redlonghorn1

Need to log 8,700 pqm by 12/29 to keep 1K status with United. Hoping to keep this as cheap as possible so flight times are not an issue. Return city does not have to be the same as departure city, as long as it's one of the four.

Any help is much appreciated!

valor155

What is your budget?

You can just buy 9000 miles from United for about 11.9 CPM or 12.3 CPM right now. No flights required. It involves booking then canceling a trip, but you get a full refund if you do so within 24 hours or buy a fully refundable fare.

UA will refund your ticket price, but not the PQM you bought (which is not refundable). So that works out perfectly in this case (looking to buy just miles).

It's about $1100 for you.

I just did this yesterday because I needed about 5k miles. I couldn't get a cheapy MR by year end from DEN/COS, so just buying the PQM made sense for me.

I've written more details in another thread in this discussion forum.

redlonghorn1

Thanks Valor. It really comes down to how much I think 1K status is worth. Since I have similar status with AA, I think $1,100 may be a little too steep. However, if I could find something closer to $500, that would be ideal.

valor155

$500 for 8700 is going to be very tough this late in the year from anywhere, unfortunately. That's under 6 CPM with a time and carrier constraint.

I valued 1K very highly 2 years ago, when I did a colossal COS-EWR-DXB-DOH MR. It was 22k miles and cost me $1400 (and I used remaining GPUs from the previous year to upgrade to Biz Class). But, it was worth it just for the GPUs for me ... the following year, I flew to Rome in UA in First Class for my family, just using GPUs (on a relatively cheap economy fare). So that was worth it!

I can't tell you what 1K is worth to you, but looks like you'd have to fly to Europe to get close to the miles, and Europe is usually more expensive than Asia. Asia routes usually are cheaper CPM, but they are longer routes than the miles you need, so not so cost effective.

I'd still consider the "Buy PQM" route in your case. BTW ... are you okay with a stay in the destination city overnight? That can give you more price flexibility.

redlonghorn1

I figured it was a little late in the season to find a bargain but a man can dream...

And I'm definitely good with staying in the destination city overnight. I'll see if I can use that trick to drop the price a bit more - thanks for the hint!

GroundStop

Hi redlonghorn1 - I'm coming up a little short of the 8700 miles, best I could find is:

Dec 22 (same day turn, redeye from ANC, arrives back Dec 23):
SAT-IAH-SAN-SFO-ANC-(DEN)-IAH-SAT - 8086 miles (with 500m minimums) - $740

I tried to get creative with routing as best I could, maybe you can tweak it a little more.....

redlonghorn1

Thanks GroundStop...this is what I was looking for! And no worries on it being a little short since I'll probably end up making a round trip flight to IAH before 12/29 anyway.

Looking forward to it!