nycityny

I don't feel that achieving 75K miles is "close" to achieving 100K - that's 33% more travel. Also, I personally waive the PQD with my credit card spending. That doesn't work for achieving 1K status.

And I find Platinum to have decent additional benefits over Gold. One, there are no fees for award travel - no redeposit, change or close-in booking fees. Also, there are no fees for same day changes. There is also supposedly better availability of saver awards in premium cabins. And up until now one of the biggest benefits in my opinion was group 1 boarding.

bseller

Sadly, this is false. Merely an urban legend. Better availability doesn't even exist for 1K.

Dave

lincolnjkc

Ditto on the "close" -- Last year I finished the year with 0.5 segments (IIRC) over the threshold to reach Platinum -- and that was only because I was so close that I booked a same day CLE-ORD-CLE in the middle of December to knock me over. There would have been absolutely no justifiable reason to fly another 29.5 PQS in November/December (when I finally had a good grasp of how close to plat I would be)

I'm going to hit 1K this year (by a narrow margin of PQS; I had the PQD wrapped up in June) but as a virtually entirely domestic traveler I don't see that many more benefits vs. Plat that would make it worthwhile to "reach" for it. GPUs, for example, are almost certainly going to go unused based on my travel patterns and standing authorization to just buy premium cabins if I do have an international business trip come up.

JBord

I've been Gold, Platinum, and 1K over the last 5 years. The year I was Plat, I think I was at about 88k miles. Not all elites just hit the minimum. Those are the people who I think might say why not go for 1K. I don't feel the same about Platinum, if I were Gold with 63k miles. In fact, I finished last year at 67k or 68k I believe.

Gold doesn't pay same day change fees either. For me, the big jump was the CPU success at 1K (which will vary for everyone) and the GPU's.

If there are enough Platinums to deserve their own boarding group, I'm cool with that. I was just envisioning a group that had 2-3 people per flight.

jackal

I agree with everything else in your post, but note there are no SDC fees for Golds.

One of my biggest disappointments with falling from Plat to Gold was the loss of fee waivers for award bookings.

NDN

No, it is actually TRUE. My coworker is a 1k. He logs in and gets more award availability for business saver than I do.

lincolnjkc

We (well, I) shall find out in the next couple weeks... I'm hoping it's true.

Right now I'm a plat, will be a 1K by the Thanksgiving. Taking my girlfriend to Australia for our anniversary [and likely a proposal] in March. Have BF Saver for the trip over. Currently in Econ Saver (waitlisted for BF Saver) on the trip back.

Not logged in there's 0 saver economy or premium from SYD or MEL the week we need to come back. Logged in as a plat, there's saver economy two days that week from SYD (Tuesday and Thursday, IIRC) but no saver anything from MEL or premium from SYD until the middle of April.

So there's definitely better saver inventory for Plat (which matches my no-status-but-CC-holding coworker) and I'm curious to see if that changes at all for once I get to 1K...

SFO 1K

I don't think the availability increases between status levels. As a 1K I do see more space available than a non-status customer, but that extra availability is the same whether you're Plat or 1K.

Per United's website:

TomA

Honestly, I find awards of all kinds easier when I log in vs. when I don't.

I recently booked a Y ticket for someone and when I wasn't logged in there was no availability, but when I logged in (as a 1K) I found some. I know that's not supposed to be true, but sometimes it is.

findark

You can see the difference if you're logged in to Expert Mode regardless of your status level. Any premier status (or having the CC) allows saver economy awards to book into XN instead of X, and being Platinum or higher allows business or 2-cabin F awards to book into IN instead of I. There is no status advantage to booking saver 3-cabin first (inventory class O).

I think some of the snark about the Plat benefit is that it's pretty rare to see a flight be IN1 I0. I definitely see open inventories with XN9 X0 much more often.

United fare (inventory) classes

Asiatraveler15

There are many more options at higher status levels.

But, many of them are not good in my opinion.

A normal 17-18 hour flight for me and the additional offerings are 25, 35, even 40 hour + flight routes. Many pages of additional flights that I think most people would have no interest in.

TomA

Well. That's only because more individual segments become available and when you look at the permutations of the additional segments it ends up being a lot more options. They're not throwing you schlock out of spite.

But often I get one or two good ones in the mix. And sometimes I get an option where nothing existed before logging in.

NDN

This information is well documented all over the forums. There are specific fare codes for 1k availability and a different set for CC/Silver+ availability

Kacee

I can't believe people are debating this issue (with most getting it wrong).

There are two "elite" saver award classes: XN, which is available to all elites plus credit card holders, and IN, which is available to Plats and higher.

XN is substantially more available than X. IN is very rarely higher than I, and when it is, it's usually by just a single seat.

So the "enhanced" availability for Plats and higher is pretty much meaningless.

bseller

Thank you. I'm a touch surprised that it took so long as well.
Dave