Delta Vacations: Great for Status Chasers, but Price It Out

If you’re a frequent Delta Air Lines flyer, you’ve likely heard of — and even considered booking with — Delta Vacations, the airline’s vacation package arm.

In 2024, Delta made Medallion Qualification Dollars — a measure mostly based on how much you spend with Delta — its sole metric for elite status qualification. At the same time, it introduced the ability to earn MQDs through spending with Delta Vacations. That means Delta loyalists can squeeze in last-minute MQDs at the end of the year to reach a higher level of elite status by booking a Delta Vacations package, where you can bundle travel products like flights, hotels, car rentals, airport transfers, excursions and more.

Vacation packages in general can offer travelers added convenience, since you can book your entire itinerary with one vendor instead of keeping track of multiple websites and reservations. You might also pay less than you would booking everything separately. However, make sure to do the math since it’s also possible that booking things separately could save you some extra cash.

Delta Vacations invited me to try out one of its vacation packages. While the company reimbursed the cost I paid for my trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico, the opinions shared here are my own. Because I booked the trip myself, I was able to get a firsthand look at how well the booking process works, where it falls short, and how long it takes for MQDs to show up.

Here’s my honest review of whether it’s worth it to book with Delta Vacations.

Booking my Delta Vacations package

You can book a Delta Vacations package online or over the phone, and there are actually a few options for bundling:

• Flight and hotel (as well as rental cars or transfers).

• Flight and rental car.

• Hotel and rental cars or transfers.

In addition to your base bundle, you can add on extras like excursions and travel insurance. Note that you cannot book just a hotel or car rental through Delta Vacations. (You'll need to use Delta Stays and Delta Cars to do so.)

To book my trip, I researched destinations on the Delta Vacations website, exploring different flight, hotel and excursion options. Once I found some that I liked, I called Delta Vacations to book my trip over the phone.

I would highly recommend this strategy for booking a Delta Vacations package. On the website, you can quickly compare flight prices and timings, see pictures of the different hotel options, and carefully read any terms and conditions associated with excursion purchases.

With a phone agent, you’ll get their expertise with booking Delta Vacations packages and sometimes a little extra savings. They can also help with more complex bookings not available online, such as one-way, multicity or open-jaw itineraries. Plus, if you want to apply a regional or global upgrade certificate to your flight, you'll have to do so over the phone.

For example, my representative applied a coupon code to my booking that I might have otherwise overlooked online. I also placed a hold on my booking over the phone and then quickly realized I needed to make a date change. Even though that change ultimately raised the cost of the vacation package, the representative I spoke with quoted me the same cost for travel insurance — calculated as a percentage of the package cost — as before. In total, I saved $93 by booking over the phone.

In the end, I booked a five-day trip to San Juan that included flights, a hotel stay, airport transfers, multiple excursions and travel insurance.

Whether you’re booking online or over the phone, you’ll get an estimated amount of MQDs earned. If you have additional guests on your itinerary, their MQD earnings for the flight portion will also be displayed.

My cost came out to $3,368, and I was quoted an estimated 2,954 MQDs earned, which was exactly the amount I received. (The screenshot above shows the estimated MQDs for my booking without the $75 promo code applied.)

If you're paying by card, consider using a Delta-branded credit card that earns more miles on Delta purchases, including Delta Vacations, or a card that offers extra rewards on general travel spending. Avoid cards offering bonus points for general airline purchases, since you're purchasing from Delta Vacations, not the airline itself.

For those flush with Delta miles, you can also redeem them toward the cost of your Delta Vacations package, even if you don’t have enough to cover the entire price. Expect to get 1.1 cents per mile in value, although Delta Vacations says redemption rates can vary based on several factors, such as your destination. (NerdWallet values Delta SkyMiles at 1.2 cents per mile.)

» Learn more: NerdWallet's picks for the best travel credit cards

The 2,954 MQDs I earned is roughly 60% of the 5,000 MQDs needed to reach Silver Medallion status, the lowest tier of Delta Medallion elite status. Other status tiers include Gold Medallion (10,000 MQDs), Platinum Medallion (15,000 MQDs) and Diamond Medallion (28,000 MQDs).

