As you may be aware if you’re a Delta flyer, Delta has now made available the Medallion Qualification Miles (MQM) conversion to Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQD) functionality in the SkyMiles app. If you did not earn status in 2024, you do not need to worry about any of this. However, a few people asked me about it, so I wanted to give a quick rundown on the options and strategies:

These are MQMs left over after you achieved your status for 2024. So, if on 12/31/2023, you had 125k MQMs and you made Platinum (based on the prior MQM and MQD/MQS options for status levels), Delta “took” 75k for your Platinum status and you are left with 50k rollover MQMs.

You can now convert 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of the Rollover MQMs into MQDs or redeemable SkyMiles. So, basically, if you have 50k rollover MQMs remaining, you can convert some, all or none of them into MQDs or miles based on the 4 options (it’s not a sliding scale, you are limited to these 25% chunks).

The conversion rate is 10/1 for MQDs or 2/1 for miles. So that 50k MQMs in the above example could become $5k MQDs or 25k redeemable miles (or $2500 MQD and 12500 redeemable miles if you picked the 50/50 option for example).

Another wrinkle is available if you have over 100k MQMs remaining as you can maintain your 2024 status for 100k MQMs and keep that going for how ever many multiples of 100k MQMs you have left. For most who fit into this category, this would be the best option and then they can use the leftover MQMs remaining after the last whole 100k to convert the same way as shown above.

So, what should you do? That depends, but for the vast majority you should not do anything right now. Wait and see how close you are to the next Medallion level and decide accordingly at the end of the year how many MQMs to convert to MQDs or miles. On 12/31/2024, all of the rollover MQMs will automatically convert to MQDs if you fail to make a selection by then, so put a reminder in your calendar for around December 15th so you won’t forget.

Remember that a Delta Reserve or Delta Platinum Amex card will get you a $2500 MQD boost (and you can have both business and personal versions of each card to get up to a $10k MQD boost). Also remember you will earn MQDs for Delta flights, including award tickets and SkyTeam partner flights. Spend on the cards also earns you more MQDs ($10 spend = $1 MQD on Reserve and $20 spend = $1 MQD on Platinum). You may earn more MQDs than you currently are on track for as you never know what surprise travel or spend may pop up before the end of the year.

One possible exception to waiting for this decision is if you are already close to Platinum or Diamond status for 2025 (remember this is earned in 2024) and you want the upgrade certificates to use sooner rather than later. In that case, you may want to convert some or all of your MQMs now to hit that milestone and select the upgrade certificates as milestone rewards.

I hope this helps you understand your options and make the right choice with your MQM rollover. If you have questions about this post, let me know in the comments or send me an email at emptynestermiles@gmail.com. If you are thinking about opening a new credit card, please use one of my links.