Delta credit cards offer two benefits that can help you earn Medallion status faster. MQD Headstart gives you Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs) just for holding an eligible Delta credit card and MQD Boost awards MQDs for spending on your Delta cards.
These benefits make it possible to earn Delta Medallion status just through your Delta credit cards, or to use your credit cards to increased the level of your Medallion status. Here’s how these benefits work.
MQD Boost vs MQD Headstart
Both MQD Boost and MQD Headstart award Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs), the points that you need to earn frequent flyer status with Delta Air Lines.
MQD Headstart gives you 2,500 MQDs just for having the card. You’ll receive 2,500 MQDs each Medallion Qualification Year if you hold an eligible card, which includes both the Platinum- and Reserve-level Delta credit cards. You receive the MQD Headstart benefit for each eligible card you hold.
MQD Boost awards you MQDs based on how much you spend on your card. How much you earn depends on the card that you hold. Platinum-level Delta credit cards earn 1 MQD per $20 spent on the card. Reserve-level Delta cards earn 1 MQD per $10 spent on the card.
Which cards offer MQD Boost and MQD Headstart?
Here are the cards that offer the MQD Boost and MQD Headstart benefits:
- Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card – Earn 2,500 MQDs each year for having the card, plus 1 MQD for every $20 you spend on the card.
- Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card – Earn 2,500 MQDs each year for having the card, plus 1 MQD for every $10 you spend on the card.
- Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card – Earn 2,500 MQDs each year for having the card, plus 1 MQD for every $20 you spend on the card.
- Delta SkyMiles® Reserve Business American Express Card – Earn 2,500 MQDs each year for having the card, plus 1 MQD for every $10 you spend on the card.
What are Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs)?
Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs) are the “points” you need to collect in order to earn Medallion status with Delta Air Lines. Starting in 2024, Delta eliminated Medallion Qualifying Miles and now awards status solely on based on MQDs. This simplified earning Medallion status with Delta, but also shifted status away from flying with the airline and toward simply spending money on Delta tickets and using its credit cards.
You can earn Medallion Qualification Dollars in one of four ways:
- Flights on Delta and its partners, based on the ticket price.
- Delta credit cards, through the MQD Boost and MQD Headstart benefits.
- Delta Vacations purchases.
- Occasional promotions through Delta Stays.
Here’s how many MQDs you need to earn each level of Delta status in 2026:
- Silver Medallion: $5,000 MQDs.
- Gold Medallion: $10,000 MQDs.
- Platinum Medallion: $15,000 MQDs.
- Diamond Medallion: $28,000 MQDs.
Earning Medallion status through spending is very expensive
While it might be tempting to use your Delta credit card for everything in order to earn as many MQDs as possible, you’re likely giving up a lot of reward value if you do this. The Delta Reserve card only earns 3x SkyMiles on Delta Air Lines purchases, and 1x miles on other purchases. The business version of the Delta Reserve card gives you 1.5x SkyMiles in a few categories, but both of theses cards are relatively unattractive to use for spending if you’re considering the value of the rewards.
Assuming you have a 2% cash back card as an alternative, if you put $10,000 of non-Delta spending on either card in non-category purchases, you’re effectively paying $200 in rewards to get 10,000 Delta SkyMiles, plus 1,000 Medallion Qualification Dollars. You can do better if you use the card for Delta purchases or use the Delta Reserve Business in its business-related categories (or for a lot of purchases), but be sure to consider what you’re giving up before spending your way to Delta status.
If you need just a few MQDs to earn your desired level of status, it might be worth spending on your Delta cards at the end of the year, but this is an extremely expensive way to earn status.
Getting a second card is a cheaper way to get MQDs
Considering that the opportunity cost of putting $25,000 of spending on a Delta Reserve card is $500 (2% cash back), getting an additional card may be a cheaper way to get additional MQDs.
Since you’ll receive the 2,500 MQD Headstart from every eligible card you hold, you could pick up an additional Platinum-level Delta card for an annual fee of $350. And, of course, MQDs aren’t the only benefit you’ll get from that card. If you maximize the card’s companion certificate and Resy credits, you could come out well ahead versus spending your way to Medallion status.
Plus, as a new cardmember, you could earn a welcome bonus on a new Delta card. Check out our continuously-updated coverage of Delta credit card welcome offers for more on that.
How I think about Delta status and earning MQDs
Aaron Hurd
Executive Editor of Cards and Points
I used to chase Delta Medallion status. And I used to direct plenty of spending to my Delta credit cards in order to do so. But in recent years, I’ve taken a hard look at how much it costs me to chase frequent flyer status, versus the benefits I actually get.
One of the biggest benefits of earning status with Delta Air Lines was the complimentary upgrades. Ten years ago, as a Diamond Medallion, I could almost count on being upgraded to first class domestically. But now, Delta sells as many of their first class seats as they can—sometimes for tens of dollars—and they’ve told their investors that this is their strategy going forward.
Practically, this takes much of the value out of Medallion status for me. I can get free checked bags and seating in extra legroom seats from my lifetime Gold status (which I got after flying 1 million miles with Northwest and Delta) so there’s little value to me in playing the frequent flyer game.
At the end of the day, frequent flyer status on Delta and other airlines is worth much less than it used to be worth and which credit cards I use (and which flights I purchase) has changed because of that.
