Originally Posted by
johnden
The secret to PQD is not thinning the least valuable elites, although it's a benefit. The most important part is to stop US elites from booking *A tickets with other airlines and earning UA status without UA seeing any money. PQD effectively encourages codeshare or JV flying instead of buying the cheapest/easiest seat on a competitor website.
I know a few J fliers that have starting routing through UA hubs to get on codeshares instead of flying direct. Non codeshare partner flights are effectively priced out of market (UA website) or non PQD earning (competitor website). Hence the drive to book codeshares or UA flights on united.com.
Yep - and with the advent of $ based RDM, booking non-codeshare flights will likely disappear for most. I've been flying US-EUR in last minute paid J (~$7.8k per ticket). After the first 2 to hit the PQD requirement, I stopped caring that it was on 016 stock. This was good because close in, the code shares were sold out so I had to ticket with the operating carrier (LX or LH, in my case).
Next year I'll have to stop doing this because even if the PQD doesn't matter (since I'll easily $12k), I'm not giving up the ~70k RDM per trip (without the taxes). I'll have to hope there is still availability on the UA codeshares, or take the actual UA metal flights