Silver Medallion status comes with perks like a free checked bag, free upgrades, and access to priority boarding and check-in lanes. At higher tiers, you get additional checked bags, higher upgrade priority, increased mileage earning rates and access to SkyTeam business class lounges on select itineraries. With top-tier Diamond Medallion status, you’ll get to select special perks, including Delta Sky Club lounge access and international upgrade certificates.

Whether Delta status is worth chasing depends on your flying habits. Even though this trip got me 60% of the way to Silver Medallion, I won’t be going out of my way to close that gap. Apart from the free upgrades, most of the benefits that come with Silver Medallion status can be obtained by holding the right Delta credit card.

» Learn more: Which airline has the most valuable elite status program?

Is Delta Vacations worth it?

Cost comparison: Are vacation packages cheaper than booking direct?

When it comes to vacation packages (Delta Vacations or otherwise), people often ask: Is it cheaper than booking directly with the airline and hotel?

The answer to that, unfortunately, is that it depends. Each itinerary will be different, but in my case, I did save some money by booking through Delta Vacations.

Before booking, I looked up the individual costs for my flights and hotel stay. When booked direct through Delta, my flights would have cost $1,401, and when booked through the property, my hotel stay would have cost $1,183. That means I would have paid $2,584 in total.

When you check out, Delta Vacations will show you the cost of your bundle separately from the cost of any extra add-ons, so I knew my flights and hotel bundle was $2,563. That’s not including the $75 discount my phone representative applied, so it’s reasonable to say that I would have spent $2,488 — or $96 less than booking direct. It’s not a huge amount of savings (less than 4% cheaper), but any amount saved is always a good thing in my book.

However, that’s not to say all packages will have paltry savings of 4%. I priced out a vacation package at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas in November 2025. For a weeklong stay with round-trip flights from New York, Delta Vacations wanted to charge $1,386 — 44% cheaper than if you booked directly from the airline and hotel.

The package also included a $150 food and beverage credit, making it even more attractive. You won’t find extra perks on every booking, but I did notice that some properties offered complimentary breakfast or resort credits depending on the length of your stay.

When it comes to paid add-ons like airport transfers and excursions, I would recommend pricing those separately if you want the best deal. For example, the Old San Juan food tour I booked through Delta Vacations was $207, but the same experience booked through Viator was only $165.

Opportunity costs: Can you earn points and miles when booking with Delta Vacations?

While you might see cash savings when booking your vacation package bundle, it’s important to note that you typically will not earn hotel points when booking through a third party like Delta Vacations. However, you will earn MQDs on that hotel spending toward Delta Medallion status that you wouldn’t otherwise, so the trade-off can be worth it.

Here’s what that looked like for me: I have Hilton Honors Diamond status, which comes with a daily $15 food and beverage credit in the U.S. Even though I stayed at the Palacio Provincial, a Hilton property in San Juan, I wasn’t able to use that benefit or earn Hilton points on my stay because it was booked through Delta Vacations.

That meant losing out on $60 worth of benefits, as well as more than 25,000 Hilton Honors points, which NerdWallet values at about $100 (0.4 cent apiece). But this might not matter to you if you don’t have hotel elite status or are booking a property that’s not affiliated with a hotel program you’re loyal to.

On the flip side, airlines generally let you earn award miles regardless of where you booked your ticket from. For Delta Vacations packages, you can earn Delta miles — not to be confused with MQDs — for flights from one of two methods: based on the price of the flights or based on the distance flown. You’ll earn based on whichever method is higher.

For example, my $1,401 flight had $66 in taxes, meaning I would be eligible to earn miles on $1,335. As someone without status, I would earn 5 miles per $1 spent, or 6,675 miles, based on the price calculation. Based on the distance calculation, I would have earned miles equal to the round-trip distance between New York and San Juan (about 3,196 miles) multiplied by 150% (the multiplier for my booked fare class), or 4,794 miles.

Since the spend calculation was higher, I earned 6,675 miles from my flights.

