On first sight I tend to say, they must now give me 1K at the and of 99: my status miles earned with the two StarAlliance-programs LH-miles&more and UA-Mileage-Plus add to over 185'000 miles for the calendar year 1999. On second 'thinking' I guess, that is not what they wanted to say - probably they just want to communicate (what we all know for a long time now) that you can earn status miles on/with all StarAlliance carriers and get 1K fast if you always use UA's mileage-plus-program (but that explanation is missing, to the contrary they use the wording "all airline programs combined" ... and so I am tempted not to ask UA now, but to confront them at the end of 1999 with their wording and ultimately ask that they keep what they promised.

I read in the August-99 United Airlines Mileage Plus newsletter for Germany, Austria and Switzerland (I have both versiones english and german):

[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 09-20-1999).]

Well I read it the same way you do, Rudi. That I would think you would qualify for combined travel on all SA partners. But I suspected as you did that this would be too generous (especially since they would have to give 1K status to various flyers throughout the worlkd who never even fly United).

So I just now called the MP Service Center here and asked them about this. She went to go ask a supervisor and came back with...no.

She said that when you fly Luftansa, if you have your Luftansa travel credited to your MP account, then they would apply to 1K status. But if you take the Luftansa credit instead...no...you would not get the status miles.

But I think at the end of the year if you played dumb and sent your local office a letter with a copy of the newletter explaining why you interpreted it this way, they might make some sort of accomadation?

For most people they probably would accept it...but they know Rudi is the least dumb person in the world when it comes to these programs!

I think this was a translation error on someone's part but the fact of the matter stands it says all "programs".

Go for it Rudi. Besides you are not that far off 1K and such a UA/Star booster that they should give you honorary 1K anyway

I'd interpret it only as saying what it says.
I think the key word is COULD - if you fly over 100000 miles on all your programs (including your Aeroflot program, Biman Bangladesh FF program and Khazakstan Airways) you COULD earn 1K status by concentrating all your travel on StarAlliance carriers instead. What I feel is implied but not stated is that they all need to be credited to MileagePlus - that is after all a pretty fundamental rule of MileagePlus (and all frequent flyer programs). You only get recognition for flights that you have credited to your MP account.

Yes, I think what they're saying is:

'If only you'd concentrated all your flights into Mileage Plus you could have been 1K'

I think that anyone who would even try to interpret any type of airline documentation, is nuts, on the face of it!

Ken

I must disagree with you - we all have to try to interpret various types of airline documentation. You are only nuts if you expect it to mean what it actually says!!

you are all (probably) very correct - thank you.

Some supplementary remarks nevertheless:[*]even without this new info, one could become UA 1K without flying UA once (just always using UA mileage plus on all other StarAlliance carriers and making 100'000 status miles)[*]it is no traduction fault, both language versions (english and german) say the same - but it is probably sloppy using of definitions ... under swiss consumer laws (if a faulty offer is not evidently an error) - an offer is valid and can be enforced by the costumer.[*]I am tempted to write UA a thank you letter for this offer, hours before my nov-rtw-PIP-trip, and say that their offer is the reason why I do now concentrate on maintaining LH's Senator and gladfully accepting that, at the same time, their offer allows me now to maintain 1K status as well ... [*]and, yes Matt and Premex, ghostwriting activities (paid in cigars from a neighbouring southern island of the US) may be waiting for you then ...

[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 09-20-1999).]

I'm sharpening my pencil.

Well, I think their words are wisely choosen. They are supposed to be misunderstood, so that we would "think" of getting a benefit from this or that. Then - when you claim - no chance.
It's quite the same with upgrading to first from "D" fares. There is no written word in the MP award charts, that you only can upgrade from "select business fares". It just says upgrade "from bus to F". When comparing to the detailed award charts ref. up's from coach to bus noone could ever guess, that there are restrictions on bus as well.

Give it a try, Rudi and claim your 1K status. Think it could be fun.

AS I stated before 1k program watered down because miles on all star alliance partners will get you 1k status.
However only UA United Express and United Shuttle qualify toward Million Mile Status.
Star Alliance partners do not count.

Well, I hate to say this in the present company, but I for one actually would rather not have this be true. It would tend to "water down" the 1K status as someone else mentioned. And unfortunately, those of us who will actually fly 100,000 miles on United this year might feel a bit "sold out."

I agree with bernie. It's designed to be misinterpreted. Good luck with this one, Rudi, & keep us posted, but I'll be (very pleasantly) surprised if you win it. It would be so nice if they would stop playing these silly semantic games. Not to single out United, they're no better or worse than the rest. (Except Starwood! So far, Starwood has always meant exactly what they say!)