TravelinWilly

Overall, I think this is pretty good news.

I'm glad (and not too surprised) that some of Lucky's "scoops" were so off the mark.

Thanks for communicating this in advance, UA! ^

pterosaur

Global Premier Upgrade not available on Lufthansa? Only United, Continental and Copa?

hobo13

I'm still in shock here. First, UA announced this before Sept 30! They actually beat a deadline for once. And second, these changes aren't too shabby.

We'll never know how all this went down, but if Lucky's leak had anything to do with torpedoing their revenue-based program, we owe him a big thank-you.

raehl311

I don't really care about any of the upgrade priority or free E+ window changes. Seats are a finite resource, and the order UA chooses to give them away is immaterial to the overall value of the program (if your priority went down, someone else's priority went up) and you can't blame UA for wanting to give the priority to the most-valuable customers.

But, the one-bag instead of two for silvers and the non-100% mileage bonus for Gold/Plat are very big devaluations. I frequently have to check two bags when I travel (equipment), and if I decide to let myself fall to Silver this year, that change costs me $500 over the course of the year. And if I shoot for Gold, I lose 25,000 RDM over the course of the year. Either way there's several hundred dollars in value that just got pulled from the program.


End of the day, unless you're making 1k, the elite program seems to have lost a lot of value, which may be the point.

spgaston

Shouldn't these benefits begin in 2013? They just screwed everyone who worked to requalify for 2012 with reduced benefits!

kaboom36

Wow, That means we will see a lot of new 1 million miles flyers from UA (including myself). after 1/1/2012. ^^

lhrsfo

Nothing that I could see on the question of which fare classes work with GPUs. I presume that it is staying the same.

hobo13

At first glance, the biggest shocker here is that they actually combined the 'best of both worlds' when it comes to lifetime status recognition. 1MM gets 1P for life and a spouse benefit.

This might be the first time in this entire merger that the best of UA was merged with the best of CO to make something that was better than either of it's predecessors! Today, Jeff, you just might have made the first change that I like.

Don't forget -- 1K's have been getting screwed for the past year. 2P's get carpet access now. Many check-in counters have been reduced to 'general elite' or 'non-elite'. Etc. 2P's have been able to book exit row's (though I guess that will change.) 2P's have been able to get their meal choice in F by carefully selecting the right seat.

Overall, lots of small positives for 2P's, and the loss of some big benefits. If I were a 2P (or when I am again), I'd probably rather have the E+ at booking and 2 free bags rather than this token-crap, but hey, that's not how Jeff sees it.

guest909

This is far from the worst-case scenario and certainly won't be driving back over to Delta or American. Too bad, though, for the Silver folks. I guess 25 miles just doesn't fly what it used to.

spgaston

Let's be honest, this is only good for 1K or above (not even good for the new "Platinum"), and for people who have been obsessed with the speculative thread on revenue based qualification. Everyone else got the shaft.

JayhawkCO

Hmmm... not sure what to think about this as a 1P who earns status primarily by flying 3-4 times per year internationally. The main reasons I had loyalty to UA (as opposed to flying whatever I could find cheap) were the 100% RDM bonus and lounge access. Now that the 100% RDM bonus is going away, might be time to start crediting to A3 instead. No bonus, but lounge access domestically as well. Decisions, decisions.

Chris

cerealmarketer

Well handled - like the retention of M fare instant upgrades for top tier. Didn't think that was long for this world.

Now pray the new reward chart and inventory for intl upgrades don't change much.

Interesting they reiterated the "Standard" and "Saver" levels which implies no 3 tier nightmare on the horizon.

Antipode

I wouldn't say it's exactly the same since e500s were available as instruments in addition to CR1/SWU/miles, but I agree that it adds value back to instruments. It'll hurt some, help some - overall it's a wash IMO.

DLAtlPdx

As a CO Plat, overall I'm fairly pleased. 75% RDM instead of 100% is the only real drawback, but these miles have a lot more value than my SkyPesos. The change in upgrade priority is a minor nuisance and will likely only matter for transcon and Hawaii flights since nobody is going to use an RDU (excuse me, RPU) for IAH-ORD or the like. I was worried they would sort by fare class, then status, which would have banished me to the back. The rebate on Global Entry is a nice touch as well.

OTOH I could see how lower status levels would be pretty pissed, because they got the shaft on this.

nmenaker

yes, losing access to E+ is going to be harsh for silvers, but I would imagine that there is going to be a paid option, as bitter as that might seem.

yes, even though I'm at 900K (was 925K but I don't know how it went down) I should probably just go over 1MM now with 58K CO miles and at LEAST 100K in EQM bonuses from united C and F and Y purchases in the past. Probably closer to 200K.