The 2025 Delta SkyMiles Medallion year and a major Sky Club admittance policy kick in on Saturday, February 1.
So, will Delta passengers see immediate results regarding upgrades and lounges?
Here are my guesses.
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More, Fewer, or the Same Number of Complimentary Upgrades
I read a post somewhere (I think it was on Reddit or Facebook) where someone surmised there would be an uptick in Medallion upgrades to First Class starting on February 1.
If I remember correctly, they think a lot of current Medallions either dropped down in tiers (from Diamond to Platinum to Gold, Silver, or even just plain old SkyMiles members) or abandoned the Good Ship Delta altogether.
But I doubt we’ll see an increase in complimentary upgrades. Why?
First, remember that Medallions could convert their final batch of rollover Medallion Qualification Miles (MQM) to Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQD). People with enough MQM could extend their 2024 status for one year for every 100,000 MQM. (I know Medallions are Diamonds into 2030 through this extension.) On top of that, four Delta SkyMiles® American Express cards give members $2,500 MQD per product. Depending on how many rollover MQM, Delta Amexes, Delta Amex credit card spending, and flying people did, qualifying for status — especially Platinum — wasn’t necessarily that difficult.
Delta also changed its yearly (lifetime) Medallion benefits for Million Milers. For example, three Million Milers and up are now lifetime Diamonds, as opposed to Platinum. That could very well affect upgrades not just this year but for years down the road.
Some people were very vocal about leaving Delta SkyMiles for other programs. But the roars could be louder than the actual number of lions who left. (I just made up that analogy. Does it make sense?) I don’t think enough people became free agents to significantly change upgrade lists.
Remember, too, that Delta really doesn’t want to give you those free upgrades when it can sell them for cash or SkyMiles instead. Only 12% (on average) of premium seats are available for complimentary upgrades right now. Do you expect any business—especially a publicly held one—to say, “You know, we’ve made enough money. Let’s start giving our product away?” And can you honestly fault them?
On top of that, I’ve never heard more stories than recently about Delta gate agents not upgrading people and First Class seats going out empty. You could have Delta 360 status and not get your cushy seat simply because a gate agent doesn’t process the upgrades.
I think it would be at least February 2026 until we see any drop in the number of Medallions. MQM are dead now and can’t help anyone toward statys anymore. Plus, I fully expect — and hope to be wrong about — Delta to raise the MQD thresholds sometime by October.

Sky Club Visits
February 1 is also when four American Express cards’ Sky Club admission rules change. Gone will be the days of unlimited admission when flying same-day Delta-marketed or Delta-operated flights. Eligible card members be given a certain number of “Visits.”
A “Visit” is an entry to one or more Delta Sky Clubs or usage of the Delta Sky Club “Grab and Go” feature, at one or more airports, for a period of up to 24 hours starting upon the first Delta Sky Club entry or Grab and Go usage, during an Eligible Card Member’s travel on a same-day Delta-marketed or Delta-operated flight. A single Visit permits usage of Delta Sky Club(s) in multiple airports during the 24-hour period.
Let’s say you’re flying from New York-LaGuardia to see me in Los Angeles (LAX). But you’re taking a very long, convoluted itinerary for the sake of my blog post. 🙂 . You visit the LGA Sky Club at 6:00 AM. Then you fly to Minneapolis-St. Paul and check out the wonderful MSP G18 Sky Club. Then, you’re off to Seattle and visit the A-B gate Sky Club. But you’re offered a #bumpertunity and get rerouted through San Francisco. You stop at the SFO Sky Club. Finally, around 10:00 PM, we meet at the LAX T3 Sky Club. All five of those Sky Club admissions count as one Visit.
Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card and Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card members each receive up to 15 Visits per Medallion year (through January 31). Meanwhile, those with The Platinum Card® from American Express and The Business Platinum Card® from American Express each get up to 10 Visits every Medallion year.

If you want unlimited visits each Medallion year, you need to spend $75,000 in a calendar year on a respective card — not across cards. (Frankly, I disagree with that. I think that should count if you spend $75,000 across an Amex Business Platinum and Amex Platinum. Or $75,000 between your Delta Reserve Amex and Delta Business Reserve. But that’s another topic, another time.)
If you exceed your allotted Visits and want to enter the lounge, you’ll be charged $50 each time you enter a club.
Here’s another instance when I heard and read about some people canceling their cards in protest. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I haven’t waited more than one or two minutes to enter a Sky Club during the past 18-ish months. Even that was a rarity.
Unless a bunch of Amex members travel for the first two weeks of February and burn through all of their Visits, I don’t think we’ll see any major differences until later in the year. (I know—I’m really going out on a limb there! 🙂 ) Then again, some people might cancel their eligible cards in the coming days because they’re upset about the changes, and their absences would affect Sky Club crowding.
