First time GS. I thought it was a mistake as my account showed the status change last week and no email notification. Just got my email yesterday.
Estimate: 57k spent, 110k miles traveled (80% in Business).

Same offer here as well
~50k ticket spend and 200k or so BIS

GS FLL
 

Hi DelrayChris, I'm probably one of the ones you see Mondays. Did get GS again. About 150k all ZAF with three or four intl JD AP and EU.

I did the same thing. I flew 100% United hoping to get GS. Around 50K spend and 200K United Metal miles. Didn't make it.

I'm trying to determine my strategy for next year but a couple of things are clear:

1) I will fly 100K on united and spend $10K - not a dime more. Because I live in Denver, American and Delta are not options domestically. My GPUs are worthless (this is why I was hoping for GS) since I book last minute for most trips and my CPU percentage is very low, so there is no benefit in flying more. I might not even try for 1K since I have Platinum for life.

2) I will probably switch to Delta for Europe since they have good connections from Denver through Atlanta. I have to connect on United anyway. Hopefully I will get to Diamond on Delta.

3) The other option is to fly 100 segments on Southwest. I believe after this, your spouse gets to fly with you for free. For people without kids that is a pretty nice deal. Spouse gets a vacation anytime she wants...

The question for Jeff Smisek - is this really what you hoping that people do? Unfortunately I think the answer is yes. I suspect the new model for airlines is one where loyalty isn't worth anything. With fewer flights they will fill them anyway. They don't care if 1 person takes 50 flights or 50 people each take 1 flight. As a matter of fact, I think they believe that the 50 people are better since they are more likely to purchase add-ons and buy-ups.

They do want to keep the people purchasing full fares and business/first. However, they have destroyed domestic first to the point that they will lose those people to Delta and American.

So in the end, United becomes the new Southwest, except that operationally they don't appear to be able to compete with them. Southwest has a huge advantage because they fly normal size jets to all locations.

If your 200,000 miles are BIS then ypur spenf of $0.25/mile is on the low side for GS. Most of the qualifiers that have self-reported were in the range of $0.35/mile and above.

You might want to ask for reconsideration for GS, though, given your total spend.

I did ask for reconsideration and they said no. I only fly coach and my cpm is less then someone that flies business for sure. However, the question is who is more profitable for United? Most of my international tickets were M fare. So the question is does United make more profit on a $3600 coach ticket or an $8000 business ticket to Asia? A business class seat occupies the same space as 2-3 coach seats probably (I'm guessing) and has almost no cost for food/drinks. At best I would say that United makes about the same on each ticket, even though the coach ticket is 27 cpm and the business ticket is 67 cpm.

Closing the loop on this one. So I never actually received a notification email like everyone has mentioned in this thread, but when I received the "check your 2014 status" email and went to the website, I discovered that I did not requalify for 2014 status and would be dropping to 1K. Very surprised and disappointed by that after 5 straight years as GS, and also feel disrespected by not even hearing direct word from them.

$48K of spend and 227K PQM isn't as much as some people, but it isn't exactly peanuts either. Considering that GS receives a soft landing to 1K even if they spend $0, it is fair to say that United has shown zero recognition of my heavy travel and loyalty for the past year.

I have a co-worker in the same position. 8 years consecutive GS and this year 1K only without even a notification. Already refunded his 2014 UA tickets and plans to use AA/CX/US for now.

UA should be reaching out to ask why someone who has qualified for 8 consecutive years didn't re-qualify. More of the same shortsighted behavior from UA.

Plus the reports on here that people made it with spending way below 40k. Sorry to hear this.

I know people who re-qualified with less then 40K and around 20 cpm.

Think about it. A guy traveling week after week to get 200k or a guy who flys 5 TPACs in C. Say they both spend $50k to do it.

The TPAC guy costs so little to support as a GS during the year vs the domestic road warrior. Not saying it's right/wrong but I think this likely plays into how UA decides who gets GS.

Must be nice!

Late to the discussion on this as I assumed that I missed re-qualifying for GS by a long way last year. But then mysteriously got 6 GPUs and 2 RPUs into my account Jan 16. Does that mean I re-qualified miraculously or is that the norm for Prem 1K and this was just my "soft landing"? Any way to tell? I didn't receive ANY 2014 status news, good or bad.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Check on premierstatus.united.com

Thanks! Checked and yep, did not make GS. Though, amusingly, on the same page as where it says i did not make it, it also says (where it shows what "stage" your "materials" are at) it says "congratulations on achieving global services, your materials will be sent to you in 1-2 weeks"! So, still some kinks in the system but I think I am done. Btw, can Prem 1k use GPUs to upgrade flights bought with miles? I think that was GS only and it was the most useful perk in my opinion...