Originally Posted by MCLC

I'm trying to make up my mind about what to do for next year. Here's my situation: I've already qualified for 2P for next year, but only have one more trip scheduled this year. I'll end up at about 35K EQM for the year. No way to do any MRs. It's pretty doubtful that I'll have more travel this year (I generally know months ahead of time).

Next year, according to United, the downgrade of 2P (no E+ until checkin, no second bag) won't happen until Feb or Mar. I will definitely qualify for 1P sometime in Aug or Sept. So I have 4-7 months of uncertainty regarding my seat assignments. During that time I have two TATL flights (one with my daughter) - though the second might be just after I've qualified for 1P. I would hate to end up in E- for any of those legs - domestic I can live with.

So, I'm trying to think about my options, which seem to be:

1. Wait and see. - Seems most appealing. I could book all of my known flights before the end of 2011, reserving E+ while I can and hope that those seat assignments don't get taken away. I won't know about dates for the May DEN-LHR trip I'll take with my daughter until mid-late March though.
2. Try to qualify for 1P now (would probably require buying CO EQM with Elite Maximizer). Seems stupidly expensive so probably not really an option.
3. Buy the annual E+ option. I really hate to do this, but maybe I will. Doesn't help with the seat for my daughter to/from LHR, though.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that I'm leaning toward #1, but wondering what the chances of those E+ seats being taken away whenever 2P loses the option to prebook E+. Any thoughts/suggestions would be helpful.