Originally Posted by
giblet
I'm confused as to why people are saying they wouldn't get status -- two roundtrips SFO-MXP in Premium Economy gets 35,000 PQM on UA (or 24,000 in economy), and add another 2-6 flights from SFO-NYC which is 5,000 each trip in econ, and it seems like an easy path to status. Am I missing something?
You are not missing anything. They simply did not say it out loud.
The issue there are different level of status. Just take UA/AA alone, if you want a status with significant (i.e. usable) benefit, like baggage and lounge, you have to become at least mid-tier instead of low-tier.
The travel you have mentioned will only land your parents to the lowest tier. Hence, the status becomes meaningless (sort of).
Originally Posted by
giblet
Is this actually true? I did a few test dates and for most of them, ex-Europe is $200-400 more expensive in PE than ex-US. They are on this flight pattern now, though, anyway.
YMMV.