Right. I wasn't talking about credit card. I was talking about Silver status on United through Marriott.

MsCP and I were upgraded to St Thomas this week on my first UA flight in years, based on my comped Silver status. We also sat in E+ on every other leg, and checked two bags on both flights at no charge.

Only if the hotel is completely booked by a group or the event itself which means there are no available rooms at the hotel and even then, the hotel doesn't "opt-out", they have to petition Marriott to remove the 48-hr room guarantee. The hotel has no direct control over that feature as it is controlled by Marriott itself. Now how easy or hard it is to get Marriott's approval might be up for questioning. :eek:

Also, at a FS hotel, my understanding is the Marriott system will use the hotel's general corporate rate for the override, not the hotel's rack rate. But I have been told that for limited service (i.e. non-FS) hotels, their general corporate rate is their rack rate. So for those I would guess you would have to pay their rack rate.

And note that I have used the Room Availability Guarantee before where I was actually paying less than my co-workers who were staying using a conference rate (this was the NO Marriott on Canal St when we were all attending a technology conference.)

It's difficult but possible. There are certainly industries with people who have extended onsite work assignments without many flights. I'm not one of them. But in 2018, I made Marriott Titanium and barely made Silver on UA. I was thinking I might need to use the status match but didn't. So I suppose it's useful for some number of people.

However, to your point, I was 1K on United for 3 years in a row where I only made it to Gold (50 nights) with Marriott.

I don't think that anyone suggested that was the case...

I take about 3-10 Star Alliance flights a year (a bit less than 50% in business) and 100% less than 6 hours, so the UA status is really worth a decent amount to me, despite me not being able to earn higher levels with them. Obviously I'm all set on OneWorld, but sadly they don't always have competitive options for where I need to go (I'm looking at you, Central America).

Not sure if it was mentioned here, but with UA Silver and above United opens up some exclusive award space which might come in handy, especially in a pinch.

Well, umm, uh...

Maybe in a previous lifetime. I think something like that (likely exclusive to 1K/GS) still exists on paper, but the idea that a Silver will ever somehow gain access to exclusive award travel is pretty, shall we say, optimistic.

Edit: I only ever search for premium int'l cabins when it comes to burning through my remaining balance of UA miles, so I should probably not have posted the above without a bit of more generalized research. Apparently UA does indeed make available domestic coach stuff to any level of elite or CC holder that's not generally on offer to the general public. Not going to post any links here, and in doing so promote the business interests of some questionable individuals in the FF blogging space, but it's all out there for the interested...

Apologies.

I actually realized it last year when I had UA Silver through the Marriott status match with SPG. On United's website it shows this on those awards

"Exclusively available to you as a MileagePlus Premier® member"

It can also come in handy when connecting to an International flight you otherwise would not have been able to.

Bingo! I have always felt the benefits were lopsided and heavily in favor of UA Elites getting MR Status until this year. UA Elites still only get MR Gold, in the past they received the equivalent of the current MR Platinum. As others have pointed out even with minimal status, sometimes you still get very nice upgrades and that is great when it happens. But I consider that to be more of an occasional aberration than a typical experience that can be expected.

If the intent of the RewardsPlus program is to provide an incentive to spend more with the reciprocal program (United in my case), it has failed. UA Silver doesn't provide enough benefit for me to focus my flying on UA. Through my corporate travel I also get the equivalent level of status with AA (who I also don't use a lot). Currently I prefer Southwest (the flexibility to change flights w/o penalty is great). Obviously I have no chance of first class upgrades with them, but rarely received them on the legacies even when I had higher status. So a coach seat on Southwest is as good or better than the standard coach seat on the legacies. In any case don't get me wrong, minimal status is still much better than nothing, but it is not enough to change my buying patterns. Other folks are happy with the status received and it is enough of incentive for them to spend more with UA. Each to their own....


--Jon

Resurrecting an old thread here vs starting another. In two recent reviews I’ve just read, I’ve noticed that the properties had special benefits for Titanium members, a complimentary experience at one resort (Turnberry, Scotland). and a meal for two at a another (Domes of Elounda, Greece). I know this isn’t the norm, however I wondered if there was a list somewhere of where Titanium’s are treated particularly favourably with enhanced benefits over Platinum members. The only other property I can think of alongside the other two examples is the Renaissance StP. in London which offers lounge access to Titanium’s, but not Platinums.





A chart of some sort for enhanced benefits per property and elite level (Plat, Tit, Amb, Col) would be a very nice resource for FT!

I believe UA silver comes at Titanium? It got me an upgrade on ASE-DEN the other day. One of the very few benefits of Titanium that I perceive.

This is true. I've yet to use it, but I would imagine it's now valuable now with upgrades being more possible due to the lack of business travel.

Very much my experience. JW in D.C. Titanium was nothing. JW in Istanbul they knew who I was and called me by name when I walked in!!

“Ethan, we have been expecting you” 🤯

Agreed