Where do you live? My spend was over $40K for CY07 and CY08, almost entirely in C/D/Z international. No GS joy those years. Took my spending $58K to finally make it. I am SFO area.

Agree w/AJC: trying to pin this down to a few simple and absolute rules is a waste of time. I'm not a corporate anything, and the first year I was invited (3 years ago) I had less than $20K of high yield and maybe $30K overall. Small market, so I suspect that's a factor...but really, you either get an invite the first time, or you don't. And there's no reason for United to divulge the "exact" basis for their invitations. All we really know is that if you fly a lot of high yield fares, especially from secondary markets, and your odds go up. Oh, and it's probably easier to requalify than to get the original invitation.

Funny indeed that you say that, because that's exactly how I feel, too. I didn't have the full-fare miles to qualify for GS, but I was *very* price inelastic in my travel last year, and made a lot of last-minute buys and ticket changes.

By November or December I had long since qualified for 1K, and since I didn't feel my full-fare miles or spend would put me in the realm of GS qualification, I took every opportunity to fly either a partner carrier, or even VX when I could.

But, when I actually *got* the GS nom, it encouraged me to bring a lot of my flying back to UA whenever possible. The benefits (more peace-of-mind with upgrades, IRROPS, etc) were enough to entice me back, even when a better product could be had elsewhere.

This year, I probably won't requalify for GS (only 30K full-fare), so in 2010 I'll be back to my old travel patterns of avoiding UA metal (at least in premium cabins) wherever possible.

Not necessarily. You have a better idea of what you need to do to requalify (50K FF mi), but as we've seen with many posters, it's often possible to qualify for GS per UA's hocuspocus, but have no hope of requalifying per the official parameters.

IMO, the difference between qualification and requalification is a big drawback to the GS program.

I'm not sure - I'd have to ask, but I doubt it. He is a 1K, but I know he pretty much only flies discount economy domestically, so probably doesn't get more than his TPACs in premium cabins.


I believe it is a special designation for F on p.s. flights. Officially, http://www.united.com/page/article/0,,68,00.html

Just as a data point, I had two coworkers requal for GS with only two C/D fare ORD-NRT flights each. It must have been a very slow year for high rev travel!

If you spend 40K+ and get 100K Full Fare EQMS dont you believe you would qualify?
Also number 3(350K) seems pretty high for me

I had a conversation with my seatmate yesterday,he was telling me that a Station manager@ outside the US can request nominate status for GS if she/he feel it is suitable? He told me that he fly out of the small UA station and knew the Station manager.

Well I believe all of us here (including me) archieved the hard way with lots of $$$ spending.



Thanks.

I believe there is a difference between "nominating" someone for GS and actually getting it. I can nominate you, or myself for that matter, but as far as I know only UA WHQ can grant GS status.

V reasonable to assume the Station Manager outside US would most certainly have the latitude to nominate GS. I became acquainted with the UA Station Manager at AKL during my stint in NZ & he clearly had significant influence over all things UA in NZ and of course, back when UA flew to AKL. This was in the pre-GS days.
As has been noted, nominating and approving are 2 different functions....

i had a rather chatty mileage plus rep on the phone a few months ago actually read to me the lines in their system about GS, which was:
(nutshelled)

3 ways to qualify:

1. revenue
2. requal
3. nomination from reps

1 is an unknown, but if it's a percentage threshold it makes sense that each year it'll be a bit different. i know that with about $36k in spend (and 165k BIS / 300 EQM) in november (full fare transpac Y/B, one C) I was nominated and rejected. i know two weeks later with $42k in spend I was accepted (without nomination).

2 is published, she read it to me, and has been stated on here a few thousand times. 50k miles in the good letters of the alphabet

3 she didn't have much info from but comes down to communication between booking agents, travel agents, area reps, station managers, etc. in my opinion this could account for why certain people are approved on less spend or smaller markets and accounts for certain CEOs and travel reps getting the nod to help bolster united support. in the same way any employee in the right position gets free baseball tickets, gifts, candygrams, etc.

but in the end, i'm pretty sure there's a computer algorithm out there that automatically converts your account for initial qualification once you reach a certain threshold, and i don't think miles is in that algorithm. beyond that, i think when your account is reviewed by hand (upon nomination/submittal) it's probably a combination of what you've done as a reward and what your habits are as an incentive. ie, if you book two full F RTs transpac by june,they might throw you GS just in hopes you'll book a 3rd or more.

As expected, since my 2009 "premium" mileage flown was a bit fat zero, I received the email stripping away GS status for 2010 and demoting me to 1K (which I flew enough to earn.)

It does look like they're still offering "soft landings" though, at least in some cases. My GS coworker, who didn't even fly enough in 2009 to qualify for 2P, was offered 1K status for 2010. Looks like I may have flown a whole lot of miles on my own dime for nothing.

See if your co-worker got SWUs as part of the soft landing. If not that will have been a reason to do it the "proper" way

Definitely agree. I should not have spent my own money to maintain 1K had I known about the soft landing policy. However, we probably wouldn't have known ahead of time as they could have changed their policy this year.

To be honest, I have never received the "Clooney treatment." I was acknowledged as a GS member only on 10% of the flights and I never noticed any better services on the flights compared with when I was a 1K member. I got 100% of the upgrade rate when I was a 1K but as a GS, I was not able to upgrade on a recent flight from the CES (LAS) back to ORD. I try to fly revenue miles so I hardly ever used the benefits of upgrading on a award flight.

I guess I might miss GS when I won't get any upgrades starting Q2 because of my lower status (and increased number of 1Ks United extended to due to the DEQM promotion).

My posting in the other thread with the GS downgrade email from UA: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...-emails-6.html

No more GS for me after 1/31. sad.

Yep, he has a shiny new stack of SWUs that expire in 1/11. Doing it the "proper" way netted me E-500s, CR-1s, Elite Choice rewards, and plain old miles that he didn't receive, but that's it.

GS really isn't much different from 1K on a routine flight, when things are going as planned. It's only when things go wrong (which, thankfully, didn't happen often in 2009,) when it makes a difference. Several times I had a GS rep call my cell phone while sitting on a delayed flight, proactively offering alternatives. Of course, as a good FTer, I had already called in and made my own arrangements, but it's nice to know you're being looked after.

Also, the ability to upgrade award tickets is a huge benefit not available to 1Ks, and there were several times the GS agents were able to "unlock" inventory for award seats that wasn't officially available.

I'm definitely going to miss GS for 2010!