easte

Good! It seems that's what they would deserve

Yeah, that is right... then perhaps people like me, traveling internationally, should start using more often those carriers, where you get better food, free alcohol, better service, instead of counting how many $ I give UA...

Take away the elite for a moment... FFP exist to value loyalty, which means that customers would be willing to spend more money on a carrier to get some perks. I am not mortified, I am disgusted. Forcing a customer to look at whether the ticket has been issued with 019 digits? That is pathetic and disgusting. They should be mortified for having proposed this.

exerda

Assuming UA gives a PQD tracker--which they've said they will--I think the bigger problem will be on 4/23/15 when UA finds some "mistake" and claws back PQD from thousands of elites who thought they were secure based on the display of the tracker. And there's precedent for that!

Somewhat OT, but most Amex corporate cards are eligible for employee-purchased Membership Rewards membership. Obviously, your employer may say that's not allowed (and the annual fee does get billed to the account and would be visible to your employer, to whom Amex supplies the full transaction data), but Amex themselves allow it as a policy. You should ask your employer if you can pay for Membership Rewards, anyway.

Indelaware

Logical fallacy there. FFP customers will pick between the various airlines, all other things being equal, the one which values their loyalty. It is a big leap from there, IMO, to assume that a customer will pick an airline based on membership in an FFP when things are not equal - viz. when the FFP airline she/he is a member of offers a high fare or lower quality service. Some how many passengers, and the airline industry itself, forget the base purpose of FFP plans.

Prefix of 016, not 019. And one need not look at the entire ticket number, only the prefix -- or simply the airline's name in the "Issued by" box.

easte

Whatever... it can be 123 or 456... I think people have, at least I have more important and meaningful things to do in my life than checking the prefix of a ticket. I am not paid (and don't pay my co-workers) to check the prefix of their tickets. UA may also decide to ask their premier customers to bark when they buy their flights... I think all this is becoming unreasonable burden on customers, and their priorities.

JetAway

Because there still seems to be some confusion: The Presidential Plus card, which apparently is exempt from all spending requirements up to the Platinum level (at least until 2015), is an old CO-branded card that is no longer available but is still valid. It is not a Mileage Plus Explorer card. Many CO loyalists still have it and it provides some benefits that at one time were very CO-specific, such as Flex PQMs up to the Platinum level and President's (United) Club membership. And for whatever reason, it will provide some new, although possibly temporary, benefits for its holders.

easte

People, do we realize that we are ending up caring about the Finland Security Charges for 5.6 USD or PQD to guarantee our status?

love_to_travel

Almost switched to the 1.5mile/dollar card after having a friendly chat with one of the credit card representatives at a kiosk outside the United Club at EWR. So glad I didn't. Hopefully I'll still be glad after 2015, but who knows.

pdx1M

I wonder if they really mean to exclude PP from earning more RPUs if they fly another 25K miles but don't qualify as 1K for dollar reasons. It seems odd since RPUs are a perq of PP so I would think that being a PP should entitle one to earn an additional RPU pair for each 25K flown (even though you wouldn't get any GPUs since you didn't make 1K). Seems as likely to be simply sloppy thinking on UAs part as they wrote the FAQ as a plan. Overall, I think this is a reasonable change in principle but that a lot of the details are screwy or not fully fleshed out. One can argue if the 1K target should be 10K or 8K I suppose but the concept that one should hit a cpm number that is somewhere near UAs average really doesn't seem unreasonable. However, since most elite benefits really don't cost UA much reducing the size of the elite pool at each level only really makes sense if it either truly saves UA material amounts of money (not clear it does since they sell upgrades out from under elites freely) or if it allows them to create an elite program, particularly at the 1K level, that is more desirable and therefore that attracts more high value business. If it is the second reason, though, then they really have to do something to make 1K worthwhile which at least so far they haven't. Heck - I didn't even think it was worth making the effort to keep GS this year after having been on since the start. And lately, enough money to guarantee my requal at 1K has gone from UA to AS who provides an all around more pleasant experience flying PDX-DC than UA. So it remains to be seen what is really motivating UA to make these changes.

Full disclosure: I am a 3MM and so 1K in any case for now (UA promises being what they are) so I don't have an immediate horse in this race. However, in all my 1K years I would always have qual'd under the proposed revenue rules so I think I can comment.

JetAway

Yea, I kept it for the Club membership but now, whenever I pull that little sucker out of my wallet I can't help but smile. It seems to be a lucky charm.

Bear4Asian

+1

vandrei

charliechill is not the only one. This is my second year with status.

I got Silver last year after switching from AC in the middle of the year on the recommendation of the only one of my friends who flies UA. (The rest of my friends refuse to fly UA.) If I had credited all my 2012 flights to MP, I would have gotten Gold in 2012.

I just got Gold last week and am gearing up for Plat or 1K in 2013.

When the new Silver Line opens on the DC Metro, I will have access to DCA and the new US/AA hub there. VX flies IAD-SFO/LAX for the same price (or less) as UA. B6 flies IAD-BOS for a lot less than UA. US has reasonable non-stop A fares to PHX. Alaska flies non-stop to SEA/PDX. And WN just introduced a non-stop route to DEN!

I would appreciate if UA Insider could ask SMI/J why I should bother with UA beyond Gold (so I can feel like a human being when I travel to places like RAP, CHS, SLC, BOI, GJT, ABQ, ORD, etc.) - and I can get Gold based on base airfare spend alone (I audited my records this evening), ignoring the MP Explorer card I have (and might payoff and close if I'm not flying UA as much any more).

nsx

I'm curious about the $25k spend option. Normally all the benefit of that spend would flow to Chase, with Chase paying United 0.8 cents per mile or whatever their negotiated rate is. Does this change mean that Chase will give United a bonus, a threshold payment if you will, for customers who exceed $25k in a calendar year?

I realize that I'm asking for speculation, whether informed or not.

Syzygies

Going over this year's flights, every future EWR-SFO round trip has repriced on me. For example, I purchased one trip at 389.00 + 21.80 = 410.80, which now breaks down as 361.86 + 48.94 = 410.80. Several more were 344.00 + 21.80 = 365.80, and are now 320.00 + 45.80 = 365.80.

My best guess is that when taxes go up between purchase and departure, United fixes the fare to compensate, rather than asking us to pony up more money. Will this effect drag people under, who were just making the spend according to their planning? Has United realized this could be an issue yet?

(I realize that this is becoming a write-only thread except for diehards. I pay eGullet $50 a year and I'd gladly pay flyertalk $50 a year, for some pro services like "thread on one page" to facilitate this-thread-only searches. I tried tuning SiteSucker to just fetch the pages of this thread, but gave up, not worth it.)

mgcsinc

There's a 10,000 mile bonus on the Explorer card at $25k. Not sure what the economics of that are, but they probably involve Chase paying UA a bunch of money.

scottish_colin

That's just a limitation of the website. It always shows less taxes at the point where you buy the ticket and get the confirmation compared to the formal eTicket and receipt that arrives shortly thereafter. I always wait for the eTicket and receipt to put the fare/taxes into my tracking spreadsheet.