Delta MQD Calculator
Since 2024, Delta Medallion status runs on one number only: Medallion Qualification Dollars, or MQDs. This calculator is a gap planner for that number. Pick the tier you are aiming at, enter the MQDs you have already earned this calendar year, your typical ticket price, and how fast your spending turns into MQDs, and it returns the MQDs still needed, the eligible spending that gap represents, and roughly how many flights at your ticket price would close it.
It plans the distance to a tier; it does not add up the MQDs from individual flights or card purchases. That distinction matters, because a plan built on the wrong target tier is worse than no plan at all, and the tier targets built into this page are Delta’s current published thresholds, checked below.
Unofficial planning tool, not affiliated with Delta Air Lines. The flights figure assumes the whole gap is closed with tickets at your average price and earning rate. Delta’s program rules control; check your posted MQD balance in your SkyMiles account before booking anything.
Quick Answer
Key takeaways
- Current thresholds are Silver $5,000, Gold $10,000, Platinum $15,000, and Diamond $28,000 MQDs. Any tool still showing $3,000, $6,000, $9,000, and $15,000 is working from pre-2024 targets and will understate your gap badly.
- MQDs are the only qualification metric now. Miles flown and segments no longer count toward Medallion status, so a plan is purely a spending plan.
- Only part of a ticket earns. Delta counts the base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges and excludes government-imposed taxes and fees, and Main Basic (basic economy) tickets earn no MQDs at all.
- The calendar is the deadline. MQDs reset to zero on or about January 1 and never roll over, so a gap that looks small in October is a hard deadline, not a rolling target.
- Quick Answer
- The four Medallion tiers and what they actually cost now
- How the gap math works
- Worked example: $6,500 earned, Gold in sight
- The same flyer against all four tiers
- The earning rate field, and when to move it off 100
- Closing a gap before December 31: a workable order
- What competing MQD calculators miss
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
The four Medallion tiers and what they actually cost now
Silver takes $5,000 MQDs, Gold $10,000, Platinum $15,000, and Diamond $28,000, all earned inside one calendar year. Delta’s own how to get Medallion status page sets the rules behind those numbers, and the thresholds have been held steady across the 2025 and 2026 program years, with the same figures announced for earning 2027 status.
| Medallion tier | MQD threshold | What the tier is known for |
|---|---|---|
| Silver Medallion | $5,000 | First checked bag free, priority boarding, upgrade eligibility |
| Gold Medallion | $10,000 | Sky Priority services and SkyTeam Elite Plus recognition |
| Platinum Medallion | $15,000 | One Choice Benefit, stronger upgrade position |
| Diamond Medallion | $28,000 | Three Choice Benefits, top upgrade priority among published tiers |
Context worth having before you chase a number: Diamond at $28,000 is nearly double the old pre-2024 Diamond bar of $15,000, which is exactly why stale calculators are so misleading here. A tool working from the old table would tell the flyer in the worked example below, sitting on $6,500 MQDs, that Gold is already in the bag. Under the current table that same flyer is $3,500 short. If you are also weighing what the miles side of the program is worth in cash terms, that is a separate question with its own math, covered by the Delta miles to dollars calculator: miles are a currency you spend, MQDs are a score you earn, and the two never convert into each other.
How the gap math works
Three short steps: subtract what you have from the target, convert the gap into spending at your earning rate, then convert the spending into flights at your ticket price.
Each step has a reason. The floor at zero is what makes the result honest when you have already passed a tier: pick Silver with $6,500 already earned and the calculator returns zero needed, zero spending, and zero flights instead of a negative gap. The rounding up is the conservative direction: $3,500 of spending at $450 a ticket is 7.78 flights, and seven flights would leave you about $350 short, so the answer is 8. And the earning rate step is where most hand plans go wrong, because people divide by the full ticket price when only the fare portion earns, which the next sections deal with.
Worked example: $6,500 earned, Gold in sight
The calculator is pre-filled with this case, and every figure below is what it returns.
| Measure | Result | How it is reached |
|---|---|---|
| Target: Gold Medallion | $10,000 MQD | Current published threshold |
| Current MQD earned | $6,500 | Posted balance entered by the user |
| MQD needed | $3,500 | $10,000 minus $6,500 |
| Spending required at 100% | $3,500.00 | $3,500 divided by (100 / 100) |
| Flights needed at $450 | 8 | $3,500 / $450 = 7.78, rounded up |
Read the 65% card carefully: it is $6,500 against the $10,000 target, simple division, and it is the number that decides whether chasing Gold is sensible. Closing a 35% gap with travel you were taking anyway is ordinary planning. Manufacturing $3,500 of flying purely for status is a purchase, and it should be priced like one, against the bag fees, upgrades, and priority services you will actually use next year.