On the other hand, I know many people who hold at least one Delta Reserve card (consumer or business) and at least one Amex Platinum card (consumer or business). Once someone uses one card’s Visits, they use the other cards. So, those folks will still be in Sky Clubs throughout a chunk of the year.

But some folks might realize they don’t use more than 10 or 15 Visits each year.
Again, it’ll be at least Fall 2025 until we see any significant changes in Sky Club crowds. But there are bound to be Delta Amex promotions that tempt people to apply for membership — and introduce a new group of folks to the lounges. Think of it as a “circle of life” thing — especially with younger travelers willing to pony up for premium travel experiences.
Final Approach
We shouldn’t expect considerable changes in upgrades or Sky Club crowds for a while. If anything, upgrades will continue to shrink because Delta wants to sell them. Sky Club crowds might decrease later in the year as people plow through their Visits.
Do you think we’ll see more or fewer upgrades this year than in past years? Will Sky Club crowds grow or decrease? Please share your thoughts in the below Comments section!
For rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card, please visit this link.
For rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card, please visit this link.
For rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this link.
For rates and fees of The Business Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this link.
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Here is my take. There are only few Delta Sky Clubs worth using the Amex visits. You named a few on you post but before if there was a Sky Club at the airport I would stop by even if to only use a “nicer” restroom. PHL and DEN are two great examples of mediocre Delta lounges that I will gladly skip this year. I also live in a Delta hub and have no reason to use the lounge as I can manage my time to get to the airport and go straight to the gate. Thus, I think between my Amex cards, 25 visits will be more than enough.
You bring up an interesting point when it comes to restrooms. Some people (including me, occasionally) drop into the Sky Clubs just to use the bathrooms that are nicer than the ones out on the concourse (usually on arrival). Unless someone visited a Sky Club elsewhere within the past 24 hours, I see that becoming a thing of the past.
Not that will matter much (unless you take a red eye flight) but can you explain how the 24 hours work? Is it from 12am to 12pm on same day or 24 hours after you triggered the first visit? For example, if you go to the SEA Sky Club at night and catch a red eye to JFK and lad next morning, can you still visit the JFK Sky Club at arrival under the same 24 hours rule?
I was told by a Delta rep that it’s a hard 24 hours by the clock that starts when you visit your first club. Your example should work. I was curious about that, too, because there might be times when I visit the LAX club around 4 PM, get to a city at 11 PM CST, have a commitment the next morning, and then want to use that city’s club by 1 or 2 PM.
But the past year and a half has been such a cluster-you-know-what of confusion that I think we’ll need to wait and see what happens during the next week or so.
Will be interesting to see how SkyClub visits are charged to a card. Currently, most of the time as long as you have a Amex DL Reserve or Amex Plat/BizPlat on your account, they scan the boarding pass and let you in. Now will one have to show a specific card each time? That will definitely slow down the check-in speed. And presumably there would have to be a tracker on amex.com to be able to check total visits consumed YTD. [Just in case an extra bathroom visit is available for ‘free’ at the end of the year, e.g. :-)]
I foresee crowded bathrooms in late Decembers and throughout Januarys 🙂
Your post is inaccurate. The most you could do was extend one year regardless of the mqms you had. And if you already qualified as a diamond you couldn’t use them for extending status another year. Only choice at that point was to convert to points. I had over 350 k in mqms and had to convert to miles. Got screwed as per usual w delta.
The post is accurate.
Per Delta (you have to click to expand the terms and conditions on the page):
(Bold mine)
And here’s an example from a reader who could extend their 2024 status for 100,000 MQM per year.
You should have been able to extend your 2024 status for up to three years, regardless of whatever tier it was.
Correct. I think the confusion some had was that a Diamond (DM) status earned could overlap with the extension DM status for multiple years, and there was no way to postpone the extensions, so you kind-of get double DM the first year. However, I believe the earned DM would earn Platinum choice benefits as well, vs the extension-only DM (which would not get Platinum choice benefits)… Will find out soon enough once reports start trickling in from Sat onwards!
Excellent point!
@Tom – One of my good friends locked in 3 years Diamond – you clearly missed out.
Only if he won’t make Diamond through flying/spending. Otherwise it would be a waste of 300K MQM.
As Chris says, you could extend for 1 year per 100K MQM, but if you qualified in 2024 for 2025, that would be a waste of 100K MQM. Unless you didn’t qualify, you did the right thing to convert them to miles. I had just over 400K MQM, and I was happy to convert them to 200K miles.
