Airlines are making it harder to reach elite status, but my travel credit card made it easy

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• As a frequent traveler, I get a lot of value out of reaching elite status with Delta.
• I found a great way to get the most out of my travel budget by booking my vacation with Delta Vacations.
• Maximizing my points and miles with my travel credit card means I can travel more.

Loyalty to one airline can pay off in spades. As a Delta frequent flyer, I value the extra special perks I get as I accumulate Delta miles, from upgrades to checked bags to same-day changes. After all, who doesn't love freebies while traveling?

However, it's getting harder to re-earn airline elite status. Late last year, Delta increased the elite status requirements for its popular Medallion program. To give you a quick picture, earning top-tier Diamond status requires spending $28,000 with the airline in a calendar year.

While I fly over 100,000 miles every year, I don't always book flights with Delta, so meeting this goal would be unrealistic for me. Fortunately, I found a way to qualify for elite status easier — and much cheaper. Here's how I did it.

My boyfriend and I love earning rewards while traveling

My boyfriend and I share the same birth week — we're both Virgos. Rather than exchanging gifts, we love experiencing new places together, so we set our sights on visiting Tulum. We wanted to go somewhere we could get away from work and relax, but we're also aviation nerds, so we wanted to fly into Tulum's brand-new airport, which just opened this spring.

While we love to use credit card rewards to offset the costs of our flights and hotels, our stash is low as we recently redeemed points for a trip to New Zealand next year. However, we found an even better way to book our birthday trip: Delta Vacations. Not only did we bundle flights, hotels, airport transfers, and activities for one price, but we earned a ton of elite status points and SkyMiles.

We get great rewards by booking a vacation with Delta Vacations

There are four levels of Delta Medallion elite status, requiring anywhere from $5,000 Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQD) for Silver status to $28,000 MQD for Diamond status. You can earn $1 MQD per $1 spent on Delta flights, but you can earn more with a Delta credit card.

I already have airport lounge access with The Platinum Card® from American Express, which includes same-day Delta Sky Club access, so I opted not to apply for the more premium Delta Reserve card.

Instead, I recently applied for the mid-tier Delta Platinum card with a $350 annual fee. You can earn MQDs by spending on the card, but at a measly $1 MQD per $20 rate, so I don't count on that to rack up elite status quickly.

I've had Delta Platinum status for three years, and I plan on qualifying again for 2025. My favorite benefit is easily the regional upgrade certificates, which I used to upgrade my family's flight from New York to Hawaii to lie-flat seats.

I discovered that you can also earn $1 MQD per dollar spent on Delta Vacations packages. Earning elite status points at that rate on the whole travel package — not just the flights — is a major win.

What I earned

Our Delta Vacations package includes two round-trip tickets to Felipe Carrillo Puerto Airport (TQO) in Tulum, airport transfers, four nights at a luxury all-inclusive resort, and even an action-packed ATV adventure tour around the Yucatan Peninsula that we're looking forward to when we're not relaxing by the beach. In total, my partner and I spent around $7,500 on the trip.

I paid for the package with the Delta Platinum card, which offers a 50,000-mile welcome offer after spending $3,000 in the first six months. By paying for it with my card, I easily cleared the minimum spend requirement for the bonus. Not only that, but all Delta purchases on the card also accrue 3x miles, so I racked up an additional 22,000 SkyMiles from this single expense.

This was my first time booking a vacation package, and I was surprised that it was not only seamless to put my trip together online but that I could earn a ton of rewards along the way. We're over halfway through the elite qualification year, and I've scored 6,000 MQDs and over 70,000 SkyMiles from this one purchase.

Combined with my everyday card spending and the rest of my flights I've got for this year, I've already secured Delta Platinum status for 2025.