Originally Posted by
gr2020
I'll have to disagree here. Taking UA as the example - UA club card has the following benefits (only considering benefits that are comparable to what you get with status, so not considering e.g. club accesss):
- free checked bags (up to 2 @ 50lbs). Premier Silver has one free checked bag, up to 70lbs. I'd say this is a tossup between which is more valuable, really just depends what you're checking.
- Premier Access, and group 2. Silver also includes this.
But silver also includes preferred seat selection at booking (arguable value), and E+ at checkin (definitely has value). Club card has neither.
Given the price of E+ these days, I'd say silver is definitely not meaningless. It's dramatically worse than gold, to be sure - but not worthless. IMO!
Now, if you were to consider the Club card and an E+ subscription together, I would agree you're mostly better off than silver alone.
I guess value is in the eye of the beholder, as with all things.
--Adding on to the baggage debate, most people would probably be able to figure out how to split their one 70 lb bag into to < 50 lb bags, so that one is probably a wash.
--"Preferred" seating is a joke. It's still the back half of the cabin, in E- seats.
--Back when I was only a Premier Silver and would book economy instead of paid F, the only E+ seats available at check-in were middle or no-recline seats. My experience may not have been representative of what is normal, but I suspect it was/is. So, meh there.
This all goes to my point that the airlines have become very good at creating an illusion of value at their lower elite tiers, when in actuality you can get essentially similar benefits by just holding a premium travel card. The most valuable perk of status - complimentary upgrades - basically never happen anymore. Even 1K and GS have difficulty with these. How this all relates back to the OP topic is that United is not in a position to raise PQP any further. People who actually care about low-tier status are becoming increasingly aware of alternative methods to achieve essentially the same real-world benefits with a much lower bar for entry in time/effort/money as is, so how could UA conceivably raise thresholds against that level of friction?