No need to be aggressive. It’s just a forum about airline status it’s not worth getting worked up over. United Gold gets better baggage than Silver + Club card because the benefits don’t stack. Your companion also gets the benefits as well. I believe gold gives you more companion baggage than the club card does and each companion can carry more.

Some people mileage run million miler status on their own. There’s a thread in here of someone going from 1M to 4M on mileage runs here. I own my own business and choose to fly United to hit lifetime 1K soon at 3M 👍. Most of my travel is business class flights to Asia and Europe. United is usually one of the cheapest options. My normal business class cost to Hong Kong is about $6K with United round trip. Sometimes I see better deals on other carriers but the layovers are less convenient and some of the seats are not the best compared to Polaris (for example Swiss). It’s also important to mention that my company is paying my flights on tax deductible expenses but I get to enjoy my benefits legally for personal travel.

It makes sense for me but may not make sense for others. It’s a personal decision as to what you think is good. If you say Gold is not free, it’s important to acknowledge the silver is not free and the club card is certainly not free either.

For me I think Silver is not a good status. I think Gold is the real sweet spot because it gives you so many guaranteed perks. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking United Gold is a sweet spot but you’re free to disagree. I think we could both agree that having more money in our accounts is more flexible and better than these statuses. 👍