Originally Posted by
sbm12
The integrity of the program. Plus, we have not established that all the 1K by points folks are really good customers.
If they are "really good customers" in the manner that the airline actually wants outside of the defined status levels then they'll be GS. Piece of cake.
Let me turn the argument around on you and ask is somebody who does 5 transpac flights on ultra-cheap K fares a "really good customer" by UA's definition? Theoretically you can get to 100K EQMs for as little as $3000-$4000. Is this the kind of customer the airline really wants?
Apparently the answer is yes because they left the 1K qualification at 100K EQMs which is pretty easy to achieve (relatively speaking) compared to 100 segments.
UA has already begun to ratchet down on cheap segments by restricting the number of connections allowed in the fare rules. I highly doubt that there is a significant number of people who go out of their way to exploit max connections in order to gain status - at least not enough to warrant the wholesale increase in segment requirements like they did.