Jun 18, 2013, 7:18 am

FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides

Last edit by: iluv2fly

Please read these sources before posting in this thread:

First post from UA Insider (post 1)
http://www.mileageplusupdates.com/faqs.html
Additional answers from UA Insider (post 1387)
more information about questions posed in this thread published to mileageplusupdates.com, per UA Insider

If you have calculated the PQDs for a trip at less than 80% of the total cost, you are very likely doing something wrong. Have you made sure to include the International Surcharge (YQ)? Have you read all of the materials linked above, and the frequently made points listed below?

Specific Unanswered Questions
Please limit these to specific, technical questions about the implementation of the PQD program.

Will there be a calculator that shows PQD, and will that calculator be accurate?
What exactly will count toward PQD?
United states:
Base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges
Flights flown by United, United Express, or Copa Airlines
Flights operated by a Star Alliance® or a MileagePlus partner airline and issued on a United ticket (ticket number starting with 016)
Economy Plus purchases

will count towards PQD.

Thus:
- The amount of co-pay when using miles to upgrade..
- The cost of PQMs/RDMs purchased when using the premier / award accelerator..
- The value of ETCs (or is it considered a discount from the fare?). (still uncertainty on this since prelim PQDs appeared to include) -Note: the Mileage plus site indicates ETC's count towards PQD (12/16/13 imgonnafly)
- The face value e-certs and travel vouchers.. (still uncertainty on this since prelim PQDs appeared to include)
- The cost of a paid upgrade..
- An extra seat purchase (such as for a customer of size or a musical instrument); it does not presently count toward PQM.
- Change fees.
will not count toward PQD.
How will PQD be determined for UA metal segments without 016 stock ticket?
What happens if I depart in December and return in January?
Just like PQM, PQD for the applicable part of fare for the segment is credited based on the departure date (year) of the segment flown. Segment fares are calculated using standard rules of the past. For the case cited there would be PQD credited in DEC 2013 (no value) and PQD applied to 2014 applicable to 2014 and 2015 status renewal.
How will UA evaluate the address issue for the PQD exemption?
It is not clear how the timing of achieving the minimum PQD requirement will impact earning RPUs and GPUs. Examples:
- If someone crosses 75K PQM in say April, but doesn't hit $7500 PQD until December by which time has accrued 200K PQM, will he/she get 10 RPUs all at once? (and 10 GPUs assuming $10k PQD in December)
- Do only 1Ks/GSs earn additional RPUs by flying beyond the 100k mark?
- If a 1K crosses the 100,000 PQM mark in January 201x, the $10,000 PQD mark on December 31 201x, and ends up flying a total of 200,000 PQMs for the year 201x, how many RPUs / GPUs will be earned?
- Will Platinums earn 2 RPUs when crossing the 75k mark but none at incremental levels thereafter (e.g. a Plat who flies 100k EQMs, but does not meet the 1K spend, would *not* earn two more RPUs)?
How does IRROPs affect earning of PQDs?

FMP (Frequently Made Points)
The following points have been made repeatedly in this thread (please feel free to add more concise points):

You might not be hitting the PQD minimums as easily as you think you are, given exceptions, taxes, and the existence of cheap fares.
It is possible for leisure travelers and even some business travelers to average well under 10cpm. This doesn't just affect "leisure 1Ks" and people on the edge of categories.
Presidential Plus card members (exempted from Silver/Gold/Plat PQD requirements) are most likely exempted because the FlexPQM program would complicate matters.
Manufacturing $25,000 spend might not actually be so hard. There's a whole forum on it.
The exceptions don't really make sense where there is a revenue-sharing joint venture in place, such as with LH on TATL routes.
Leaving UA for AA over objections to dollar-based status may be futile because all the majors will likely go to this model with the possible exception of the AS program which allows you to bank your DL and AA miles into one account (DL has already).
UA is tracking spend on UA metal now.
YQ, also known as the "international surcharge," is a carrier-imposed surcharge and is included in PQD.

