Originally Posted by
jsloan
It’s a segment run, not a mileage run; already used by people who qualify based on segments.
However, I don’t see a ton of logic to doing one in January. How confident are you that you won’t be able to pick those segments up organically during the year? If you find yourself short of a PQF target a year from now, then you could look at doing a segment run — but, even then, the normal cost is a couple of dollars at most — just book a connection when you’d otherwise book a nonstop, or do an SDC to add a segment or two.
PQF = 1 per flight segment.
PQP = earned based on distance flown, with a fare class multiplier. For discount PE and business class fares, you’ll end up with far more PQPs than the cost of the fare. There’s an entire thread on this.
jsloan brings up a point I was pondering earlier. It may be a "conspiracy theory" in my mind, but does anyone think the challenges we had with SDC earlier this year (often only working for calendar day of travel) was a preemptive move by UA to limit the ability to gain needed flights for qualification under the new program? I normally default to "incompetence vs malice" when it comes to UA changes, but I see SDC (and adding flights) as a way to potentially cut my needed spend from $24K to $18K for 1K. Thoughts?