I’ve written about how Alaska Mileage Plan awards elite qualifying miles for award flights, together with for journey on all companion airways. I feel it’s solely honest to present Delta SkyMiles a shoutout, as that is an space the place Alaska truly adopted Delta’s lead.
How Delta SkyMiles awards MQDs for award flights
These days Delta SkyMiles elite standing is awarded through the metric of Medallion Qualifying {Dollars} (MQDs), and people may be earned for flying, bank card spending, and extra. What many individuals don’t notice is that Delta SkyMiles additionally awards MQDs for nearly all SkyMiles award tickets, together with for journey on companion airways.
Listed here are the fundamentals of how this works:
- MQDs are supplied not only for award flights on Delta, but in addition for award flights on Delta’s companion airways
- With a view to be eligible, the award ticket must be issued by Delta, so award tickets issued by means of companion frequent flyer packages don’t qualify
- The eligible SkyMiles quantity have to be on the award reservation, and the traveler earns the MQDs
- MQDs may be earned for journey in Foremost Cabin and above (so fundamental financial system awards don’t qualify)
- MQDs are awarded on the fee of 1 MQD per 100 miles redeemed; in different phrases, every mile is valued at one cent for the needs of a redemption, and redeeming 10,000 miles would earn you 100 MQDs
Within the curiosity of being thorough, listed below are the official Delta SkyMiles phrases for this profit:
SkyMiles Members can earn MQDs on Award tickets operated by Delta and Delta International Airline Companions, in Foremost Cabin (or equal) or above, when booked by means of any direct Delta channel. MQDs will probably be calculated based mostly on miles redeemed towards the Award Ticket value divided by 100. Authorities-imposed taxes and costs don’t earn MQDs.
With that out of the way in which, there are some things to notice. Based mostly on my understanding, the MQDs are likely to publish appropriately and rapidly for award flights which can be for journey on Delta. Nonetheless, it’s rather less constant for journey on companion airways. It will probably usually take one to 2 weeks for the MQDs to publish, and generally they even need to be requested manually.
On prime of that, there’s a recognized glitch whereby the reserving web page doesn’t essentially present the proper variety of MQDs for award flights. For instance, take a Singapore to Jakarta award flight on Garuda Indonesia in enterprise class. It prices 40,000 miles plus $65.20 in taxes, so it ought to provide 400 MQDs.
Nonetheless, the “counter” suggests it earns 296 MQDs, and it’s my understanding that wouldn’t be appropriate.
As a reminder, Delta SkyMiles has the next elite thresholds:
- SkyMiles Silver Medallion standing requires 5,000 MQDs
- SkyMiles Gold Medallion standing requires 10,000 MQDs
- SkyMiles Platinum Medallion standing requires 15,000 MQDs
- SkyMiles Diamond Medallion standing requires 28,000 MQDs
How rewarding are award flights with Delta SkyMiles?
Among the many “huge three” US carriers, Delta SkyMiles is probably the most beneficiant relating to counting award flights towards standing. United MileagePlus counts award flights for journey on United (however not companion airways) towards standing, whereas American AAdvantage doesn’t rely award flights towards standing.
That is finally a pleasant function of redeeming Delta SkyMiles, and it suits into the general theme the airline goes for, which is that SkyMiles is sort of a income based mostly foreign money towards flights, slightly than providing some unimaginable, outsized redemptions.
For these on the standing hamster wheel, maybe it really works out properly, since you may redeem your miles towards flights with out alternative value by way of incomes standing.
In principle this sounds prefer it may very well be profitable for companion award flights as properly. The catch is that Delta SkyMiles’ premium cabin companion redemption charges are terrible, at the least when touring to or from america. If something, the candy spot for Delta loyalists is flying companion airways exterior of the Americas, the place you will get first rate redemption charges, and earn MQDs.
Backside line
Delta SkyMiles awards Medallion Qualifying {Dollars} (MQDs) for award flights, on the fee of 1 MQD per 100 SkyMiles redeemed. This is applicable to each Delta flights and companion flights, and it mainly values miles at one cent every.
This can be a constructive side of this system, because it permits these chasing standing to be rewarded even after they redeem miles. Now, it will be good if SkyMiles redemption charges have been extra enticing, however that’s an entire totally different story…
What’s your tackle incomes Delta MQDs on award flights, together with on companions?
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