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I’m in a bit of a reflective, nostalgic mood. Until a couple of years ago, this was the time of year when I would start hunting for Delta Air Lines SkyMiles Medallion Qualification Miles (MQM) mileage runs.
I’d be on the mileage run lookout during most of the year. But autumn is when people (sometimes including my wife and I) realized they needed to either score some MQM for a particular status goal that year or pad their balance for Delta’s then-generous rollover MQM model.
It was a fun challenge that was an excuse to fly places, sometimes somewhere random because the points earnings were so good. (These were flights that were already scheduled. Calm down, environmentalists.)
My wife and I once flew Los Angeles to San Francisco to Minneapolis to Dallas to Detroit and back to Los Angeles — in 24 hours. We had a blast and scored a bunch of MQM for a great price. We flew to Tokyo, New York City, Hawaii (Honolulu and Kona), and Europe either on turnarounds or only for a couple of nights. Just because we loved the MQM game, enjoy traveling, and we never got tired of racking up miles and flying to Asia or New York for dinner.
Even finding good First Class deals or buy-ups was fun because those yielded bonus MQM — and we didn’t have to play the upgrade game.
And here’s the real kicker: we earned elite status by — gasp!— actually flying Delta and using their credit cards!
Ah, the good ole days, right?
Since Delta revamped the SkyMiles program two years ago, we’ve spent significantly less money flying Delta and using our Delta SkyMiles® American Express Cards. We spread the love across our Chase, Capital One, and Amex cards. (We’re rewarding Delta’s loyalty to us.)
We’ve given Southwest significantly more business. Even though we don’t love their new business model, we do love my Companion Pass and look forward to using that.
But we do miss the MQM chase.
Do you miss Delta MQM runs?
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the 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.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