The same flyer against all four tiers
Hold the inputs steady at $6,500 earned, a $450 average ticket, and a 100% earning rate, and only the target changes. This is the fastest way to see which tier is a stretch and which is a fantasy.
| Target tier | MQD needed | Spending required | Flights at $450 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silver ($5,000) | $0 | $0.00 | 0, already earned |
| Gold ($10,000) | $3,500 | $3,500.00 | 8 |
| Platinum ($15,000) | $8,500 | $8,500.00 | 19 |
| Diamond ($28,000) | $21,500 | $21,500.00 | 48 |
The jump from Gold to Platinum is bigger than the whole of Silver, and Diamond is a different sport entirely: 48 more tickets at $450 is a flight roughly every week for the rest of the year. Tables like this are also why the miles side of a program should never be confused with the status side. Earning redeemable miles on the same flying is real value, and the airline miles calculator estimates that side of the ledger, but no pile of miles moves an MQD balance by a single dollar.
The earning rate field, and when to move it off 100
Leave the rate at 100 for Delta-marketed flights, because those earn 1 MQD per $1 of base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges, as Delta states on its qualification page. Move it when your earning does not work that way.
Partner airline flights marketed by the partner earn MQDs as a percentage of distance flown, set by fare class, so a long partner trip can earn well or badly relative to its price; modelling it at 40 or 50 percent is a reasonable planning approximation, not a Delta promise. At a 50% rate the worked example changes sharply: the same $3,500 gap needs $7,000.00 of spending and 16 flights at $450. At 20% it needs $17,500.00 and 39 flights. Card spending works the other way around and should not be fed through the flights figure at all: Delta’s published MQD Boost pays 1 MQD per $10 of eligible spending on the Reserve cards (a 10% rate) and 1 MQD per $20 on the Platinum cards (a 5% rate), so closing a $3,500 gap on a Reserve card alone means $35,000 of eligible purchases. Run that as a spending question, and ignore the flights row for that run. Eligible Delta cards also deposit a $2,500 MQD Headstart each year; once it has posted it is simply part of your current MQD balance, so include it in the current MQD field rather than subtracting it anywhere.
Two earning traps deserve plain statements. First, government-imposed taxes and fees never earn MQDs, so a $450 ticket with $60 of taxes in it earns on roughly $390, and using your full ticket price as the average slightly flatters the flight count. Second, Main Basic fares earn nothing, so a year of cheap basic tickets can leave a frequent flyer with a surprisingly small MQD balance. Guides such as AwardWallet’s Medallion Qualification Dollar overview walk through the same earning rules source by source, and the credit card miles calculator covers the separate question of what card spending earns in redeemable miles while you are at it.
Closing a gap before December 31: a workable order
Start from the posted balance, not your estimate. MQDs can take weeks to post, and Delta’s terms allow up to 6 to 8 weeks after a flight. The balance in your SkyMiles account is the only current MQD figure worth planning from.
Count the Headstart if you hold an eligible card. A posted $2,500 Headstart turns the worked example’s $6,500 into $9,000 of progress and cuts the Gold gap from $3,500 to $1,000. If yours has not posted yet, plan without it and treat it as a bonus.
Price both closing routes. Run this calculator once at 100% for the flying route, then do the card arithmetic separately: gap times $10 per MQD on Reserve, times $20 on Platinum. Take the cheaper route you were going to spend on anyway.
Fly it, do not just book it. MQDs post after travel is completed, and the qualification year closes on December 31. A ticket bought in December for January travel earns next year, which is the most expensive mistake in this program.
What competing MQD calculators miss
The stronger tools ranking for this term total up MQDs from flight spend, card headstarts, and card boost rates, which is genuinely useful for a different question: “what will I earn?” Three gaps kept showing up.
Gap 1: stale thresholds. Plenty of pages still carry the pre-2024 targets of $3,000, $6,000, $9,000, and $15,000. Against the current $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, and $28,000, a stale table does not just date a page, it tells a $6,500 flyer they have Gold when they are $3,500 short. Every target in the selector above is Delta’s current published figure.
Gap 2: an earnings total with no plan attached. Knowing you will earn 7,200 MQDs does not say what to do next. This page starts from the gap and converts it into the two units people plan in: dollars of eligible spending and flights at their own average ticket price, rounded up so the plan does not quietly fall one flight short.
Gap 3: the fare fine print goes unmentioned. Taxes excluded, Main Basic excluded, partner flights on distance percentages, card boosts at $10 or $20 per MQD: these rules move real outcomes by thousands of dollars, and a calculator that never mentions them invites plans built on the full ticket price. The earning rate section above puts the main ones in the open.
