andrewp
Sep 14, 05, 11:40 am
I started out the year all gung-ho to hit Platinum as soon as possible. Since I qualify based on segments I put a plan in place to fly two days in a row rather than stay in a hotel overnight as well as some segment runs.
As time went on I realized that international travel was much more important to me so I focused my efforts on 1K status with UA. I locked that up back in April and thought that I was set for the rest of the year as my base travel frequency would take me to platinum somethime in the fall.
I hit travel burn-out in June and fortunately didn't need to do much through the summer. Unfortunately I lost out on 3 months of flying... As the year winds down I'm back to wondering if I want Plat on HP. I'll have Gold locked in for 2006 by the middle of October and I'm now wondering if I should do a couple of segment runs to bump up into platinum.
As it stands now my longest flight on HP is PHX-PDX and I have never had trouble upgrading it. My other flights are to SAN, LAX, and SNA and I've had excellent luck with upgrades. In fact of my 50 flights to date 43 have been on upgradeable metal and of those I've been upgraded on 39... a 90.7% upgrade rate... not bad at all. Had I been a Platinum I would have likely been upgraded on all of those.
Aside from the 100% mileage bonus and the ability to nominate a Silver Elite am I missing out on something? Is it worth the extra effort? On the positive side the addition of HP to *A will give me some redemption opportunities for those extra miles...
As it stands now If I fly 1 RT every week until the end of the year I'll hit 80 segments. I can make up the remaining 10 by going home on the overnight trips. I could probably work it so that none of this comes out of my pocket, but it will cost me some time ... is it worth it?
As time went on I realized that international travel was much more important to me so I focused my efforts on 1K status with UA. I locked that up back in April and thought that I was set for the rest of the year as my base travel frequency would take me to platinum somethime in the fall.
I hit travel burn-out in June and fortunately didn't need to do much through the summer. Unfortunately I lost out on 3 months of flying... As the year winds down I'm back to wondering if I want Plat on HP. I'll have Gold locked in for 2006 by the middle of October and I'm now wondering if I should do a couple of segment runs to bump up into platinum.
As it stands now my longest flight on HP is PHX-PDX and I have never had trouble upgrading it. My other flights are to SAN, LAX, and SNA and I've had excellent luck with upgrades. In fact of my 50 flights to date 43 have been on upgradeable metal and of those I've been upgraded on 39... a 90.7% upgrade rate... not bad at all. Had I been a Platinum I would have likely been upgraded on all of those.
Aside from the 100% mileage bonus and the ability to nominate a Silver Elite am I missing out on something? Is it worth the extra effort? On the positive side the addition of HP to *A will give me some redemption opportunities for those extra miles...
As it stands now If I fly 1 RT every week until the end of the year I'll hit 80 segments. I can make up the remaining 10 by going home on the overnight trips. I could probably work it so that none of this comes out of my pocket, but it will cost me some time ... is it worth it?