Triangle Trip

True to its words, Delta has deposited the Rollover MQM (Medallion Qualification Miles) to my SkyMiles account (see previous post regarding Delta adding Rollover MQM).

As you can see below, I flew 56,187 air miles on Delta in 2009; and I’ve received 6,187 MQM for 2010. I have not been on a Delta flight in 2010. Getting the 6,000+ MQM is a great start to my chase to retain at least Gold Medallion status on Delta in 2010.

Kudos to the Delta SkyTeam for delivering the rollover miles; Starwood still hasn’t delivered their promised SPG’s Rollover Nights yet.

Delta introduced two major changes to the 2010 SkyMiles program: 1) Rollover Medallion Qualifying Miles (Rollover MQM) which lets you build status toward the following year; and 2) a new Medallion class: Diamond which requires you to have 125,000 MQM. We are extremely pleased to see this change as it is definitely ground breaking for the airline industry.

I have been traveling coast to coast on United and Delta for the past six months. The Rollover MQM along with the free/complementary upgrades clearly made Delta my carrier of choice for the rest of the year (see previous post regarding Delta as the best for coast to coast travel). I would be surprised if United or American follows this promotion as they have most of the corporate customers locked into corporate travel plans/accounts such as 25 to 30% discount plan.

Marriott launched their Elite Rollover Nights program in late spring and none of the major hotel chains followed. Marriott’s move to offer Elite Rollover Nights doesn’t surprise me since they require 75 actual nights to obtain Platinum status which means Elite rollover doesn’t begin until your 76th night. With 50 to 60 nights at other hotels like SPG, Hilton respectively, you’d be at their highest level.

Delta is extremely generous with its rollover plan. You can practically begin rolling over miles after making silver – or your 25,001st medallion mile. For example, if you earned 45 MQMs this year – 20,000 MQM more than the Silver Medallion requirement – the 20,000 MQMs will automatically roll over to next year’s balance. This means for 2010, you will only need to get 5,000 MQM to get Silver Medallion. This is actually a great perk as Delta didn’t devalue its mileage program with the Double/Triple MQM scam (see previous post) – I only earned 1 double MQM from all my trips.

Captain G will go on record to endorse Delta despite the fact that Delta JFK’s customer service should all be overhauled (see previous post).

Marriott has been offering a promotion (click here for the link to Marriott’s Triple Summer Miles promotion) where you could earn triple miles on Delta or Northwest from June 1, 2009 to August 31, 2009. For those unfamiliar with the standard Marriott reward offering, you can choose to earn either 10 Marriott points or 2 Delta miles for each US dollar spent at a Marriott. If you sign up for this particular deal, you would earn 3x the standard Delta SkyMiles – 6 miles for every dollar spent.

My initial reaction was that this promotion is a no brainer, but, of course, the tradeoff between hotel points and airline miles can be considered more of an art than a science. For instance, a person that uses Marriott points for stays at Marriott hotels would view the trade off differently than a person who is accrues Delta SkyMiles for free flights. I personally avoid Marriott hotels unless there’s truly nothing better in the area where I’m vacationing; I will save the Marriott bashing for a separate post. Nevertheless, in an attempt to determine whether Marriott Points or Delta SkyMiles are more valuable, let’s set aside personal preferences.

To make this decision more of a science, let’s take a common item that can be purchased with points or miles – say an iPod Touch (16GB). Based on a calculated spending level (how much actual cash you need to spend at the Marriott to get the iPod) and an assumed price of the product, a cash back equivalent (CBE) can be determined. The reward offering that results in the highest CBE is the better deal. As you can see from the table below, this methodology suggest that the 3x Delta miles promotion offers the highest CBE at 3.01%. The results also show that without the 3x promotion, the Marriott points are more valuable at a 2.62% vs 1.00% CBE.

When no promotions are involved, you may want to check out Captain G’s perspective on airline miles vs hotel points.