Originally Posted by
chicaloca453
Okay you guys may remember me posting about a co-worker who was 1200 miles short for 1P. He got the offer to either buy the 2K EQM for $498 or pay the $449 and do the 17.5 K challenge.
His question now is will the service for 1P be $500 better than 2P? I know it's all subjective but this is someone who does mostly domestic trips. Some are mid-con and some trans-con. Never flies the PS routes. Flies to HNL for leisure from the West Coast only. Has not flown abroad aside from Canada in 3 years.
So what's your take? Would you pay $500 for 1P with those flying patterns? I'm deferring to you guys because you all are in the know.
I split my business between UA and AA so I don't really know how much better UA 1P is than 2P. Obviously you get a better chance of upgrades BUT with the number of elites (1P in particular it seems) increasing, it is hard to imagine even a 1P will see a lot of time up front. The only other difference is the 100% RDM.
And he may or may not make it back to 1P this year. It really depends on how things go down with the merger and if the new UA decides to go down the same road as the new DL. If they do, he says he will switch to a combo of AA and AS.
If the choice was between a 1K or a 1P, I would definitely do the program because you get the SWUs, CR1s and a dedicated service line. With 1P and 2P it is harder. The main, real tangible benefit to me is being able to book the exit row. (I don't care about RDMs that much.) Aside from that, it is much more subjective---such as a better chance of getting upgraded.
If it were me, I would pay the fee and take the challenge if I thought there was a good chance of flying the 17.5K miles. But I would not go out of my way to do it.
On the other hand, as someone who earned 50K+ miles in the last quarter and did some mileage runs to ensure the 1K, I would take the 1K challenge in a heartbeat. It is almost as if you are getting DEQM--one for last year and one for this. Even at $999 it is a bargain.