ew6050

Interesting.

Any idea why StarAlliance inventory is so much lower when trying to book though United than directly via the StarAlliance carrier? Is it United that is blocking it? For example, united.com rarely lets me book F on Swiss ZRH - SFO. It will only let me book business class. But if I go on swiss.com or look at the load for the same flight it shows that the entire F bucket is available.

UA-NYC

Miles and More gets extra award space for it's members

Seats for sale does not equal available award space regardless

Kacee

You're confusing separate issues.

Codeshare inventory is typically a limited subset of total inventory, which is what you're referring to. So when you book an LX operated flight under a UA flight number, you will typically see different inventory from what LX offers under the LX (native) flight number.

If you can get UA to book using the native LX flight number (not as a codeshare), you should have full access to LX inventory.

ew6050

GFL Access? Do you mean Global First Lounge access even if you aren't in Global First seat?

jjmoore

GS are able to access the GFL on an int'l business class booking.

Skacorica

Back on the subject of this thread...Why on earth does it take two weeks into the new year to determine the GS recipients? Sort of ridiculous and seems like a pretty major {mess} when you're dealing with your most profitable customers.

NikolaTesla

I think somebody dropped the ball on this one. My guess is that the team tasked to put this together messed something up and is now delayed. Just like when you hear an IT integration will take 2 months and then a year later it finally happens. This is a way to lose business for those like myself who might give more money now to Lufthansa or Swiss because frankly they are better airlines and without GS I really don't {care} about flying United because either way I'll be 1k.

stevenshev

That's the dangerous game they are playing with me, too. Need to book an A fare to Sydney in late Jan, and if I do not get GS renewal by the time I need to make a decision, I will not hesitate to fly QF.

Goaliedad30

I made a conscious choice in 2014 to go out of my way to maximize spend with UA to determine whether that would yield GS status. SFO-based, and fly lots of TPAC and TATL in paid business class (although often Z or P), along with a fair amount of expensive domestic hub-to-hub economy fares. I also bought a few domestic A fares this year. If it's not sufficient to earn GS, I'll probably move almost all of the international business class travel to LH and SQ in 2015, as making 1K (both PQM and PQD) will be easy with the travel that logically goes to UA anyway.

SeaRaptor

I thought the purpose of the profit-sharing agreements with LH on TATL routes was to address this.

Am I incorrect? Does it honestly matter (for GS qualification) if I book LH or UA on a route that both airlines serve if the timing of the LH flight is better for me?

Kacee

I think you will get conflicting answers to this question, with some saying that only UA operated flights count towards GS. I have no idea what the answer is.

Your question is much more subtle, btw, than the one I was responding to. That poster was asking whether any ticket purchased on 016 stock would qualify for GS spend on the theory that "UA collected the revenue." That's obviously not the case.

SeaRaptor

Fair enough, thanks for the reply. Guess we'll see. My last TATL flight of the year was on LH (purchased on 016 stock and originally bought under the UA codeshare number; only swapped to the LH flight number so I could apply a GPU). My PQD haven't posted yet (still shows "processing), but they would put me up near $48k for the year.

gengar

The purpose of a JV is surely not so that UA can give PQDs for LH metal.

Seriously though, you are conflating a number of issues. Does UA get revenue for the flight? Does UA award PQD for the flight? Does UA consider the flight with respect to awarding GS status? Those are all separate questions (except that if the answer to either of the first two is "no", the answer to the third is almost certainly "no").

Remember that UA will not award PQD if the LH ticket is not on 016 stock, regardless of the existence of JV. However, UA will award PQD for any PQM-earning *A ticket that is issued on 016 stock - again, regardless of the existence of JV. The posed rationale for this phenomenon is that UA needs to know the revenue of the ticket in order to issue PQDs.

That said, historically it's been UA metal only for GS qualification. Hard to believe that would have changed.

SFHokie

While I'm not expecting to make GS (78K PQM, $8,419 PQD ...) I do love reading this thread. It's fun to hear how people try and figure out the rules to an unpublished program And speaking of which, why is everyone looking at what they have already flown instead of mentioning anything about what they already have booked for the next year? If I were running the GS program, I'd definitely look to see who is sticking with my company along with who has provided us the most business (and some other parameters) then determine the intersection of those groups.

It's unlikely I'll ever make GS as I only fly for pleasure. Eight years ago I make the decision to make 1MM by the time I hit 40 ... two years to go and less than 187K miles to go ... slowly but surely In the meantime, while I'm waiting to hit my mark, please keep posting about yours regarding GS!

LASUA1K

Most book last minute. So looking at next year is useless.