For those interested in how United's Premier 1K got its name, it all goes back to I think the mid 90s or so, when MileagePlus only had Premier and Premier Executive (equivalent to today's Premier Silver and Gold). At some point, someone at United felt that 100,000 mile Premier Executive flyers should have some extra special recognition over regular Premier Executive flyers. Thus, the new level was called "Premier Executive 100K". The question was, how to code it in United's system, as the system can only take two characters. Premier was coded as "2P" and Premier Executive was coded as "1P". Thus, Premier Executive 100K became coded as "1K" and soon, the new tier eventually became known as "Premier 1K".
When the CO merger happened, Premier and Premier Executive became Premier Silver and Gold, and a new 75K level was added called Premier Platinum, and the 1K name carried over. United kept the "Premier" and the "1K" and Continental brought over their precious metal names. United kept the "MileagePlus" name, Continental brought over the FF number format and website. I guess it was a merger of "equals".
