Silver Elite Question
 

As a lowly college student with not much money and trying to chase silver elite this year; is it worth it to make silver elite this year knowing that it will continue into 2010 without knowledge that may re qualify in 2010?

Basically, can someone convince me that making elite will somehow pay for itself over the next year?

It depends on how much you fly and where you're flying from. If you fly out of a hub location (EWR, CLE, IAH) it's going to be very hard for you to get upgrades as a Silver. Mileage bonuses are minimal now, only 25%.

The only real bonus is elite access airport privileges and the ability to Y-B-up (and slightly better reward redemption options). That's about it for Silver. Don't go too far out of your way to get there....

Currently, I fly out of DTW for the most part. But my home is IAH.

I was afraid someone would say that upgrades at hubs are few and far between. I've seen the lines for elite boarding and they only get longer as time goes by.

Not that reward travel is easy to get, but doing limited flying and spreading out your flights to several airlines leaves you with a few miles in multiple places and no good way to use them. If you are flying enough to make silver then you will be earning enough mileage to get at least one flight for free so you might want to look at it that way.

I am a Silver and due to the economy and resulting light loads I am 4/7 on upgrades so far.

With the cheap fares you could easily make Gold for ~$1500

I'm in the same spot as you. Is your college also where "Home" is or do you fly to visit "Home" for various holidays?

With an upcoming study abroad I was forced to change my habit of just flying around on WN and getting free flights and booze every so often. Everything for the program was finalized a little too late to change my flights already booked for the end of January - but from here on out i'm on going to try and be on CO unless it's ridiculously priced.

I'm going to be flying around to hopefully visit some grad schools and then once in a program in the fall i certainly will be coming home for holidays. If I end up in California I'll certainly make some status for 2010. If I end up going to grad schools in middle america.. well.. i might or I might not.

Edit: Do you happen to know what you flew, mile-wise in 2008? I'm going to pull up the lion-share of my flights from my RR account for last year and see just how much flying i really did.

We have been silver elite for five years now. This year will no longer be elite. Will I miss the extra perks? Sure I will. Is it worth the extra money to take flights just to gain elite status? No way. I used to think it was but no longer. The only things we get that I love are the elite phone line and the elite status on our luggage-- making it priority. We never get upgrades because we fly out of EWR. So, regrettably, we will no longer be seeking Silver this year. We'll save a small fortune in airfares so this is a no brainer for us.

Maybe it is just me, but I think that as a college student, you may not have the income necessary to actively select a preferred carrier. I know that sometimes the difference between CO and the cheapest can be $30 dollars, sometimes it can be $200. In that case, I don't think it would be worth it for a lot of people (myself included).

My 2 cents.

That depends on you! ;)

CO Plat and 1K paid for themselves, literally, in my case when I was in college. Be creative and you'll figure out something.

Income?! What does that have to do with anything?

The key to the game is dealing with the costs -- as long as you can offset those you're set. (And yes, income is a way - a boring way - to deal with them.)

I never understood this argument. Every flight is to or from a hub, so what the heck does it matter whether the first flight on the itinerary is going in to the hub or out from the hub? I suppose the directionality of the Monday/Friday flights makes a difference, but I've found that there's not a whole lot of rhyme or reason to upgrades as a Silver.

You can see my 2008 results in my sig. I've only flown 2 legs on NW this year and none on CO, but I'm batting .500 so far.

JE the OP is saying they just get to 25k and for this coming yr they will hav eto fly unnecessary flights to get there or spend more on a tkt for CO then another Carrier.

OP Id say now that Silver only gets a bonus of 25% and with the Economy being what it is, if it was me Id fly which Carrier can get me from A to B for the least amount of $$$ and pocket the rest.

Ex I had a res on CO for an Intl trip on hold , I called DL & AA and AA had a free Coach seat available at the Saver rate, I grabbed it and let my CO res expire. The CO tkt would have been 11 cents per EQM for that same $1350 I can fly back and forth PHL & Cali just under 6 times and earn 28k in EQMs.(OK I already have 56k in EQMs and no sweat getting 75k by yrs end).

Bout the only good thing to Silver is the free bags (or is it bag). If you fly with just carry-on then its a slam dunk , its Not worth it. BTW there are ways around the bag fees

Spartanflyer86,

I am a student at U of M, I live in PHX, I always fly out of DTW and I have Silver Elite status. I gained it a couple of years ago, and it doesn't look like I'm going to have it again.

