hookthem

Glad I have one other sympathizer At least there is now a perk for going to Midland

emcampbe

There is no waiver to give, so to speak. This isn't like PQD where they can waive a number - it's a wholesale change to the way you earn mileage. No exceptions for that. Changing to a foreign address won't help either.

Correct. Anything on UA stock will earn 11 x (fare + carrier imposed surcharges only - basically 11 x PQD).

JVPhoto

Essentially 13x for 1K if put on Explorer card as well....(Mr. Burns' exxxxccccellent).

emcampbe

Actually, not really. The 11 x for a 1k is based on the same amount as PQD calculation. The 2 x for using the card (or 3 x if you still have the Select, like me) is based on the total amount charged to the card, so includes taxes and fees. So in total, it would actually come out to > than 13x.

I'm actually glad UA did not market it like DL did initially (where they confusingly added the CC incremental into the total for holders, as if it they got an additional 2x, when it is just the standard amount you get for using their card).

thredbo

I have been meaning to respond to the new 2015 MileagePlus program for a while. This will pretty much hosed me on mileage. I spend a time on my last flight with wifi access to UA.com at no cost and several hours to kill.....This year it calculates that I earned a total of 125,000 miles including my Platinum 75% bonus for flight miles. With the new way of calculating it I would be at 75,000 miles earned this year. When I get more time it might just be worth working out taking the absolute cheapest fares on any airlines, pool the funds and then use that in place of where you would use miles. DOES ANYONE from UNITED monitor these threads and understand the amount of "upset" long term customers they now have?This will just encourage me to look for more and more loopholes to exploit that United has no idea about. I would share many of them on here but will reframe from doing so in the event United does monitor these threads and will close the loop holes. VERY disappointed!! Platinum and close to a million millions and now starting to look elsewhere....

LarkSFO

After they read your post, here is what the people at UA will say: Mission Accomplished.

kmfdm91

I'm at 900K Lifetime and have been a 1K for 5+ years.

And, this is the exact way I look at it...the real loophole is to fly another carrier but credit back to UA, within the next year (when I'll hold Plat status).

Then, I'll be out of UA's grasp and most likely loving every bit of it. My strategy (as posted in the other thread) is to get rid of my ties to UA (even so close to 1MM) and get a SPG credit card, do a bunch of spending and fly the airline that is best for a specific set of flights. Then, when it comes time to redeem miles - transfer my SPG points the airline's program that I can maximise - if that's BA Avios, great, if it's ANA perfect and if it's AS - awesome...I'll have a nice 'free agent' period where I'll try other airlines and get out of the crap that UA has thrown on me for the past many years (oh yeah, since 03 March 2012).

I'm surely not UA's best customer, but I'm walking out the door and will be happy to get away from trying to always fly UA solely because of benefits, etc.

-jeremy

DBCme

Perhaps learning this from Delta.


Though it has been some months since I looked for award seats, this is one area where I think UA still does pretty well (availability of award seats) at least to a 1K based at a hub

abaheti

I'm sure they do monitor, but perhaps our discussions provides positive confirmation of their strategy. I'm assuming they wanted to "fire" certain types of customers, or at least make themselves less attractive to us and more attractive to others. These threads may just be giving them anecdotal evidence of success.

Whether this ends up being a viable long-term business strategy that let's UA compete with AA remains to be seen. (I certainly have my opinions...)

LaserSailor

You don't forge a program analysing Internet forum fringe behaviour like FT, especially when you have 1000s of pax moving every day and all that wonderful data to manage revenue.

Old model, you could accumulate 200,000 miles as a 1K ( ignoring card bonuses, etc) for under 10k spend. Even at my SkyDong valuation of 1 cpm, that's 2000 USD value.

You are going to have spend at least 20k to get that back from any airline.

Higher PQD thresholds
Elite specific award availability

Coming soon to you.....

santarosaflyer

Yes that monitor and yes they don't give a damn. That is the Jeff era.

halls120

sad but accurate. Customers are the enemy at the new UA.

flyhighajw

Until enough customers - whether or not FF- decide it is all cost based to them and go to a budget airline when it doesn't matter about the full service aspect and then select the airline with the lowest price on the day they booked when full service does matter.

Rather than just default to United, pay the United fare and Fly the Friendly Skies:

Own Goal Jeff - and then send him on his way.

fwdlink

HI All, just curious if any of my fellow overseas MP members have had a straight answer from the service desk as to the procedure that UA will use to determine the $ amount for our €,£ etc. transactions. This is my biggest worry, for example Hilton really stiffs its members, along with IHG with the lowest possible exchange rate for conversion. In fact in most cases it's far off from the day's currency trading, not even the low point, almost like a credit card transaction adding 3% on in foreign currency fees. Argh....

This is second in line to my worries of conversion to the spend system that may push me over the edge to another *A program. I'm already in a pickle with US having left for OW and nearly none of my destinations are OW serviced by directs and if they are, they are well overpriced.

Feeling the squeeze

flyingnosh

If I multiply my year-to-date PQD with the multiplier for my status, I get only 78% of the RDM that I actually earned so far this year. In other words, I'll be earning 22% less for the same amount of flying. Coupled with the recent 18% price increase for a standard TATL award, this means that my 2015 miles will be worth 40% less than my 2013 miles??