Three ways to earn Delta status

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Now that I’ve made you all unnecessarily hungry, let’s get started:

• ✈️ Three ways to earn Delta status

• 💧 Sponsored by LMNT

• 💳 Let’s talk about Bilt

✈️ Three ways to earn Delta status

As you all know by now, it is, indeed, a new year.

And with a new year comes a new, open canvas of opportunities for maximizing your travel and rewards.

One of those opportunities is with elite status. If you start thinking about it now, you can really come out ahead for not only this year, but all of next year as well.

Today, our topic is none other than a Daily Drop fan favorite: Delta— so let’s talk about the ways you can earn Delta status.

Option 1: The Normal Way

First up is the most obvious: Earning Delta the old-fashioned way by racking up enough MQDs.

Essentially, by spending money on Delta, you’ll earn MQDs, or Medallion Qualifying Dollars, which unlock various tiers of status:

As you can see, these requirements are pretty hefty… But there is a shortcut.

You see, some of Delta’s co-branded credit cards all give you a “head start” of 2,500 MQDs each year.

If you have ALL of these cards, you’d theoretically be able to start each year with 10,000 MQDs, which already gives you Gold status.

But that’s not realistic…

Still, even having ONE of the cards will give you a nice easy bump. From there, let’s say you book this round-trip flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles:

Since the earning rates for MQDs are based on dollars spent rather than distance, you’d earn a total of a little over 500 MQDs.

In fact, on the checkout page, Delta will tell you exactly how many miles and MQDs you’ll earn, which is based on the pre-tax cost:

If you book an expensive business-class flight that’s only an hour, this system will give you much more bang for your buck than if it were based on distance.

When you book flights with SkyTeam partner airlines (like KLM, Air France, Aeromexico, Korean Air, etc), you do earn based on distance.

Specifically, Delta has charts for each partner airline, which you can find here.

Let’s say you want to book an expensive cash flight to Taiwan, but Delta and Korean Air are roughly the same price.

(Don’t worry, this is just for illustrative purposes… I know nobody’s buying a $5,000 flight anytime soon. 🙃)

Which one should you choose in order to get the maximum MQDs for your trip? Well, let’s look at the business-class chart for Korean Air:

Since booking business-class on Korean Air earns you 40% of the distance flown, this round-trip ticket on Korean Air would earn you 6,250 MQDs.

Since Delta awards MQDs based on money spent, booking the Delta option would only earn you 5,302 (since taxes don’t count).

In this scenario and in many others, you can earn MORE MQDs (and more SkyMiles) by flying partner airlines where the distance works to your advantage.

But Delta is one of the unique airlines that awards MQDs for redeeming miles, too.

Specifically, you’ll earn one MQD for every 100 SkyMiles you redeem. If you book this flight from Atlanta to Seattle, you’ll earn 155 MQDs.

That’s not bad at all, considering it’s an award flight.

Finally, you can earn MQDs from the other two methods:

• Spending on the co-branded credit cards I referenced earlier.

• Booking Delta Vacations packages

If you’re die-hard about Delta and funnel your flying, spending, and credit card strategy through these methods, status isn’t really that hard to unlock.

Option 2: The Shortcut

Delta also offers a status match program that allows you to unlock any level of Delta status if you have equal-ish status with a different program.

Last year, I did this and used my Aeroplan status to unlock Delta Diamond status, which gave me some nice SkyTeam perks.

This also allows you to extend your status after meeting MQD requirements during a three-month period, all of which are lower than the normal ones.

Option 3: The Strategic Way

My personal favorite of the options is earning elite status with a different SkyTeam airline, attaching that loyalty number to your Delta flights, and enjoying all of the same benefits of Delta Medallion status.

For example, earlier this year, both ITA and Flying Blue offered status matches, which I ended up taking advantage of (ITA, specifically).

If I fly Delta and attach my ITA number, I’ll get Delta SkyClub access, free checked bags, Priority Boarding, and more through January of 2026!

Right now, Vietnam Airlines is offering a similar status match. If you hop on this, you can get Delta benefits for 12 months by attaching your Vietnam Airlines number to your Delta flights!

Some foreign programs award elite status based on number of flights, distance flown, or other much more accessible metrics than Delta’s cash-based program.

If you fly Delta and credit your flights to one of these programs, you can unlock many of the same Delta benefits while spending only a fraction of what Delta requires.

So here’s the bottom line:

Elite status can make every travel experience more comfortable, exciting, and rewarding. If you start thinking about it now, you have plenty of options to strategize in 2025 and unlock all of these benefits.

💳 Let’s talk about Bilt

The Bilt Mastercard® has always been a solid contender in our books… but you don’t actually need it to still earn Bilt Rewards Points!

Rarely would we advise you to not get a great card, but… this is just too good to pass up 👀

That’s right—you can sign up for a FREE Bilt Rewards account and earn bonus Bilt points without ever touching the program’s credit card!!

In this week’s YouTube video, Brendan walks you through all the different ways you can rack up Bilt points without ever having the Bilt Card.

Want a teaser? You can earn bonus points by:

• Linking airline and hotel programs to your account

• Earning through Bilt Dining

• Taking Lyft rides

• And more!

So checkout our YouTube video for all the deets, or just go ahead and sign up for your free Bilt account if you haven’t done so yet!

That’s all for today, folks! I hope you enjoyed these insights into two super popular loyalty programs. I’m curious to know:

Make sure you tune in tomorrow - we’ve still got some exciting things on deck for the rest of the week!

Cheers,

52°22'35.4"N 52°15'17.4"W