Sorry, Tom but you are absolutely wrong on this and you simply misunderstood and made a mistake.
I emailed Delta asking for a rationale why I should retain the Amex Reserve Card at $695 year and limit me to 15 visits (or spend a ridiculous $75,000). Through my MQM rollovers I am DM until 2028 and about 150K miles short of 3MM. I received a call from corporate wanting to know more – so I told her I have no reason to be loyal anymore and I can get the Amex Platinum and have unlimited access to the Centurion Lounge. The tiebraker on (limited upgrades) does nothing so in the end I told her Ed and Glen need to give me some rationale of the benefit of their card – she could not answer
I don’t know how much you generally spend with a credit card or how much you fly (probably more than me if you reached 3MM) but there are many people that would spend 75K on the Reserve card. For them, this would be the benefit, along with the ability to earn status with a combination of flying dollars and credit card spending, which wasn’t possible until 2024.
I just emailed Delta and told them they have almost completely disincentivized the Delta Reserve Card for me. I will use 2 choice benefits to get unlimited access to lounge, ( don’t need card any longer). My company buys me first class flights, so don’t need card for better upgrade position. Companion fare is super hard to use and for sure has “blackout date”. They just say the required fare class is not available….same as a blackout in my book. Looking at the Platinum Amex as replacement. It’s get’s miles, lots of reimbursements and access to tons of other lounges when there isn’t a sky club around. Delta needs to consider their top tier, most loyal travelers when making these kinds of changes. They are throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Million miler and Platinum and walked past open first class seats on a flight recently after take off while I was in Comfort Plus. I have been booking a lot more Southwest flights (A list) already and I am on the bubble about renewing my $695 Amex card this year. They will have to be hit in the pocketbook to make any changes on their downgraded programs for loyal flyers.
When you board the plane as an A-list member, do you find there are usually exit row or bulkhead seats still available? I know a few factors come into play (i.e., is the flight a continuation from another city and some pax stay on, etc.), so it varies from time to time.
Most of this won’t matter in the long run because Southwest is changing to assigned seating but I’m just curious. They’ve added a ton of routes from my closest airport (BUR) and look more and more appealing.
I’m not sure Delta’s policy changes related to medallions is only driven by revenue optimization. I imagine an operational challenge of getting their team on board with handing out upgrades to “Platinum” medallions who got that status by gaming the credit card system vs. handing them out to loyal customers who only fly Delta.
Deflating the “Medallion bubble” to more accurately reflect loyal customers of Delta may actually enable their team to go the extra mile (haha) for top tier medallions and know that they are directly rewarding an upgrade to a customer who is driving their profitability rather than rewarding one who fell under the spell of the whole credit card rewards marketing complex (which this site and many others may very well be a part of).
No offense to the credit card marketing complex – I’ve been a direct beneficiary for many years. But after a while it grows tiresome to game the system. I’m probably just getting old, but I just want to be a top performer who makes enough money to buy a ticket on the greatest airline in the world (Delta) and be rewarded for my loyalty.
Sadly, it appears that Tom didn’t understand the opportunity that Delta had offered regarding the one-time use of his MQMs. I was able to use mine to extend Diamond thru 2030 and converted the remaining amount to RDMs.
That genuinely stinks (I’ll assume his comment is real and not someone trolling or trying to be “funny.”).
That depends on whether Tom would Diamond anyway, like I did in 2024, so that would already have been throwing away 100K MQM to convert them to a year of Diamond that I already had. I am sure there are many people to converted to miles who, like me and maybe Tom who completely understood the different options and made a calculated decision as to which was the best use of those MQMs.
I am already limiting my Sky Club visits to those with longer lay overs. I also fly Delta One over seas a few times each year and assume this would not use up one of my Reserve card Sky Club visits, especially if using a Delta One lounge (JFK lounge is very impressive). I agree it will be interesting to see how the number of visits with multiple cards is handled. Regarding Matthews commnet avbout reserve card, I still manage to use the companion first class ticket certificate each year to more than pay for the card. Just need to plan ahead.
I converted 600K MQMs to a 6-year Diamond extension. I have seen big changes in 2025 when looking for upgrades using UG certs. Domestic destinations to which I used Regional UG Certs in the past, now almost universally require Global Certs. And only the higher-priced itinerary offerings are upgradable using them. Additionally, whether paying cash or Sky Miles, airfares to the cities to which I most often fly are up by 60-100% or more. Gone are the days of less than five cents-per-mile runs. What’s a gamer to do? Working toward 2MM, to test the impact of Diamond Medallion status on complimentary upgrades, I’m not using UG certs. After I compete my twelve runs I’ll compare the upgrade percentage to previous years. For 202: 76,055 butt-in-seat miles @ 5.58 cents per mile. All domestic. And just to be clear: IMO C+ is a fake upgrade. I wish Delta would stop sending me silly congratulatory emails every time I book a trip. At this moment I’m 6 miles above Omaha squeezed into 19A at the exit door. Yup. You know the seat. 757-200. I forgot how small these coach seats are. C+ upgrade. Seriously? Fughetataboutit! Stop the pain! I’m keeping my fingers crossed I get a D1 seat tonight on the flight back to JFK.