Related Threads

Moderator's Note:

2014 version of this thread can be found here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/1536552-mileageplus-premier-qualifying-dollar-pqd-requirement-discussion-thread-2014-a-15.html

iluv2fly
Moderator, UA

MileagePlus Premier Qualifying Dollar (PQD) Requirement Discussion [ARCHIVE]

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Jun 18, 2013, 4:18 pm

#691

777 global mile hound

Ambassador: World of Hyatt

Join Date: Apr 2000

Location: San Diego,CA

Posts: 10,081

Quote:

Originally Posted by FriendlySkies

While I certainly understand why UA is doing this, it's also very disappointing for the leisure traveler who may spend $6-9K per year for 1K. Seems like COdbaUA only cares about money these days.. What happened to customer loyalty?

This is what happens when airlines are allowed to get to big they force changes by leveraging their size.
I can only imagine and shutter what may happen when AA and US Air merge FF programs.
This is a new era where loyalty programs may never be the same as we once new them.
Hilton and United have shown us loud and clear that loyalty is a thing of the past.
Show us your wallet and its contents and what you can do for us going forward is the new loyalty.
Frequency is dying a quick hard ugly death. With great gratitude UA ticked me off years ago when I was a 1K and moved the call centers overseas.
I owe them big time for getting me to leave as the glory days were already over at UA.

Jun 18, 2013, 4:18 pm

#692

Buckdany

Join Date: Mar 2005

Location: Chicago

Programs: AA lt Gld - 1.7MM; UA GS; Marriott LT Plt; Thalys Gold

Posts: 244

As long as I fly for business, I'll make sure I do stay loyal (this airline or another). The day I decide I take a sedentary job, I'll probably start flying the cheapest airline (i.e., low fare carriers...) UA is making it easy for me to choose.

Jun 18, 2013, 4:18 pm

#693

Superguy

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Jan 2005

Location: BWI

Programs: AA Gold, HH Diamond, National Emerald Executive, TSA Disparager Gold

Posts: 15,180

Quote:

Originally Posted by halls120

Here's a tip for you. Going to Asia? Consider a DL codeshare on Korean Air metal. In their long-haul 777s in coach, all Y seats are 9 across, have 34" of pitch, unreal lumbar support, excellent AVOD, and soft product beats AA, DL, and UA.

You can get pretty much the same thing on OZ and still stay in *A.

If that matters anymore.

This seals it - I'm sticking with US/AA for now. If they go the way of UA and DL, then I'm done. I'm kayaking.

I could probably meet some of the levels with work travel spend which, like halls120, has been cut greatly. If a business doesn't value me, and expects more and more but continues to give less and less, there's no reason to be loyal anymore. I may jump on the A3 or OZ train for *G, but if I can get just as good as service at cheaper prices, with buying what I need, why should I pay a premium to stick with a carrier?

Ironically, the airline industry is forcing what they didn't want - a race to the bottom with everyone competing on price.

Last edited by Superguy; Jun 18, 2013 at 4:25 pm

Jun 18, 2013, 4:19 pm

#694

jlivengo

Join Date: May 2012

Programs: UA IK, Hyatt Plat, Avis PP

Posts: 225

Quote:

Originally Posted by NiceLanding

Of course pmCO flyers who spend a few hundred dollars a year for their Presidential Plus credit cards are exempt from the spend requirements, while pmUA people who have been spending the same money (or more) for their MP Club cards or directly for club membership are not. This management team is not at all embarrassed about the consistent favoritism they show for the own people. I personally have no great objection to this new spend requirement, but somehow they've managed to again remind me that my many years of loyalty to UA now mean less than nothing!

I think it's more related to the flex premier miles. Not sure how they can implement it with a spend limit. What's the point of having flex miles if I can't use them?

Jun 18, 2013, 4:20 pm

#695

Jacobin777

Join Date: Apr 2006

Location: SJC/SFO & ORD

Programs: LT Gold/BA Executive Club/AS MP/Marriott

Posts: 1,646

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arsey00

No amount of card spend counts toward anything, not this year's status or lifetime.

