mherdeg

I made poor decisions when allocating my 2011 EQM and now have six GPUs that expire in September 2012.

I will want to upgrade travel in December 2012, but I might not hit 100k until October or November this year.

Has there been any word of MileagePlus extending GPU expiration dates?

Going forward, should I remove my MileagePlus number just before boarding, keep my boarding passes, and apply for retroactive credit near the end of the year?

mikel51

just send an email to 1kvoice---they will take care of it for you. they did so for me.

flyer215

So is it no longer the "you have to call 30 days before they expire" crap?

Latitudes

A couple of weeks back I phoned the MP 1K Desk and asked to extend one SWU by one month from 11/2012 to 12/2012. The agent asked for the PNR of the reservation I wanted to use it on. When I informed her that I hadn't booked it yet, she told me to call back when I had a PNR and they would consider my request then.

I've extended SWUs only once before, in about 2010, and back then I didn't need to justify my reasons or have to book first. This new approach strikes me as petty.

epiding

did they extend all of your SWUs, or just 1 of them? and i'm assuming you haven't requalified for 1k yet so far this year (for next year)?

mikel51

In 2011, I hit 100K EQM in July. They issued 6 SWUs with an expiration date of July 2012. This request was to extend those 6 SWUs to Dec 31, 2012. They had announced they would do that this year as a "one time favor." I hope they continue to do this in the future if we all keep up the pressure.

lax2010

I noticed mike51. Do we have any 1k member who was successful in getting 1kvoice to extend their six (6) mid-year SWU's to DEC 31?

golfingboy

I called the MP Service Desk [formerly OPSC] and they made it clear that they WILL NOT extend GPUs...

I am not thrilled about this and this is a change I probably hate the most in the new program. UA [I think, not sure about DL] is the only program that has a fixed 12 month expiry for the upgrade instruments. Pretty ridiculous, I will write an email to 1KVoice and see if they will extend 2 of my GPUs that are set to expire in April, so I can use them for a trip to IST in September.

The agent told me "You knew you had one year and you had a full year, why didn't you use it?"... Wow, was he implying that I am a dumba$$ for waiting until now? I told him I did not have any international travel and my travel schedule is not the same every year

mmack

There is a whole thread on SWUs posting early. I called MP1K Desk in Jan 2012 and got them to extend all 6 to Dec 2012, as well as my husbands'. It took two tries and some hysteria.

This is one of the STUPID changes I WONT like

bsmnsr

I was flat out denied when I asked to extend 3 that were expiring in Jan 2012. My guess is your mileage will vary.

golfingboy

You flew 100K in Jan 2011?

goodeats21

I guess I waited too long (ie when CO became in charge).

I just spent 6 hours on the phone this week to reclaim SWUs (GPUs) that went missing from my account. This was after being told I had to wait 5 days until the migration allowed the agents to see all the information, but finally they were found and restored.

Booked a flight, had to call (again) to manually apply the GPUs because that web site function wasn't working at all. Ticket issued, GPUs applied, upgrades confirmed....success...or was it.

Received a message later that they had cancelled my return portion upgrades as the certificate expires 4 DAYS before my return.

I honestly had forgotten the idiotic policy of early expiring SWUs, but no problem. I recalled we could get them extended when needed for this year as it was a change in the program. (Maybe faulty memory, but I could swear reading that somewhere. If not, I would have on the phone at the time to get it straightened out).

Another hour-plus call into the new United. Answering M+ (OnePass) agent said no, I am not going to extend the expiration 4 days. I asked to escalate as this was allowed under the previous plan. More time on hold, agent comes back, "NO" Supervisor said we are not going to extend ONE GPU 4 DAYS for a 1k member.



Cancelled the international booking (24 hrs) and receiving my $2k refund. Nice way to decline revenue UA.

I have sent a PM to UA Insider as a final attempt to restore my faith in United / MileagePlus. If the GPU gets extended and the upgrade space is still there, I will book it again and see what happens. If not, I think I am done. I need to research and having 50k miles already with UA this year is going to hurt, but the straw keeps building on my camel and his back is really starting to strain.

goodeats21

An update: UA Insider has restored some faith. I won't go into the details, as it may not be appropriate, but a couple straws have been removed from my camel and he is breathing a bit easier.

pjlover

Sorry, folks, first-time poster here - I tried searching the forums, but couldn't find an answer, so I thought I'd try asking.

I just got my 2012 1K GPUs deposited, and on the website when I hover over the GPU/RPU hover-links, I see the following:

Global Premier Upgrades:
- 4 Global Premier Upgrade(s) expiring 8/31/2012 (my 1K GPUs from last year)
- 2 Global Premier Upgrade(s) expiring 10/31/2012 (an extra 50K from last year)
- 6 Global Premier Upgrade(s) expiring 2/28/2014 (the new 1K GPU grant from 2012)

Note that expiration date: are GPUs now a 2-year expiration? I can think of four possibilities (although I'm sure there are more):

1) There's a bug on the website. Quite possible.
2) This is something GS-specific. Possible, I guess, but doesn't seem likely.
3) I completely missed a policy change announcement by United stating that these would be 2-year instruments going forward.
4) There's been some unannounced policy change at United making the GPUs a 2-year reward; possibly just a one-time thing due to all the integration issues.

Anyone else noticed the same? I'm guessing it's #1, but I'm guessing it's a pretty small subset of the population that's hit 100K already this year, so it might not have been noticed. #3/4 would be quite interesting, though.

kb1992

This would be a change that I like.

Quite sensible. Current policy just does not give us incentive to fly UA.