I suppose I might have called this blog “taking stock of your status and readjusting if necessary” but that would not have been nearly as catchy as “The Status of Status.” 🙂 For the purposes of this discussion, I will focus on airline elite status, but the thought applies to hotels too. In reality, I continuously think about my progress towards elite status for the following year. However, on a quarterly basis, I sit down with my calculator and really think about my elite status progress and goals for the year. I’m a little behind in doing this for Q1, but it’s been a busy month.

Living in Atlanta, there is only one game in town from my perspective, and that’s Delta. I no longer refer to myself as a “hub captive” even though I suppose that’s what I am. Why? There is competition here, notably Southwest. But primarily I say I’m not a captive because no one is forcing me to choose Delta. Their well-known redemption challenges aside, from a service and product perspective, I like Delta. Knowing that, my elite status focus is with them and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. So here we are.

I’m at 31,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQMs) as of now. With 8 months remaining in the year, I am obviously well on my way to Platinum Medallion, which is my status goal for this year. Or am I? I rolled over approximately 10,000 MQMs to this year, so my actual flown MQMs for this year are only 21,000. In other words, I’m flying 5,250 MQMs per month on average year to date. If I maintain that average, I would actually wind up just short of Platinum Medallion by December 31. Of course, that’s the case if flown miles were the only way to earn MQMs. I carry the Platinum Delta SkyMilesCredit Card which will provide 10,000 bonus MQMs (and 10,000 redeemable miles) if I spend $25,000 dollars on the card by December 31, which I will. In other words, my quarterly status goal exercise seems to indicate that I’m on track to attain my goals for this year. How often do you check your progress towards your elite status goals?