Originally Posted by
Mike Jacoubowsky
For those of us for whom chasing Plat each year became a pretty big deal, requiring a lot of careful planning and choosing vacations based as much on distance from home as other reasons... does the recent devaluation of Plat (the fees added to award ticket changes and, worse yet, making the "close in" window 60 days instead of 21) come as a relief? Because now the differences between Gold and Plat have been greatly reduced?
Not at all. I went through status withdrawal over a year ago when I realized I would never be 1K again, thanks to a combination of the PQD requirement and the realization that benefits were never going to be grandfathered by United. Added to this was the fact that in 2015 I was forced to fly the competition due to a combination of UA not having flights when and where I needed them, and UA losing many of the GSA city pairs. The result? I've figured out how get upgrades on the competition, and I've found that while UA has its positive attributes, there is in fact green grass elsewhere.
I'm looking forward to reaching 1MM soon, but other than that, my days of chasing status on UA or any airline are over.