That's just flat out incorect.

"10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles from American Airlines after $40,000 spent in purchases each calendar year"

https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/cr...e-credit-cards

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arsey00

I'm only over here checking out UA to see if the grass was really greener. A lot of aadvantagers are considering switching since we're in what seems like the beginning of our watering down too.

I haven't noticed that on any of the AA threads.

Jun 18, 2013, 4:21 pm

#696

BearX220

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Jul 1999

Location: ORD/MDW

Programs: BA/AA/AS/B6/WN/ UA/HH/MR and more like 'em but most felicitously & importantly MUCCI

Posts: 19,719

Quote:

Originally Posted by dahaberm

...how is thinning the 1K herd helping united in its quest for more revenue? It's obvious how this helps remaining 1K, but for United?

I would still like to know how UA replaces revenue lost from former loyal customers who now say the hell with it. Do they really think this kind of churn has no cost?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rogerdodger

I sit here and wonder if any of this is possible, when you had six major competitors instead of three. All the promises to the Justice Dept made by United and Delta and soon AA are complete BS.

DOJ, not FTC, but I take your point. This is a direct consequence of industry consolidation. All pro-consumer rhetoric issued during merger campaigns is nonsense, from promises to keep hubs open to "more options for customers."

UA/DL/AA now boil down to a Verizon/AT&T/Sprint situation: a tripartite monolithic oligarchy that don't compete so much as trap and exploit customers. The sole hope for the airline biz is that an energetic insurgent second tier, the AS/B6/VX tier, play the parts of Vonage, etc. and offer alternatives to assimilation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mitchmu

Anyone who thinks they ought to earn miles and use the card instead of getting a card like Chase Sapphire (which simply gives cash back) is a fool and is blindly walking into a trap because they will keep raising the price of tickets and stripping away saver inventory until those miles are worth less than SkyPesos. It's just a matter of time.

Miles are next on the block, for sure. You hear Smisek say how much he admires DL. Surely one of the things he admires is how they can charge 350k SkyPesos for a flight to Europe and not face mobs with torches. Soon the MP currency will have similar value.

Jun 18, 2013, 4:23 pm

#697

cricketer

Join Date: Aug 2001

Location: SFO/SJC

Programs: UA 1K & 2MM, Bonvoy Titanium & LTP, HH Gold, Accor Silver, Hertz PC, Avis PC

Posts: 2,350

Quote:

Originally Posted by sim510

I'm thinking I will BUY a one-way biz class ticket for the return, which would be a good way to start my "spend" in 2014, yes/no? The ticket right now is about $4300. Not sure which fees do/don't count in that price. But I'd be off to a good start. Would I not???

Well, you'd better hope that the system is smart enough to apply the spend to the dates of travel, rather than date of spend... I have visions of reaching the end of 2014 and being informed that I'm only Premier Executive because $2K of my spend for 2014 happened in December 2013 when I bought my Feb 2014 tickets...

as a general comment, it's hard for me to blame (or be surprised at) UA for doing this.

No change for a GS, so no loss there.

The person who flies 3 C/F trips a year without earning GS today won't change their behaviour - they weren't getting rewarded under the old system anyway. So that revenue is not at risk.

The only revenue at risk, it seems to me, is from those who are specifically chasing status on the cheap. If there's a small number of them, as we keep asserting, then UA loses little if they defect (but where to once everyone else has got on board with PQD's?). If there's a lot of them, then you adjust supply accordingly - which is right on plan for UA after all

And then you end up with a small but profitable business, err, airline.

(Yes, I went very simplistic and missed a number of likely corner cases - I know I have a couple of years in the past in which I made 1K but would not under the new rules. But I'd have been close enough to make a case for a PQD run...)

