Last week I flew from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Copenhagen Airport (CPH) on Delta Air Lines.
The journey wasn’t a mileage run per se — I used to be assembly my cousin and a good friend for a brief journey — however I wanted the Medallion Qualification Dollars to maintain my Diamond Medallion standing. After flying this journey and factoring in my different year-end journey, I might be at simply greater than 15,200 MQDs for the yr.
However, a miscalculation in Delta’s system shorted me 273 MQDs. If the error had gone unnoticed, it will have price me my standing for 2023.
See, after I landed again in New York, Delta credited my account 593 MQDs though my ticket price about $954. I wasn’t anticipating to earn MQDs on all of that spending — MQDs are solely earned on the ticket’s base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges, generally dubbed “YR” — however I knew one thing was off.
I checked an elite standing monitoring spreadsheet I preserve and shortly confirmed I ought to have acquired 866 MQDs for my JFK-CPH-JFK itinerary. According to my receipt, the ticket had a base fare of $266 and $600 in carrier-imposed surcharges. This brings me to my lacking 273 MQDs. In flip, I used to be additionally shorted simply greater than 3,000 redeemable SkyMiles too, as my redeemable mileage earnings had been calculated on the inaccurate $593 base fare plus carrier-imposed surcharge.
Thankfully, this story has a cheerful ending. I referred to as the Diamond Medallion line and defined the state of affairs to the consultant. He referred to as the SkyMiles division, they observed their error and the consultant instructed me they’d recalculate earnings with the right fare and surcharges.
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Roughly an hour later, my account was credited with the right 866 MQDs and 9,526 redeemable miles, price about $134 per TPG’s valuations.
If I hadn’t observed this error, I may have misplaced my Diamond advantages over a easy mistake in Delta’s system. Or, I might have needed to panic-book a flight after ending my vacation flights dwelling and realizing I hadn’t certified for my standing. Needless to say, that might not have been an affordable (or enjoyable) endeavor proper after the vacations.
Related: Quick Points: How and why you need to usually audit your loyalty accounts
Take my expertise as a reminder to at all times examine your loyalty account after you fly. Then, recalculate your earnings and make sure you acquired the right variety of redeemable miles and elite metrics. If you do not, you would go away miles and elite standing on the desk.
I additionally encourage you to construct a spreadsheet that logs your flights all year long. I add all of my flights to this spreadsheet as I ebook them, alongside their Medallion Qualification Miles, MQDs and redeemable SkyMiles earnings. Then, I’ve a working quantity that provides all of them up and provides them to my present MQD steadiness. This helps me plan and audit my account shortly as I journey all year long, and it retains me within the loop on how shut I’m to the following elite standing tier.