and Amex spend would roll over to next year:
I asked the @Delta twitter machine the following question
(JN-D’A:) Hey y’all. Question in regard to MQD. Do I have until the end of 2021 to hit the credit card $250k waiver? Will the spend in 2020 also count until 2021?
And the responses were amazing. Much more than I thought…
(@Delta:) Hi there, yes that’s correct. What you spend in 2020 you will have available in 2021.
Awesome, right? I don’t know about you, but visions of rollover MQD and Delta Amex spend dollars danced through my head. (And I could hear heads exploding from the “Faux Diamonds!” and “Gamers!” and “Thin the Herd!” crowds 😉 )
But Here’s the Bad News
I contacted Delta corporate liaisons to confirm whether or not these details are true.
Apparently, the MQD rollover information was news to them, too. And incorrect.
The Delta communications rep told me there are no plans to roll over MQD and Delta SkyMiles Amex Card spend.
So What Happened?
It appears Mr. Nickel-D’Andrea received misinformation from a @Delta rep who was either confused or went rogue. (I’ll go with the former.)
Between the change fee waivers, MQM rollovers, safety policies, and more, it’s not entirely surprising someone might get something wrong. (That and people make mistakes from time to time.)
What Is Confirmed
We do know all MQM earned this year roll over to next year — which can give us an excellent jump start on 2022 Medallion status.
Final Approach
Of course, it would be nice if MQD and Amex Spend rolled over to next year. There are still four-ish months for Delta to change to their minds — but don’t hold your breath.
With yesterday’s announcement that they’re giving MQM bonuses for spending on some Delta Amex cards, at least we have an opportunity to stock up on MQM.
— Chris
Featured image: ©iStock.com/Angel Di Bilio
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and may earn compensation when a customer clicks on a link, when an application is approved, or when an account is opened. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Reader comments reflect the views of the individuals who wrote them, are not reviewed or endorsed by Eye of the Flyer or by any advertiser, and should not be treated as advice. Some links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
I have been using Pay with Miles this year since I still get full MQMs, I assumed that MQDs would not rollover, and change fees have been waived for tickets that have already been purchased.
By they way, did everyone get the offer for:
“Enroll your Card and earn 500 MQMs and 500 bonus miles, up to 25,000 miles and 25,000 MQMs”
or is this a targeted offer?
René wrote about this one yesterday; I received it only on my Delta Amex Business Platinum card — which I hardly ever use. (whomp, whomp for me 🙂 )
Thanks for the link to Rene’s post. I got the offer for the Delta AMEX Business Reserve card, which is the only Delta AMEX card that I currently have.
I got this offer as well, and to me, it is HUGE…that is, no way could hit the next “tranche” of 30000 miles to get my second 15,000 MQM…for rollover, BUT, I likely can and will spend maybe 15000 over the first 30,000…as in, get an extra 7500…heck, except for the spend, with rollover and hopefully fully revived air travel, might hit the magic 125,000 for platinum…
So it seems there is absolutely no incentive to continue buying/flying Delta this year even if we are close on MQD. MQMs are easy to come by and we have all of next year to earn them on top of this year’s rollover. If the MQD clock resets on 1-Jan and my status is extended to 2022, then I’m a free-agent for now. Seems like a bad idea for Delta. I would continue flying with Delta if my MQD would carryover this year.
So if one were Platinum or Diamond already and achieved/earned it again in 2020 it means nothing since our current status is already good thru ’21???
If that’s the case goodbye Delta AMEX card spend. I have a hard time believing this.
Nevermind. My bad. MQM’s roll, spending does not.
If spending doesn’t roll, then I’ve wasted my time & money this year spending as Delta already rolled my status from this year to next? What’s the incentive to spend this year? Seems like there’s no need to spend beyond max MQM bonus on each Amex DL card?
Some people want to load up on MQM. Once those goals are met and/or maxed out, though, there really isn’t a compelling need to use the DL Amexes for the rest of the year.
Faux Diamonds! LOL So that would make it Zirconium Status.
What happens to the rollover MQMs from 2019, currently in my account?
Will they rollover to 2021?
Well then my $3000 i spent before the lockdown is lost for 2021, that just defies logic?? I had trips to brazil and manila set for crazy MQD bonuses and they are sitting in voucher land. Especially since even flying next year will be a toss up and ive got trip vouchers to spend or loose that investment. Im kind of shell shocked, i continue to fly delta domestic using my hundreds of 1000s of peso dribble. Im diamond and MM and it just makes it seem pointless to grandfather in MQM and not delta dollars spent…im finally feeling some cracks in my loyalty. Chasing Diamond is beginning to not make sense if my international trips are ify for the next year or two even??!! I hope someone from delta reads this….should i write delta directly i guess?
So I clicked on the link above “all MQM earned this year roll over to next year”, and it says that all MQM’s on Dec 31, 2020 will roll over to 2021. I bring this up as I’ve been reading a lot of posts on different sources, and all say “MQM’s earned this year roll over to next year”, but I had a bunch roll over from 2019, and they will be in my total on Dec 31, 2020, so it seems all in my account will roll over, not just those earned this year. Correct?
I am pretty sure Delta does one (or more) of the following three things:
1) Rolls MQDs and/or AMEX spend from 2020 to 2021
2) Gives another year of free status extensions, to 1/31/2023
3) Cuts the requirements to earn Medallion status during 2021 (for status year ending 1/31/2023), especially Diamond
Of these, #1 seems most logical. Given that business travelers won’t return until 2022 at the earliest, if Delta doesn’t do any of the above, there will be VERY few Diamonds remaining come 2/1/2022.
I’m shocked that nothing has been announced here. Platinum will be easy for anyone who wants it with MQM’s carrying over and the 25k spend threshold. But who’s making Diamond for 2022 with the current requirements? My work travel is down over 50% and with platinum guaranteed and no path to diamond, I’m thinking about earning UA status in Q2 and beyond.
I find it hard to believe that Delta hasn’t realized this problem yet.