How this status forecast works
Every airline and hotel loyalty programme renews elite status on a qualifying metric, a single number you have to reach inside a cycle to keep or raise your tier. American counts AAdvantage Loyalty Points. Delta counts Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs). United counts Premier Qualifying Points (PQP). The big hotel groups count elite nights. The metric differs, but the question is always the same: will you cross the line by the deadline?
This tool answers that question without asking for an account. You tell it three things: the programme and tier you are chasing, the qualifying metric you have earned so far this cycle, and the qualifying metric your already-booked trips will add when you actually take them. It adds the two figures and compares the projected total against the published threshold for your target tier, drawn from the same programme rules knowledge base that powers the Miles Mosaic dashboard. If your projection clears the threshold, you are on track. If it falls short, the tool tells you exactly how far short, in your programme own units, so you can decide what to do about it.
Why "projected" and not just "earned"
The thing that trips people up at year end is not what they have already earned, it is what their booked-but-not-yet-flown travel will add. A trip you have booked for November still counts toward this year status when you take it, so it belongs in the projection now, while you can still act on a gap. That is the difference between a balance tracker, which shows you the past, and a forecast, which shows you where you will land. The forecast is the number that lets you book a status run, switch a connection, or add one more paid night while it still changes the outcome.
The qualifying metrics, programme by programme
For the US programmes most chasers juggle, the units are not interchangeable, and that is exactly why a generic "points" tracker is useless for this job. A few specifics:
- American AAdvantage renews on Loyalty Points, earned from flying, from AAdvantage credit-card spend, and from partner activity. Status tiers run Gold, Platinum, Platinum Pro, and Executive Platinum, each with its own Loyalty Point threshold, and Loyalty Points are the sole gate.
- Delta SkyMiles renews Medallion status on MQDs alone, earned largely from spend on tickets and the Delta co-brand cards. Tiers run Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond Medallion. Delta removed the older mileage and segment requirements, so MQDs are the single gate.
- United MileagePlus renews on PQP, with Premier Silver, Gold, Platinum, and 1K tiers. United is the one beachhead programme with a second gate: most tiers also need Premier Qualifying Flights, unless you reach a higher PQP-only total. This tool projects PQP and flags that caveat rather than pretending PQP alone is enough.
- Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, and World of Hyatt renew on elite nights. A booked stay is nights you can count toward the next tier, which is why the same projection logic works for hotels. The very top tiers (Marriott Ambassador, Hilton Diamond Reserve) add an annual spend requirement, so this tool leaves those two out rather than give a nights-only verdict that would mislead.
Because the thresholds move, sometimes every year, the tool reads them from a maintained knowledge base rather than hard-coding a number that quietly goes stale. When a programme changes a threshold, the forecast changes with it.
What counts toward your qualifying metric
Knowing the threshold is only half the picture. What feeds it varies by programme, and that changes how you close a gap. On AAdvantage, Loyalty Points come from paid flights, from eligible partner flights, from AAdvantage credit-card spend, and from shopping and dining partners, so a card you already use can move you toward Platinum without a single extra flight. On Delta, MQDs are overwhelmingly about spend, on tickets and on the co-brand cards, which is why a Delta chaser closes a gap differently from an American chaser. On United, qualifying card spend now contributes PQP, but the flight requirement still has to be satisfied separately for most tiers. For the hotel programmes, nights from paid stays and most award stays count, and the co-brand cards grant elite-night credits each year that you should fold into your earned figure before you forecast. When you enter your numbers above, include everything that already counts, not just flights, or the projection will understate where you stand.
How to read your verdict
The verdict card gives you three things: a one-line headline, the projection in your programme units, and the gap. "On track" means your projected total meets or beats the threshold for the tier you chose, assuming your booked trips fly as planned. "On pace" is what you see for a programme like United where the metric is met but a second requirement still applies, and the note under the verdict spells out what that is. A "short by" verdict means you will not make it on what you have earned plus what you have booked, and it names the exact shortfall so you can size the decision. A gap of a few thousand Loyalty Points might be one more revenue flight; a gap of twenty thousand might mean it is time to decide whether the tier is worth chasing this year at all. The honest answer is sometimes to stop chasing, and a clear number is what lets you make that call without guilt or guesswork.
When to run a forecast
The best time to forecast is early, the moment your travel for the year is roughly booked. Run it in spring or summer and a gap is a small, cheap problem: you have months to add a stay, shift spend to the right card, or pick the routing that earns more. Run it in December and the same gap is an expensive, stressful one, because the only lever left is a last-minute status run at peak prices. The reason this tool exists separately from a balance page is that a balance only tells you the past is fixed, whereas a forecast tells you the future is still yours to change. Check it once when your year takes shape, then again whenever you book or cancel something significant.
What this tool does not do
This is a deliberately simple projection, not a full audit of your account. It does not log into your airline or hotel account, it does not estimate your earn rates for you, and it does not know about promotions, status challenges, rollover, or the secondary spend and flight gates on a handful of top tiers. It takes the two numbers you give it and applies the published threshold. The logged-in Miles Mosaic dashboard does the richer version: it reads the flights and stays you have actually recorded, applies per-fare-class and per-partner earn rules, folds in your planned trips automatically, and tracks every programme you hold at once, with expiry alerts on miles and certificates. If you want the forecast maintained for you across a full year rather than computed once, that is what an account gives you.
What to do with a gap
If the tool says you are short, you have more levers than most people realise. You can add a revenue flight or a paid hotel night before the cycle closes. You can shift spend onto the programme co-brand card where card spend counts toward the qualifying metric, as it does for AAdvantage Loyalty Points and United PQP. You can look at whether a status match or challenge from a competing programme gets you the tier faster than grinding out the gap. Or you can decide the soft landing is fine and let the tier step down one level, which most programmes now allow. The point of forecasting early is that all of those options are still open while the gap is small. Leave it until December and the only option left is an expensive last-minute status run.
When you are ready to stop doing this math by hand for every programme you hold, create a free account and Miles Mosaic will keep the forecast current for all of them. For the full written walk-through of the requalification question, read our guide on whether your trips will keep your status.