Under what circumstances is Premier Accelerator offered?
 

Sorry, a basic question that I am sure has been answered in some of the overlapping threads about this topic, but I couldn't find it.

My most recent itinerary shows the Award Accelerator offered, but not the Premier Accelerator. Is it only offered on some itineraries and/or for some travelers? Of course, the phone agent and the web support guy couldn't answer my question when I called.

After you click thru "get the extra miles" link, select/mark an RDM choice, then a secondary option will pop up for Premier Accelerator to purchase PQM.

Ah-ha. Thanks. In this case, it was offering PQM at $0.10 per mile, which seems normal. I might be interested if I could buy the last 10,000 that I need for 1K status, but the only choices were for 30,000 or 45,000!

Transcons are getting me 12K/24K offers. You can book a shorter flight, purchases the PQMs and then cancel/refund the flight -- trickly part is trying to guest the offer since it is not visible until you have been ticketted. Last year it seem the offer was usually the same are the booked trip but this year there seems to be some additional factors.

Wait. So the 5K EQM miles I can earn with my United Select visa no longer apply for 1K status?

I'm not sure about that one. It seems (hopefully) that those rules remain untouched and existing rules apply. Maybe someone can test it out and confirm.

Pick a (preferably international) route that comes closer to the desired PQM goal (10K in your case) either at 1X the number of miles or 3X the number of miles to get close to the 10K PQM you need. Don't forget, a o/w 3,300 flight at 3X PQM works just as well as a r/t with a total of 10K miles. As its refundable (within 24 hours, or just buy a refundable ticket), you don't really care about the cost of the airfare, or where its going to. Feel free to have it originate in a city where you have no intention to leave from or travel to.

The older PMUA Chase credit cards that earned EQMs (aka PQMs) can still be used for any status level. There are capped at either 5K or 10K (depending on card). Additionally still valid for any level is the ChoicePoint conversion for up to 5K PQMs.

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The problem with this approach is the offered extra RDMs/PQMs is not always 1:1 to the miles travelled. While occasionally this happened last year, a different amount of miles is much more common this year. Most of my present offers are >2.5 times my based miles (and I have no waitlisted segments which have also boosted the offer). No sure of the algorithm for offers.

Thanks for the tip.

so what would be a good route to try this from Newark, NJ (EWR). And is this booked through the united web site or a partner? I would like to try booking the business ticket, then canceling after purchasing the EQM.

thanks,

Mike

I gave it a try and all the routes I try I just get United flights and no partners. So the EQM was around 10 cents per mile opposed to 2 cents. Any thoughts or suggestions is appreciated.

That's the price. Are you looking for anything cheaper? The price fluctuates with time (but historically, it goes up during the year and can get to 50+ cents per mile for EQMs).

Thanks. I found an itinerary on partner flights and am waiting for it to ticket. I guess partner flights take a while to ticket compared to UA flights.


Thanks
Mike

OK I really want to understand this. From what I can tell I need to work out how many miles I need to get to the next MP tier, then book a refundable ticket on a partner airline and on the next screen after purchase confirmation there's an option to select RDM & EQMs?

I'm to select that, pay for both, then refund the partner mileage ticket once the miles hit my account. Cost will be approx 0.10 for EQM and 0.01 for RDM.

Did I get this right?

it does not need to be a partner airline but if one segement is, then the extra miles might be very slightly cheaper if it is.
You may need to wait a short time after purchasing -- the option will not show up until the flight has been ticketed. That is usually under a few hours (even minutes) but occasionally can be longer. The partner airline inclusion may place things on the slower side.
If you are concerned about the ticketting time, purchase a fully refundable ticket -- but in most cases a non-refundable and 24 hour grace period should work.

closer to 2-3 cpm for the RDMs (this is where the partner segment flight seems to add the variablity). All prices subject to change.
The ticket purchase and the miles purchase will be two separate purchases.
Once the miles are purchased, the ticket can be refunded, if not needed.

not quite, see above

thanks guys. I tried it on both partner and united flights and am getting around 0.021 for Redeemable miles and 0.0100 for the EQM (EWR to CPH).

This is slightly better than my weekly trips from EWR to SJU at 0.023 and 0.10.

When I first read the post, I thought it was .020 for EQM.

Although not cheap, I might do it anyway.