FlyingFreeYupie

I am one of the lucky winners of the $250 Business Class RT TAP fare. I purchased 4 of them and now I am wondering on what miles program I should credit these on.

As per United, these will earn 125% if credited to mileageplus (is this on the actual flight distance?). Would these equal to 16 PQF? (4 segments on each reservation). Would these alone give me premier gold on United? How much PQP would each earn?

Now on TAP's side I would earn 13.476 miles (roughly for each reservation) and I need 60K/year to qualify for gold status with the airline (if you don't have their ripoff subscription miles program). Still, TAP is difficult to deal with and their miles are worth nothing.

Is United the way to go? I am new to airline statuses, so please be patient with me

Repooc17

Yes to 16 PQF. No on qualifying with PQF alone; you would also need PQP dollar spend (or distance equivalent PQP via partner flying) + min. of 4 UA operated flights/segments.

Need more details on your routings regarding whether you would qualify Gold.

Also be aware of TAP and entry requirements.

FlyingFreeYupie

Flights are:

IAD - LIS - BRU and return.
MIA - LIS - BCN and return.
IAD - LIS - DUB and return.
IAD - LIS - AMS and return.

jsloan

Yes, the 125% is actual flight distance. And, yes, you'd get 16 PQF.

PQP is also based upon the flight distance. You can use the calculator here to compute it: https://pqp.economiles.com/

Since TAP isn't a preferred partner, you get one PQP for every 6 miles earned, or about 20.8% of the actual flying distance as PQP, capped at 1000 PQP per segment.

Good luck! I hope TAP honors the tickets.

Here's a pre-filled calculator with 15 of the 16 legs. I skipped the last AMS-LIS leg because I ran out of space: https://pqp.economiles.com/?q=IAD,LI...J|LIS,IAD,TP,J

Add that last leg in, and you're looking at 7,828 PQP total.

However, this is not enough, by itself, to earn any UA status: You also need 4 UA-operated flights. Once you add those four UA flights, you would have enough for Gold (16 PQF + 6,000 PQP) and would be close to Platinum (24 PQF + 9,000 PQP).

FlyingFreeYupie

Thank you so much, your reply was extremely helpful. I am missing 1 UA flight to qualify, then :-)... If all reservations are honored, United Gold Status shouldn't be an issue. Are they extending statuses all the way to 2023?

fumje

If you qualify for status with activity this year, it will be valid through end of January 2023. I doubt they will do another blanket extension as they did in 2020.

With the Q1 PQP bonus (granted for UA flights), if you do get to fly the TP flights, you should be in touching distance of Platinum (24 PQF + 9k PQP).

edit: oops did not mean to quote jsloan too (except that of course everything he said is correct ).

lixiaojuventus

One question is, are you sure these cheap tickets can earn mileage credit?

fumje

They should do. As far as I could see, they appear to be normal tickets in all regards, except that the fare was priced very low.

Repooc17

The critical points should be:

1) Will TAP honor these mistake fare tickets?
2) Depending on travel dates, are there any entry restriction?

UA will credit as long as TAP forwards underlying details.

FlyingFreeYupie

I checked with TAP directly and the fares are good to go in all regards as far as their reservations department is concerned. I doubt TAP would cancel these as they don't need any more bad publicity, but this is still a risk.

Still, for me to accrue mileage benefits on United, does TAP actually pay them for these credits and can these fares, if honored, ultimately cost them money?

Not long ago, TAP sold $75 seats to North America for their 75th birthday. Perhaps TAP sees these low fares as a way of giving back for all the lack of customer service and refunds. If planes are flying empty, mind as well let some enjoy the perks

Kacee

The first rule of FT: do not call the airline!

HNLbasedFlyer

They certainly don't see it that way. They see it as a mistake fare and a decision point to honor them or not. They are likely crunching the numbers on the impact and any regulatory impact if they were to not honor the fares.

FlyingFreeYupie

They had most of their routes outside North America highly discounted as well. How much of an error fare could this really be to have affected their entire network of routes? RT Zurich to Rio de Janeiro for $79 stood out.

fumje

How much of an error? Quite a bit of one.

When the price is very low, there is just no advantage to calling the airline's attention to it.

Repooc17

That was an official promotion.

Anyway, just level set your expectations.

This x1000. Also don't rush to make other reservations such as accommodations.