I am close to reaching Star Alliance Gold status with United Airlines, but have come across a stumbling block – hopefully someone on this forum can help?

One of the key criteia for obtaining Gold with United is that you need to make a minimum of 4 flights with United (the remainder of flights/points can be notched up using any of the Star Alliance partners). Fair enough, I suppose – most FF programmes require this.

I have made 5 flights with United, all of which were booked via the United website, yet only 2 have been credited to my account. My hunch is this is because these 3 ‘missing’ segments were codeshare flights, albeit on a United ticket – the other 2 were on United planes.

My e-mail to United’s MileagePlus progamme asking for the segments to be added was simply replied to with a message “your miles have been added” plus a load of irrelevant infomation telling me how I should fill in the booking forms correctly. They clearly haven’t bothered to read the actual message; my miles were added almost immediately; it’s the segments I need !

Has anyone else come across anything similar – and who is right here; United, or me?! If I am denied Gold due to this loophole, it seems awfully mean (I specifically booked the flights on a United ticket via the United website to gain these segments – it would have been significantly cheaper to book on the partner plane). Sadly, I’m not in a position to just do a miles run; I’m based on the othe side of the globe !!

Any help/advice here would be gratefully received – perhaps someone knows someone senior at United ?!?!

Luc