One honest limit in the other direction: because this tool plans a gap rather than totalling earnings, it will not itemize a mixed year of flights, cards, and vacation packages. Use your posted SkyMiles balance as the current MQD input and it stays accurate; try to reconstruct the year flight by flight and a totalling tool serves you better.
Disclaimer: this is an unofficial educational planning tool and is not affiliated with Delta Air Lines. Medallion thresholds and earning rules are set by Delta and can change; confirm your balance and the current program terms in your SkyMiles account before spending money to chase a tier.
Frequently Asked Questions
Silver Medallion takes $5,000 MQDs, Gold Medallion $10,000, Platinum Medallion $15,000, and Diamond Medallion $28,000, all earned within one calendar year. MQDs are the only qualification metric Delta uses now. Those thresholds held for the 2025 and 2026 program years, and Delta has announced the same figures for earning 2027 status.
It calculates the gap between where you are and the tier you want: MQDs still needed, the eligible spending that gap represents at your earning rate, and the number of flights at your average ticket price that would cover it. It does not add up MQDs from individual flights or card purchases. Enter your posted MQD balance from your SkyMiles account as the current MQD figure.
Leave it at 100 for Delta-marketed flights, which earn 1 MQD per $1 of base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges. Lower it to model partner airline flights, which earn MQDs as a percentage of distance flown set by fare class. Card MQD Boost rates are far lower, 1 MQD per $10 of eligible spending on Reserve cards and 1 per $20 on Platinum cards, so card closing plans are better worked out as pure spending rather than flights.
Because a fraction of a flight earns nothing until the flight is taken. In the worked example, $3,500 of required spending at a $450 average ticket is 7.78 flights. Seven flights would earn roughly $3,150 of MQDs and leave you about $350 short of Gold, so the calculator rounds up to 8 flights, the smallest whole number that actually closes the gap.
No. Delta awards MQDs on the base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges of Delta-marketed flights in Main Cabin or above, and government-imposed taxes and fees are excluded. Main Basic (basic economy) tickets earn no MQDs at all, and most ancillary purchases such as baggage fees, Wi-Fi, and Sky Club memberships do not count either.
Because your current MQDs already meet or beat the target you picked. The gap is floored at zero rather than shown as a negative number. With $6,500 MQDs earned, Silver at $5,000 returns zeros because you have already passed it, and the useful move is to retarget the calculator at Gold or Platinum and plan from there.
MQDs reset to zero on or about January 1 each year and never roll over, and the qualification year runs January 1 to December 31. Status earned during a year is active from the day you reach the threshold and runs through January 31 of the second year that follows, so status earned in 2026 lasts through January 31, 2028.
Yes. Eligible Delta SkyMiles Platinum and Reserve American Express cards deposit a $2,500 MQD Headstart into your SkyMiles account each qualification year, and once it posts it is part of your MQD balance like any other MQDs. Include it in the current MQD figure you enter. If it has not posted yet, run the plan without it so the plan still works if posting is delayed.
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References
- Delta Air Lines, “How to Get Medallion Status” – Delta’s official qualification rules: MQD thresholds, MQDs as base fare plus carrier-imposed surcharges excluding government taxes and fees, partner and exception fare earning, and the January 1 reset with no rollover. Delta Air Lines: How to Get Medallion Status. Accessed October 2026.
- Delta Air Lines, Medallion program terms on the same qualification page, “Platinum MQD Boost” and “Reserve MQD Boost” – 1 MQD per $20 of eligible spending on Delta SkyMiles Platinum cards and 1 MQD per $10 on Reserve cards, plus the $2,500 MQD Headstart for eligible Platinum and Reserve cards. Delta Air Lines: MQD Boost and MQD Headstart Terms. Accessed October 2026.
- The Points Guy, “Delta Medallion status: What it is and how to earn it” – the published 2026 tier requirements (Silver 5,000, Gold 10,000, Platinum 15,000, Diamond 28,000 MQDs) and how long earned status stays valid. The Points Guy: Delta Medallion Status. Accessed October 2026.
- AwardWallet, “How to Earn Delta Medallion Qualification Dollars, Get Elite Status” – earning MQDs by flying Delta and partners at distance based rates, by card spending, and through Delta Vacations, with the 2026 requirements. AwardWallet: Medallion Qualification Dollars. Accessed October 2026.
- Upgraded Points, “Race to Medallion: Locking In Delta Elite Status Before 2025 Ends” – the calendar year earning window, status validity through the January after the following year, and Delta’s statement that the same thresholds apply for earning 2027 status. Upgraded Points: Race to Medallion. Accessed October 2026.
- Frequent Miler, “Shortcuts to Delta elite status” – MQD Headstarts of $2,500 per eligible card, stacking across the Platinum and Reserve card families, and MQD Boost earning from card spend. Frequent Miler: Shortcuts to Delta Elite Status. Accessed October 2026.