Jun 18, 2013, 4:24 pm

#698

mbwmbw

Join Date: Feb 2012

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Programs: DL DM, UA 1K, AA EXP, US G, SPG P, HH D, MR G, NEXUS/GE, DL AMEX Reserve

Posts: 2,035

You guys are going about it all wrong. You just need to fly 250,000 miles a year at average .04 CPM. Shouldn't be that hard.

Jun 18, 2013, 4:25 pm

#699

persyus

Join Date: Dec 2011

Location: NYC

Programs: CO/UA

Posts: 30

Another shout into the void...

Dear United, you suck. I travel almost exclusively for leisure and exclusively on United, but I don't spend .10/m before taxes and fees. I'm not a MRer, but I do look for good fares. So...Goodbye 1k, goodbye, United.

Why be loyal when it isn't reciprocated? You only want business travelers? I hope those newly empty seats generate a lot of $$$. I'll get a match for 2014 on another airline [language barred by FT TOS deleted by Moderator], and then start kayaking my way to my destinations.

btw, I hope Smisek gets run over by a plane

Last edited by Ocn Vw 1K; Jun 18, 2013 at 5:11 pm Reason: See above note.

Jun 18, 2013, 4:26 pm

#700

Xyzzy

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: Between AUS, EWR, and YTO In a little twisty maze of airline seats, all alike.. but I wanna go home with the armadillo

Programs: CO, NW, & UA forum moderator emeritus

Posts: 35,415

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karl-MDW

Under the "welcoming" environment for "over privileged elites", I will take "lifetime" Gold status because I am not sure that current management and I will always define "lifetime" the same way!

I think lifetime always means either your lifetime or the lifetime of the company. The real problem with this is in the definition of benefits bestowed up

n us for that lifetime...

Jun 18, 2013, 4:26 pm

#701

BearX220

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Jul 1999

Location: ORD/MDW

Programs: BA/AA/AS/B6/WN/ UA/HH/MR and more like 'em but most felicitously & importantly MUCCI

Posts: 19,719

Quote:

Originally Posted by bocastephen

So I will ask the question that I don't think has been asked yet - in exchange for my USD10k spend as a 1k member, what exactly is United going to give me?

1 - spotty service reliability?
2 - upgrades sold out from under me to lower elites or kettles?
3 - a continuing degradation in inflight food services?
4 - collusion with DL and AA to reduce capacity and competition?

Or will this increased revenue requirement and likely compliance by most customers result in an improving product?

Your question was asked hundreds of posts ago. Answer: expect nothing. In a world of declining competition and consolidating pricing power, all long-term trends go against the customer. UA will make no improvements it doesn't have to make; heck, it doesn't even try to break 80 percent on time operations. Good enough is good enough. You'll pay for it and like it. Sir.

Jun 18, 2013, 4:27 pm

#702

jason8612

Moderator, Hertz; FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Nov 2005

Location: KRK

Programs: UA 1MM, BA GGL, Hyatt Glob, Hilton Diamond and others

Posts: 12,690

So if one was already doing MRs for 1K at around 5CPM (or lower) then why doesn't one just do 2x that amount, get the 1K, get a bunch of GPUs and RPUs and get closer to lifetime status?

If one was to do 3.5CPM MRs, you would need some 285K of flying. Heck that's over 1/4 the way to lifetime already.

With the bonuses and assuming one is a 1K thats:
Over 570K RDM
18 RPUs
12 GPUs

Jun 18, 2013, 4:27 pm

#703

NiceLanding

Join Date: Dec 2010

Location: Chicago

Programs: AA EXP, UA former 1K (1.9MM and gone), Marriott LT Plat, Hilton Diamond, SPG Plat

Posts: 1,111

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlivengo

I think it's more related to the flex premier miles. Not sure how they can implement it with a spend limit. What's the point of having flex miles if I can't use them?

You can still use your flex miles as you have in the past and they could even have done something like credit you for $1 of PQD for every 10 flex miles you convert, thereby eliminating any penalty for using them. There was no need to give a flat-out exemption to Presidential Plus cardholders except that it's one more way to make the pmCO customers feel more special than those of us who came from the wrong side of the family.