so i got my general back in 2021 and spent most of my time just doing local stuff and some casual SSB on 40m but lately ive been getting really into DX and decided i want to actually go for DXCC. worked about 67 entities so far confirmed on LoTW which feels pretty good for someone who wasnt really trying until a few months ago.

my question is kind of basic maybe but i dont fully understand how the credits work when you upgrade from like basic DXCC to the higher endorsement levels. do you have to submit separately each time or does the ARRL just look at your LoTW confirmations and automatically bump you up when you hit the thresholds? i submitted my initial DXCC application already and got the certificate but now im confused about what happens at 150, 200 etc.

also started looking at WAS and WAZ too because apparently a lot of the contacts i already have count toward those too, which is cool. WAZ seems really doable actually once i looked at the zone map. is it worth chasing all three at once or does that just make everything more stressful

congrats on the 67, thats a solid start especially if you werent really focused on it. for the endorsements — yeah you do have to submit for each level, it doesnt happen automatically even though your LoTW credits are all sitting there. you go into the ARRL website, log in to your account and submit an endorsement application, theres a small fee each time. it used to be kind of a pain but honestly its not bad now that everythings online. just make sure your LoTW credits are all showing as accepted before you apply or youll get a mismatch.

as for chasing multiple awards at once, i say go for it. most of your DX contacts will feed into all three and once you get into the habit of confirming everything on LoTW it kind of just happens in the background. WAZ was actually the first one i completed, zones are a lot easier to wrap your head around than entities imo. just watch out for zone 2, that one always seems to hold people up.

im basically in the same boat as you, started seriously logging toward DXCC maybe six months ago and the whole credit system confused me at first too. one thing i learned the hard way is dont wait too long to chase certain entities because some of them go quiet for years at a time and then everyone piles on when there finally is an expedition. i missed a decent St Peter and Paul Rocks activation because i didnt know what i was looking at on the cluster and by the time i figured it out the pileup was insane and i never got through.

somebody more experienced than me will probably have better advice on the actual paperwork side of things but just wanted to say youre not alone in being confused by it at first, the ARRL documentation is a bit dense