Chris,
So are you saying that if I use my DL Reserve card and ONLY use the centurion lounges, I don’t get penalized from “15” Sky Club Visits? What about Sky Team Elite Plus Internationally, do Sky Clubs visits count against the “15”? Thanks.
Centurion Lounges and Sky Team Elite aren’t effected.
I used the Centurion Lounge for the first time last week as the SkyClub in T4 by B32 had a huge line. I asked the concierge and she said there are no limits on visit with Amex Platinum; does not to be the reserve card. Cyantist indicated the companion certificate offset the $695; IMO – I have a better chance of seeing the pope than getting a FC seat domestically using the companion upgrades
A couple things:
My wife was traveling with me. She has the Delta AMEX Platinum card and she has an additional user Delta AMEX Reserve card from my account. Additional Reserve card users can also access the lounge unlimited until 31 Jan, but then any access will tick off from the primary card holders 15 visits for the year. So it’s per “account”, not per “card” if the cards are additional users. (Military get annual card fees waived by AMEX, so the additional card for her and my older kids are no cost.)
So regarding the how they track which card ticks down your 15 per year, i have a theory. This year wife and I traveling together went to a SkyClub. I scanned in fine, she scanned and they asked to see her Reserve card. She left it at home and they made me burn a guest pass to let her in since she couldn’t show her card. In the Delta app she had HER Delta AMEX Platinum card linked as her “primary charge card”, not the additional Reserve card she had from me. We changed the primary card to the Reserve card at the connection airport, scanned, and walked right in with the ✅️ on the kiosk screen. So I think whatever card you link in the app is the way the system will count your access each time. …… I think!
Also… don’t forget, as a Reserve card holder, you… and your additional card account holders, can access the Centurion lounges unlimited. So given the option, goto the Centurion lounge when avaliable. The ATL E concourse AMEX lounge is absolutely worth the train ride if you ha e time!
Wow! Those are the exact two questions I’ve had about my spouse using his secondary user Reserve card for Sky Club access. So it does count against my 15 days of visits, and whatever card is marked as primary in his account determines whether or not he gets Sky Club access. Good to know! Finally.
I think you are right. I don’t expect much change this year.
I always wait until the last minute to board, if I’m at or near the top of the First Class or D1 list. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.
BTW there is a typo – “`and can’t help anyone toward statys anymore” – should be “status”.
I have a slightly different take…
I believe what you’re going to see is much worse wait times at Centurions since Amex Plats only get 10 Sky Clubs and Reserves get 15. My example: You’re flying from a smaller airport (no lounge of any kind) through ATL or JFK to wherever. Why would you ever burn a SC visit when you could use the Centurion with no visit penalty?
I think people will save their SC visits for airports that don’t have Centurions outright or convenient to Delta gates.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky but I’ve never had to wait to get into the SkyClub at LAX. Maybe a short delay due to the time it takes for each person having to insert their card into the kiosk. But, never an actual wait.
As for upgrades . . . you’re kidding, right?
I had to wait several times to get into the T3 club in the year or two after it opened. But since then, it’s been pretty much like your experience.
I was there on opening day and walked right in. I was there on the first anniversary and walked right in. Of course, there have been times when it’s been quite occupied.
I have had to wait longer to get into the Centurion Lounge in ATL.. On finally getting in after a 35 minute wait-I found many seats open… We only had 20 minutes to utilize the lounge.. As I was there I saw a card with a QR code –saying how are we doing.. I told them that after the long wait I counted 28 seats open .. within 10 minutes the flood gates opened and people got in asap and No waiting or lines… Magic!!!
An interesting thought about the 24 hours. If I fly out on Delta and return on American within 24 hours, I can use the SkyClub upon returning (if it’s near the American gates).
The $75k spend for unlimited access does NOT count spread over two cards, business and personal. But the MQD spend spread over two cards, does count for one flyers account. Is that correct? Amex says so but I never know what one hand is telling the other.
The MQD earnings are per card. For example, spending $5 on a Delta Reserve and $5 on a Delta Biz Reserve won’t give you $1 MQD. But spending all $10 on a Delta Reserve would give you the $1 MQD.