Kacee

Yeah but UA doesn't care about losing 10 cpm "elite" flyers. It believes they are 100% replaceable either at no cost, or - even better - at lower cost, since non-status pax have to pay extra for items the elite would get for free. Nor does UA care about losing the upgrade co-pays . . . upgrade space is already in short supply and it knows those front cabin seats will generate revenue regardless.

Baze

Who said either halls or I are 10 cpm fliers? I am well above that. But they haven't lost me, yet. Don't know what halls spend was.

Edit to add, true, I don't need the extra PQD if I do a buy up as I more than meet the requirements. But it always just seemed odd to me that they count E+ purchases but not buy ups.

STS-134

Doesn't make sense that they don't count TOD upgrades. If it ever gets to the point where they're doing TODs, it means that upgrade space is not in short supply and they're in danger of having seats in the front cabin go out empty. And if they ever lose money on upgrades because they don't have any F or C seats left to sell outright, then it means that their inventory management sucks.

Kacee

I didn't intend to make any comment on your flying patterns, I was just quoting your response to halls120, who said he has cut his flying with UA way back due to PQD requirement. Not sure why anyone would do that if they were going to meet the 12 cpm threshold.

btw, I'm a 10 cpm flyer this year. I'm sure UA would shed no tears if I moved elsewhere

Not sure I agree with that. Sale of upgrades does not mean there's a risk F seats will go out empty. UA will sell upgrades all the way to F0 with an upgrade waitlist 50 pax long.

btw, the true TOD (tens of dollars upgrade) is a rarity.

Baze

I'm a 16-17 cpm flier and I don't think UA would shed a tear if I left either. They would probably jump for joy and yell, there goes another over entitled elite. But I stick with them as they meet my flying needs out of SFO.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

And you wouldn't buy a nice TOD upgrade because you're not getting TODs PQDs? I sincerely doubt that. Someone else will certainly buy them.

The argument about what counts and what should count can go on forever. It's United's program and they get to dictate what counts.

STS-134

Let me rephrase. It means that there is a risk of UA not getting any revenue from F seats (on domestic flights). On international flights though (which is what I was referring to), my argument holds.

On international flights, I would generally be using upgrade instruments and paying the copay. On domestic flights, I wouldn't buy a TOD upgrade because I'm hoping for the CPU, and because I don't think domestic F is a good enough product to pay for. On the other hand, if I were say $200 short in PQD and I got offered an upgrade to domestic F for $300 and it counts for PQD...sure, why not. But if UA decides to not count it for PQD, I won't take it, and maybe the next taker only buys in at $200, which costs UA $100 in revenue.

TomMM

What would be considered a nice TOD? I recently got offered an upgrade into GF for about $1300 for ORD-HKG. I was originally on a W fare that I upgraded into R with a GPU. I thought about doing the upgrade so I could say I tried GF but then I realized I wouldn't get PQD credit for the upgrade and decided against it. I understand/agree with the comment above that the upgrade itself is the reward but I could have been swayed into the upgrade if I would have also gotten PQD credit. I just didn't think the reward alone was worth it.

halls120

PQD was the straw that broke the camel's back. When you add that to the mix of crappy slimline seats, the coming 10 across in Y, dark airplanes, disappearing CPUs, hard to use GPUs, treating customers as the enemy, and poor operations, why chase 1K?

I have been a liberal user of miles and money copay for purchases, and straight buy ups when offered and I thought they were reasonable. IOW, I spent a lot more than just the 10-12cpm I spent on the base ticket. As soon as the PQD was announced, I knew it wouldn't stay at $10K for 1K.

It simply annoys me that I can spend well north of $12K with UA, but they refuse to count much of it. So I've decided to spend much of that elsewhere. Like at AA, where I can buy $50 e-certs and have a better UG percentage as a Plat there than I have as a 1K at UA. Like at DL, where I don't have to worry about not getting to my destination in a timely manner.

I'm not leaving UA altogether. I have 3 more R/Ts on UA this year, but I have 4 on AA. In prior years, that would have been all but one or two on UA.

This is exactly what UA is no longer getting from me.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

No, I totally understand the decision. If those $1300 are needed to get to a particular status level (and assuming you want that status level), I guess you're gonna have to buy a seat on another flight .

For $1300 and no PQDs, I might have been tempted to get out of 8-across BF on a 777. Probably would have ultimately turned it down, not because of the lack of PQDs, but because I'm generally cheap.

Kacee

So the seat probably went to a non-rev.

UA makes all sorts of dumb profit minimizing decisions relative to upgrades.

They will, for example, sell an upgrade to a non-status pax for less than they would have collected in baggage fees had the pax stayed in Y.

There was a report just last week of a member who was waitlisted for a MP upgrade at 30,000 miles plus $500 co-pay who was offered (and took) the buy-up for $534 - meaning UA essentially sold him 30,000 miles for $34.

matrixwalker2012

Bingo, while I don't work for the airlines, I work in a related industry and I'll just say that these reservation systems were all written 30 years ago back when coding practices were very different from today and code documentation wasn't as big a thing back then as it is today. Likely the person who originally wrote all the SHARES code is long retired and thus, took all their knowledge with them. I think these systems need a massive re-write using modern conventions and documentation and with more built in flexibility to have more features in the future.

timbre

I did a search in this forum and did not see any mention of this. Has there been any announcement of a PQD waiver with 25K spend on Pres CC for up to Platinum status for 2017?

mkr

This is being discussed/debated in the other thread about changes for the 2016 MP program.

Kacee

UA Insider has confirmed that the waiver will remain the same for 2017 qualification.