» Learn more: The complete guide to Delta SkyMiles

MQDs are always based on the distance flown for Delta Vacations flights, which means you may earn fewer MQDs than you would if you had booked directly through Delta. For example, the MQD tracker on my Delta app indicated that I would earn an estimated 1,335 MQDs — the expected amount for booking direct. However, the exception fare calculation meant I only earned 30% of the distance flown, or 958 MQDs. Again, that multiplier was based on my booked fare class.

You can also earn bonus miles when booking flight and hotel packages through Delta Vacations, depending on how much you spend:

• 1,000 bonus miles for bookings up to $4,999.

• 5,000 bonus miles for bookings from $5,000 to $9,999.

• 10,000 bonus miles for bookings $10,000 or more.

When you’re traveling with multiple people, each person will earn MQDs for their own flight activity. However, only the person who books the trip will earn MQDs for non-flight spending, such as on hotels, rental cars and excursions, as well as bonus miles based on the package cost.

Earning timeline: How long does it take for Delta Vacations MQDs to post?

The Delta Vacations website cautions customers that it can take up to eight weeks for miles, bonus miles and MQDs to post after travel is completed. However, Kama Winters, the president of Delta Vacations, told NerdWallet that the company has invested significantly in speeding up those posting times. According to the company’s data, 98% of trip earnings are now posted within 15 days of completion.

That was my experience, too, with miles and MQDs for my flights posting shortly after arrival. The additional MQDs for my hotel stay and excursions took a little longer, but they were in my account two weeks after my trip.

Even though they show up later, non-flight MQDs are backdated to the last day of your trip. For example, if your stay ends Dec. 25, 2025, your MQDs will be considered as awarded on Dec. 25, 2025, even if they don’t show up in your account until, say, Jan. 10, 2026. That means those MQDs will be added to your total for 2025, which is great if you're taking a last-minute trip to earn status.

Taking my Delta Vacations trip

I had a weeklong work trip scheduled immediately before my Delta Vacations trip, so I didn’t have a lot of free time to plan my itinerary. That made me appreciate the ease of booking a vacation package, since everything was already taken care of. For people who don’t enjoy the trip planning aspect of a vacation, these packages can be great — although expect to pay a premium for that convenience.

After you book your trip, you'll find any relevant information about your transfers and excursions, if applicable, in your trip's travel documents. It can be easy to miss, but the link is available when you access your itinerary on the Delta website or app.

Overall, I found the Delta Vacations experience to be fairly seamless, but that’s largely in part because I booked everything through the company. For example, my driver was already waiting for me at baggage claim even though my flight arrived 30 minutes early. If you’re opting to take an Uber to your hotel or book excursions on your own, your experience probably won’t be the same.

In San Juan, Delta Vacations partners with a local tourism company that helped manage my itinerary during my trip. For example, they were the ones who arranged my airport transfers and they operated one of the excursions I booked to the nearby El Yunque National Forest. I also had a point of contact who would send me updates about tour pickup times or meeting locations, and who was available to answer questions about my trip, such as adjusting the time for my hotel pickup back to the airport.

Should you go on a Delta Vacations trip to earn status?

For those chasing Delta Medallion status, the ability to earn MQDs is probably the most compelling aspect of booking with Delta Vacations.

It’s a great option for travelers who might not otherwise spend that much money on Delta flights alone to close the gap to the next level of Delta Medallion status. In many ways, it replaces the mileage runs from before airline loyalty programs largely moved to spend-based elite-qualification systems.

In fact, Delta Vacations told me that it saw a surge in year-end bookings in 2024, when Delta introduced the ability to earn MQDs through Delta Vacations. Compared to the year prior, there was a 104% increase in packages booked and traveled in December — right when people are squeezing in their last-minute status runs. Additionally, 24% of SkyMiles members who booked and traveled with Delta Vacations between October and December 2024 reached a higher Medallion tier after their trip.

For example, if you’re 3,000 MQDs short of Delta’s top-tier Diamond status, you may not want or need to spend more than $3,000 on Delta flights (since government taxes and fees don’t count for MQDs) to cross the threshold.

Instead, you might consider taking a trip similar to the one I did, which included flights, hotels, activities and transfers. By leveraging the ability to earn MQDs through Delta Vacations, you could turn a boring status run into a worthwhile vacation.