To earn elite this past year, I flew between DTW-PHX 12 times (I flew NWA and flew mostly deeply discounted coach), in addition to a study abroad TATL and a few side trips. It's a lot of flying, but it does have it's perks.

You have no security line, you have no check-in line. You have no bag fees (except now I do on NWA), and the first class upgrades are nice. Not only do you get to sit up front and enjoy a bigger seat/better meal, its a great way to network with people and possibly connect to a job.

If you can get elite, get it. It makes flying easier and more enjoyable. It could cost you a little more in airfares, but you'll find that an extra $50 is worth it for all those conveniences. The upgrades as a silver are not numerous enough, but it's a perk that need not be included for elite to be worth it.

You can achieve silver status on 3 trips for ~1320 (if not cheaper). IAH-EWR-DUB-EWR-CLE-IAH AI was $440 and 9392 EQM.

I think you forgot the free baggage, which saves $100 a trip, per person (considering two bags per trip).

I think Silver is well worth the time spent, especially if one lives on the East Coast or West Coast. Those in the middle of the country who won't rack up TCONs might think differently. I don't consider (at least for me) Silver an extra expense, as I usually only need one MR to make Silver.....I think we're all forgetting that the OP probably travels enough to get close to Silver.

For me, being able to fly cheaply out of PHL (versus EWR) where I get extra miles (routing through IAH), cheaper flights and a better chance of upgrades makes silver worth every penny.

Home is IAH. School is Michigan State University. Guaranteed fly home for Spring Break. Everyone wants to go south for SB, I naturally live there. Lucky me!! Summer, Thanksgiving and Christmas are also trips home. This is my last semester in school so those trip will be ending soon.

My father and I own and operate a consulting business. Upon grad, there is the possibility that we will be frequenting South America and the remote possibility of work in Asia. This could be an opportunity to rack up miles on company money.

I do carry the Chase CO Debit Card which grants me first checked bag free.
Elite at all levels gets two bags free, no?

To IAHtraveler and aacharya
 

Can you please tell me how to gain silver for less than $1320? I live near EWR.. we used to take one discounted business class trip to Europe each year to get to Silver. Those eqms, along with our trips to Orlando, put us over 25K each year. But the expense was high. Thanks so much for your answer to this question.


We live near EWR in Monroe Township, Exit 8A on the turnpike. We can get to PHL in an hour and a half but parking is horrendous. (we get discounted handicapped parking benefits at Newark and the NYC airports). I want to get elite back but want to do it without a lot of hassle and also without a lot of bucks. In your post you say you can do it with one MR and you can do it cheaply out of PHL. Can you explain how? You can send me a PM if you feel better doing that. Thanks a lot!

Marylyn

Ahh,
Based on the intl flights, the baggage fees will be gone---not sure if your business is domestic too, but if the majority is international, then you start reducing the benefits to the 25% bonus and some EUAs, depending on destination; remember possible upgrades on Copa if you're going to cities served by them (ie, SCL, and Brazil if you're willing to go with a stop).

personally, I'm one to throw in a fun trip somewhere to get away while knowing it will rack up a bunch of miles. But if you're unsure of the benefits you'd get from it, then I wouldn't do any more than that. For example, I missed elite by a few thousand (3?) miles about a little over a year ago. I didn't think it would matter, since I didn't plan to travel, but found out on jan 10th that I'd be on a 20k trip to HKG. I was sort of pissed off at myself for not just doing the MR somewhere over the winter break.

You can fly EWR-DUB ($299 all-in right now) 4 times to get Silver status for under $1200. It's hardly worth it, IMO...

In years where my travel has been scant, I've just waited until later in the year to see what I need to make it... and decided whether it was worth it with that knowledge in hand.

Is it worth it to spend $1000+ to get to Silver? I don't think so. If you have the first bag fee waived already, I don't see strong financial motivators to spend that much for Silver. Tiny elite bonus, "premium" seats, early boarding, elite desk, and occasional upgrades aren't worth that to me if I don't really have the money. But if you find yourself a few thousand miles short, that's a different story! Then a carefully chosen run could finish things up for very little, and maybe you'll get a fun trip out of it.

I frequently finish my year with a trip to Florida or California just to get a few more miles. A few days on the beach isn't such a hardship...

Bags -- and if you're lucky enough to steal an upgrade you get three.

I still stand by what I wrote earlier: they're ways to make these things pay for themselves, and it's often an easier trick to pull off at the high end of the spectrum (Plat / 1k / EXP) than the low side.

