Meckl

I was checking the United website „Premier Benefits“ section yesterday to see what the thresholds for 2 additional GPUs as a 1k are (120,000 miles or 125,000 miles). While looking at the website I stumbled upon the mentioning of something called ‚Plus Points‘.

When I wanted to read more about it this morning, all references were removed, but here is what I was able to gather during the time it was online:

Platinum members will receive 40 PlusPoints
1k members will receive 280 PlusPoints

Regional Upgrades will cost 20 PlusPoints in the future (North America, Caribbean, Mexico, etc).
Global Upgrades will cost 40 PlusPoints if upgrading from Economy to Polaris Business
Global Upgrades will cost 80 PlusPoints if upgrading from Deep Discount Economy (S, T, K, L etc) to Polaris Business

A connecting itinerary will cost as much as the most expensive upgrade
(Example: CLT-IAD-MUC CLT-IAD would be 20, IAD-MUC will be 40 - In this case it would cost 40 PlusPoints)
If only parts of the journey clear, it would cost only this portion of it (So in above example: CLT-IAD clears, IAD-MUC does not, I would still have to pay 20 PlusPoints)

This is coming early December.

Overall I don‘t mind, but this opens up a huge devaluation of Upgrade Vouchers in the future, as United could move them to a more demand-driven or route depending cost scheme. Also, that I am loosing my 20 points on a crappy CLT-IAD 45 minutes CRJ700 ride is not what I would be looking for, so I am hoping it is possible to upgrade only single segments to not burn through these points for no good reason.

Have you seen these too, and what is our opinion on this?

Greetz,
/Meckl

Meckl

aCavalierInCoach

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

seanp7

Disturbing, if true.

EWR764

Interesting. At first glance, I don't hate this. Conceptually, I like the flexibility (e.g., primarily domestic flyer "wasting" GPUs on domestic routes; RPUs that never clear, etc.) such a system could provide.

A few questions immediately come to mind:

- Can more "PlusPoints" be earned with travel over the 1K threshold?
- What will a Premium Plus to Polaris upgrade require?
- Will premium transcons require more points?
- Will PlusPoint requirements fluctuate?
- How will this work with partners (LH/NH)?
- Will they still be transferable?
- Will existing (2020 or 2021 expiry) instruments convert to PlusPoints in December?

Still, it has to be a move to reduce costs somehow. So, we'll see when/where the other shoe drops.

findark

It seems like a strict improvement under the current numbers, but I agree it opens the door for a whole slew of downgrades (dynamic upgrade pricing, for one).

Meckl

@EWR764:

Unfortunately I did not screenshot all information as I thought it would still be online this morning. But from what I recall it mentioned the same 40 Points for upgrades on LH and ANA, and it did mention Premium Economy to Polaris Business in the same cost range as Regular Economz (40 Points for Longhaul). This would be in line with the current upgrade policies with vouchers.

I was trying to find the old pages with Google Cache but there was not version with the PlusPoints paragraph. It was extremely detailled already, so I think a public release of this is just around the corner... .

Thanks,
/Meckl

Starman

I wonder if the implication is that Plats could use 1 GPU per year rather than 2 RPUs?

Meckl

@Starman: Based on the charts they showed, you accumulate points and they are all the same value, there is no differentiation between Platinum or 1k points, 40 points are 40 points. So this would allow a Platinum to upgrade 1 flight on longhaul into Polaris. There also seem to be three buckets, Available, Assigned and Spent for the plus points.

Silver Fox

Presumably it is something we asked for as customers so it is bound to be good for us.

aacharya

I don't hate the double upgrade concept from K to Polaris, honestly.

whitethunder

I can't see this on the UA site myself, but if this is true this is yet another huge devaluation....

johnsmith

I don’t trust ua...they’ve done nothing to earn trust, but why is this a major devaluation based on what’s written here? Cutting RPUs last year was a huge deval, this looks like a rename and some flexibility

LondonElite

Nice find! I'm going to check out my UA page to see if it is there.

Edit: nothing there.

uastarflyer

Too bad they don’t eliminate CPUs in favor of points based domestic upgrades.

Not sure what the benefit (or bad impact) is in place of GPUs.