Superguy

As this is a common question, here's how US's seating works:

There are two types of "select" seating: Choice and Preferred.

Preferred seats are available free of charge to any elite at any time. These include bulkheads, exits, and select rows in between.

Choice seats are rows near the front that US charges a fee for to anyone - including elites (and yes, even Chairmen).

Aside from bulkheads and exits, there's nothing special about either seat except that they're closer to the front and offer earlier boarding. So you get on/off earlier and have overhead space.

US planes will be adding MCE and those will be for all elites, though AA Gold/US Silver will get them at T-24.

tom911

It will be much more tolerable as an AA EXP enjoying the BA first class lounge at LHR.

ibuyyoufly

Didn't see this article posted elsewhere.

So if the industry hired great Marketeers with consumer product knowledge/prowess, in lieu of the Mouseketeers they currently hire, the best could differentiate their business from the bottom of the pack.

"Why Airline Loyalty May No Longer Pay Off"

"Sorry, frequent fliers: Airlines that once expressed their appreciation for you with free upgrades and miles to spend on freebie flights have turned tepid on the relationship. Frequency, in fact, may be out of style, as airlines shift their devotion to cold, hard, calculable dollars."

http://m.entrepreneur.com/article/234892

donho00

so my numbers are NOT correct?

The rep at the 1k line explained it exactly this way

Heres the example I gave the rep:

I fly EWR to MNL I usually get about 21k PQM and a 100% 1k status match of another 21k

so I would get a total of 42k miles into my mile bank(21k of would go towards the hamster wheel of attaining status)
and if the ticket cost me $1500, I would also earn 1500 miles for Chase card


After march 2015, the rep explained:
I would STILL receive 21k PQM. But instead of a 100% match for my 1k status, I would get x11 the dollar amount(fare and fees, slightly less then $1500)
so in this case around 16500 bonus miles
as well as the 1500 miles for Chase

Now, is this NOT correct??? I hope it is, because I can live with this.

Personally it seems it would HAVE to be correct. because if the only miles earned are dollar amount x11, Just 1 high dollar ticket can get you Platinum status(75k cap)
And you can acheive 1k in just two flights??? That doesnt sound right

The rep said PQM are not changed and are still based on actual miles flown

This is right from the United 2015 mileageplus page:

You will still earn Premier® qualifying miles (PQM) based on the distance of your flight. Premier members will still earn a minimum of 500 PQM on United and United Express flights shorter than 500 miles.

mduell

No, you're still conflating status miles (PQM) and award miles (RDM). Status miles (PQM) are only good for earning status and reset to 0 every year. Award miles (RDM) are what you redeem for award tickets or upgrades and don't reset (they can expire if you go long enough without any activity).

For a $1500 ticket flying you 21,000 miles as a 1K on a Chase card -
Today you earn 21,000 PQM and 21,000 (base) + 21,000 (100% bonus) + 3,000 (Chase 2 mi/$ on UA) = 45,000 RDM
Next year you'll earn 21,000 PQM and 15,000 ($1500 ticket minus ~$150 taxes, times 11 multiplier for being 1K) + 3,000 (Chase 2 mi/$ on UA) = 18,000 RDM

So every trip you'll earn the same status miles and 27k fewer award miles than you used to.

No. Only the earning of award miles (RDM) is changing. No change to status miles (PQM). No making 1K in two tickets just because they're expensive.

That's correct, PQM are actual miles flown, with a minimum of 500 for elites, and modest bonuses (50%) for high fare classes.

tryathlete

There. 2000 posts and we are still trying to figure out the obvious.

dnwaldmann

This reminds me of another situation.

My company ships small packages by UPS. About 15 years ago we were granted "Preferred Customer" status due to our spending $x per year with them. In addition to our account exec, we now had a direct line to an individual to take care of any issues that would arise. We developed a relationship with this person, because she only had a limited number of people to deal with and soon got to know each business and its unique situations and needs.

After about 5 years we were notified that the Preferred Customer Program was being changed from an unique individual to a group "to better serve you". Even though our spending had continued to rise (even with larger and larger discounts earned from further volume), I always had the impression that we had not grown fast enough and had been essentially been reduced to a "different regular" group, i.e. normal except that the message says "Welcome to UPS Preferred" instead of "Welcome to UPS Customer Service".

mapu

I seriously doubt that this is a small group.