FYI -- you can bag plat for $2,392 based on EWR-DUB alone. (8 of those $299 r/ts)

tell me Tommy, how many mainline CO flights don't fly into or out of IAH/CLE/EWR?

47 :rolleyes:

It doesn't matter and my point is still valid. If the guy has family in ANC but goes to school in SEA I bet there is a damn good chance he often gets upgraded if that's the route he flies.

Also, legs that originate in certain non-hub cities that connect to hubs may also have a better chance of getting upgrades. Unless of course you believe there is a large concentrations of elites and/or people flying into/out of cities like Des Moine, Omaha or Witchita.....or maybe Kansas City. Yeah, I bet there are a lot of Golds and Plats in Kansas.

I just looked at the CO Flexible Schedule. I am going to be in MCO from Feb 26-March 6th so those days are out. I only see one date in March, none in April, May etc.

EWR-DUB = 6386 EQMs or 11.75 trips

8 will get you Gold not Plat

also the EWR-DUB run at the $299 fare ai = .047 cents per EQM, not great nor bad, just nothing special like the SFO-BFS fare was. And seems you need to be there over the weekend, BFS was w/o a weekend stay

LAX or SFO will yield 12400/11975 for $382, due to a couple of commitments I cant do a BDL-EWR-SFO-IAH-EWR-DUB run as I did with BFS Both LAX/SFO comes in at the 3 cent mark. Out of the NY area BDL-EWR-SFO is $254 while EWR-LAX is $260

I believe you need to be there over a Sat and I would assume mid March (close to Paddys day) it will not be found at all. keep in mind CO has 2 flights per day that leaves at night , so a Sat departure counts as a Sat stay

what about upgrades for lax to ewr thursday afternoons? and return flight is sunday evening. is a silver elite upgrade plausible?

Transcons are tough, even for Plats. EWR-LAX often sells out in F. I wouldn't count on it.

So I should do several EWR -LAX runs to make gold or platinum. Is that what you are saying? That's a lot easier than Belfast or Dublin.

When I ride transcom, EWR to LAX, SFO or IAH I notice all the platinums in coach with me. They, the gold and platinums, say it is nearly impossible to get a metal upgrade due to the fact so many business people pay full fare for FC seats in this market.

but 8 r/ts will net you 16 TATL points if you have a European address.

Sure,
3/27 -
EWR - HNL - LAX - EWR - DUB
3/29 -
DUB - EWR - HNL - LAX - EWR

Leave at 1:30PM Friday, back by 3:30PM Monday (really tired) with 26,330 miles for $1153 AI.

It gives you 2 hours in HNL, 1 hour in DUB, and another 2 hours in HNL.

With all that time on trans-oceanic flights I would die (because I would be riding in the back). I could also probably forget about getting an upgrade on the LAX-EWR legs also...... Seems like cruel and unsual punishment to me!

I never said it would be comfortable, just that you can get Silver very quickly for < $1200.

I did a 20k+ MR last year, only one upgrade (EWR - IAH) as a silver, in four days, this is only 3 days and about 6k more miles than that - not sure if I would do it either.

Had You said DUB-EWR in your original post I would agree with You, but you posted EWR-DUB, therefore 8 r/ts will Not get a person Plat on a EWR-DUB basis only Gold

Or a BDL-EWR-SFO-IAH-EWR-DUB-IAH-SFO-EWR-BDL can run $641 ai & 18,565 EQMs (2 different tkts, BDL-SFO-BDL & SFO-DUB-SFO) then do a creative routing East Coast-West Coast and pick up the other 6500 and you can have Silver for less then $1000 It will require a night on the way out to DUB in SFO but a PL can get you a 2 1/2* for $54 ai (Staybridge Suites)

Heck if a person has the time (remember DUB requires either a Sat flight over there out of EWR or being there for a Sat) do this 3 times and for < $3000 you got Plat. DUB is good till the 2nd weekend in March then it goes way up

lax to dub 3/27 - 3/29 for $377 gets you 11,200 EQMs. Sounds pretty simple.

Yep if 1 is LA/SF based,otherwise for those like me on the EC will have to find a way to get out there . Its cheaper and more EQMs to/from SFO

Its $299 ai EWR-DUB for 6386 EQMs so it will cost more $$$ to fly out West but it actually will lower the cost per EQM overall. The EWR-DUB comes in at 4.8 cents per EQM while its something close to 3.5 cents out of SFO with the EC-WC flights in there

If you're flying just to make Silver, no. If you're flying and making Silver, yes'ish--DL is a better choice if you want benefits from the status.