United PQDs and Ultimate Rewards...
 

Now here's a bizarre one. I just took my first United flight of 2014. I had booked it using Ultimate Rewards expecting to get the usual miles, PQMs and the new "Premier Qualifying Dollars" that United now requires.

It all worked normally except the PQDs which were marked as "ineligible" in my account. There was nothing out of the ordinary with these tickets and nothing I can tell would violate any of the (lengthy) terms and conditions on United.

The only unusual thing is that I booked these flights with UR points.

Needless to say I've emailed United about this since I feel it has to be some kind of mistake.

Anyone else see trouble getting your PQDs or MQDs (Delta) when booking reward tickets?

Could it be this? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...elsewhere.html

Holy cow. This will be mind blowing if it's true in the case of Ultimate Rewards. Literally a wipe-out for Chase, USBank, Barclays and others. THere would instantly be hardly any reason to hold any of these points cards.

I'm still waiting for United to reply to me so we'll see what happens. I will post the answer here.

That is surprising they would hose their partner Chase like that.

But UR points are much more valuable (IMO) when used for mileage/point redemptions through transfer partners than to purchase travel directly.

Indeed, but if this is true I"m transferring everything from UR and moving everything to the regular Chase United card.... no way I'll redeem UR points with no status benefit!

Are you thinking of moving everything to the regular Chase United Mileage Plus card to achieve the $25,000 spend to maintain status without the PQD requirement?

I am in the same boat. Last year many of my flights were paid for using Amex Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards. If they won't earn status on UA, I might as well redeem them for miles or purchase tickets on another airline where I will receive status. I thought that UA's goal was to keep cheap tickets purchased on Priceline from accruing PQD. I didn't think that travel purchases using Chase and Amex rewards would be a problem since these tickets are the same price as those available on United.com.

I bought a United ticket w/UR points less than 24 hrs ago. I thought I was good to go because my receipt showed an actual airfare instead of BULK. But this thread inspired me to call United to double check about earning PQD...they confirmed that my fare code displayed as PQM-earning but told me they wouldn't know about PQD until after I flew. If my flights come up as ineligible, I can call and they will research my case. Not the answer I was hoping for, ugh. The agent suggested I call Chase and have them check if my fare was bulk/consolidated.

I called Chase, who let me know that tickets booked with UR points are sometimes bulk. But not always (a la Amex Travel, etc.). According to the Chase agent, mine was not a bulk ticket. In her words, it was a "regular airfare ticket" and United should see it as such.

My flight's in March, so we'll see! I foresee an additional post-trip call to MP. :D

Yeah, I would probably switch to the $25,000 spend strategy. These PQDs seem to be a complete joke in terms of earning them.

However, I have not yet heard back from United about this, so fingers crossed the UR/Amex points will still be good. If not, then yes, I'll ditch the Sapphire/Ink cards immediately!

***OUTRAGE CONFIRMED*** NO PQDs for Ultimate Rewards Tickets
 

Jaysis flippin' xst....

I just got off a long phone call with United I have confirmed that ultimate rewards tickets will be marked as "Bulk Fares" and will NOT be eligible to earn any PQDs - Zero, zip, zilch....

As far as I am concerned this is death to the Ultimate Rewards program since I need to earn my minimum spend to get elite status. There is no benefit to me any more using Ultimate Rewards for a ticket.

I'm utterly shocked that this is happening but there you go. Hope that someone else can confirm this, I trust I'm not the only one.

Exactly. That is one reason I like my Chase Sapphire Preferred.
Besides, PDQs are meaningless to me as at most I would be Silver with United which is a pretty worthless level anyway.

Well hey, I dig your point but in 2015 it's very likely that Silver will mean a lot more than it does now considering how many people are going to be thrown out of the system as a result of PQDs/MQDs .... I don't see a lot of benefits in sticking with Sapphire under these circumstances.

By 2015 Skypesos have become a fixed value redemption system with 100 skymiles = $1.
Also, Silver will get checked bag discount of 50%. Gold will have one bag free, and Plat two.

Stop giving them ideas.

Okay - so an update. I again failed to convince United that my recent Ultimate Rewards flight was valid to earn PQDs - big loss.

However, some others over on the United Board claim that they have indeed succeeded in getting PQDs for UR purchases. It seems that sometimes a tag of "bulk fare" is applied and sometimes not. However, there is no way to tell if this is the case when you purchase the ticket.

This is obviously a big oversight and I think I'm leaning this one on Chase. United doesn't seem to have a clue and are not the ones actually overseeing the purchase so Chase needs to quickly figure out what the heck they're selling us - is it a bulk fare or not? Do we earn credit or not?

Another Update -

Continued back and forth with Chase. They don't seem to understand the situation yet. Simply claiming that "they have changed nothing". I'm sure this is true as they are probably unaware of how United chooses to label the fares they purchase.

I'm leaning on them to at least have the courtesy to discuss this with United and let their customers know whether or not we're getting a "bulk fare" vs a regular fare.