Originally Posted by
FlyingBaker
Just to clarify, I fly every 10 days MIA to TLV, which means 36 O/W or 18 R/T. From my calculation with M&M @ ~11K miles per O/W, I will have 308,000 miles/yr if pay cash for 14 R/T flights on LH/LX. Therefor, in two years, I should have HON.
The tricky thing with MilagePlus is the PQD of $12K/yr to reach 1K status. I'm having trouble finding availability for reasonably priced business from MIA to TLV on UA metal. It doesn't seem worth it to pay an extra $1K-$2K for a UA flight just to meet the PQD requirement?
It won't take many RTs on UA to meet the PQD requirement, even if the rest are on LH. Furthermore, you can get PQDs for LH flights if they are booked on a United ticket (ticket number starting with 016). The easiest way to do that is to book via UA codeshares.
If UA is $1K-$2K more, it's likely due to tight inventory on the MIA-EWR leg. If your goal is to reach GS -- feasible at 18 RT/yr but you'd want nearly all of your travel to be on UA-operated flights -- you'd want to look at alternate airports or adding a stop. (I see plenty of flights at the same $3K roundtrip for LH and UA, but the UA flights all require an extra stop due to inventory constraints on the MIA-EWR segment). If you're satisfied with 1K, just book enough of the LH flights using their UA code to get to 12K PQD and be done with it. (Note that you do need 4 annual UA segments per year to get any elite status on UA).