LaserSailor

Six in my office alone are big winners on the New Deal

GBman

Were they threatening to go anywhere (bolt UA) prior to these changes?

If not, then UA's new plan keeps them on board while other, lower-fare payers depart after their Mileage Plus devaluations. The higher rebate for high-fare payers is therefore mitigating losses resulting from UA overall getting out from under Mileage Plus.

If so, then this new plan may be part of an attempt to hold onto them, and may be more of a reapportioning of MP to the higher-fare paying customer to accomplish that. And, if so, will it work and cause them to hang around?

In other words, I'm curious whether primarily UA simply wanted to gut MP and had to try to minimise damage to its highest-paying customers, or whether UA is doing what it can with overall shrinking resources to hold onto its highest paying customers.

Chicken or egg: UA said 'here's another thing we can cut but we ought to rebalance to mitigate the resulting damage', or UA said 'our cuts are killing us and we need to try to hold onto a set of customers'.

abaheti

Or UA said, "let's fire a bunch of over entitled customers and reward some other more deserving customers, and the ones we reward will give us so much more business it'll be fine."

UA's product and level of quality seem unlikely to attract true HV flyers from other airlines (who presumably are happy enough with their existing carriers to be HV flyers there), and the UA HV flyers who stayed would probably have stayed without these changes. But they have succeeded in driving away the vast middle.

All still very curious to me.

1K

Sad, sad...

UA has had my business for eons and with just barely 1 trip away from reaching the Million Miler ranking, I find myself valuing the TTOT (total time of trip) more than the carrier or miles earned. I barely see how I am going to use the miles banked already as I approach redemption very conservatively. If I see a routing that places me at my destination with the least amount of my time traveling used, that's the trigger in my spend/loyalty ratio now. The service degradation, loyalty program devaluations and aircraft utilized has been a non-stop downward spiral for all US carriers which directly impacts overall loyalty. Its not worth my time to spend a extra 1-2 hours to choose UA over another carrier serving the same destination (unless the price is so extreme in difference). Goal: minimize my time spent with any carrier (except SQ ) The upgrades have so lost their cachet, maybe its my age, but I gave the last 2 domestics away to servicemen which was more rewarding than anything UA could have mustered. DL flushed itself first - it was only matter of time before UA & AA joined in the flush-a-thon.

syrahnose

This is the unclear part to me or is the next change that foreign based 1K MP members are about to have the 10,000 minimum spend applied too.

For one it is difficult if impossible to get 016 tickets through and to US on other carriers. And often 016 ticket quotes from United are 3-4 times the price quoted by a similar direct flight on a star carrier for same flights.

If I'm reading this correctly and no-10,000 min isn't changed for foreign based MP then we can continue reaching 1k status without flying more than 4 United segments so long as we reach 100000 on star carriers in total.

Also there is a disincentive to fly any of the V,W... level classes to run the upgrade lottery on long haul United trans ocean flights.

It would seem the next changes are for foreign based MP flyers to lose the no-10000 qualifying spend and/or all star carriers reduce/change mileage credit back to United based on class of service.

Assuming incentive is to drive more foreign based MP/1K off the list.

Am I missing something here?

emcampbe

Yes - you are missing something, unless you can point to the part where it talks about anything having to do with status qualification at all, much less the idea that the PQD scheme will apply towards those living outside of the US. That's just wild speculation on your part.

The change, as pointed out dozens of times in this thread, only applies to how redeemable miles are earned when flying United (on any airline's ticket) or when flying partners on a UA (016) ticket. Nothing to do with how status is earned - no matter where you are. So yes, as someone outside of the US, you continue to earn the status the same way - for 1K, by flying 100,000 miles on any star alliance carrier (on eligible fares) as long as you have 4 segments on UA/UAX.

AAExPlat

For now. Considering that UA is working hard to not reward fliers with status who don't fly UA metal, and since they are cutting back on RDMs on flying activity in favor of third party mileage earning, I think it is reasonable to assume that at some point the exemption for overseas elites will be 86d. Speculation for sure, but I am not so sure it is "wild" speculation.