mahasamatman

Since this is all rumor with no foundation in reality, how can you determine that?

seenitall

Not to bring an even worse down note to this pity party, but why should UA grandfather at current status? Because these MMs have already done their heavy flying and MRs, they are the ones that UA can most abuse without sacrificing as much future business as those that are still doing heavy flying trying to reach certain MM status.

Note further, that there would seem to be no legal bar to revoking previously-earned MM benefits as the airlines have already won that court case.

Lurker1999

This is just a rumor but given the march towards a purely revenue driven "loyalty" program I don't see this as an implausible rumor. I'm probably 5 years away from MM since I stopped flying with United exclusively this year but was still willing to throw them preferential bookings since lifetime *G was worth something. However even if this rumor turns out to be completely false it does remind me that the future MM program will likely not resemble the current MM program, nor is it written in stone that United Gold will actually equate to a useful status in the future.

l etoile

There have been a few posts asking why the OP's account was suspended. Generally, we don't share why an account was suspended, but in this case it was pretty obvious and, as it was a new account, it's not violating the privacy of a known member. The rules prohibit having multiple accounts. I hope that answers that and the thread can carry on. Please note if you have a question about moderator actions, write to us directly as it's also against the rules to discuss them on thread.

l'etoile
UA moderator

username

Well, they can always tinker with the Premier Gold benefits so tomorrow's Gold is like today's Silver...

I guess this is what happens when we have less competition...

tryintogohome

I am exactly at the same point as you and would be there is about 2-2.5 years, though my spend is not quite as high as I give around $30k to CX and QR. I would let them keep my domestic flights but all else would go to elsewhere.

PaulInTheSky

Seriously? That's absolutely awful! Sorry to hear that. Dropping the Lifetime status altogether is downright cruel.

Yup, I will be LT PLT with Marriott very soon, but at this rate, it is possible that I get 1MM first, hopefully by next year.

Some people treat MRs or sticking with one airline as investment for long-term comfort. From all the recent changes by the airlines, it is not difficult to find out the majority of the revenue comes from kayakers, or absolute kettle, or people who are aware but don't care about status. In the near future, this can turn out to be opportunity to get more RDMs/elite benefits when economy drops to the bottom, but you are right, chasing LT status is just silly. There are lot more investments that we can make to improve our life quality. ^ :-:

I will still fly UA even if the current elite benefits were stripped, since it was mostly for my business. AA's new elite benefits are definitely heartbraking. By looking at SWUs and RPUs, you can see UA actually covered more BIS in upgraded premium cabin if all sectors are cleared at 1K level(Six GPUs, four RPUs). But I am definitely not sticking or even thinking of 2MM+ moving forward.

halls120

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter what the competition offers for flying 1MM on their airline. If UA offers a given benefit in return for flying 1 million miles, and gives that same benefit to someone who applies for and carries a certain credit card, they have effectively eliminated the incentive to fly UA more than the competition.

If they aren't going to provide a realistic incentive to fly UA, why bother with MP at all?

Karl-MDW

Even with my status as a 1MM - gained on PMUA - with all the previous program down grades, UA has already driven me to find the best deal from any airline these days. Like others can do on UA, I can buy my way upon another airline.

So, if the rumor is true and I am able to maintain my grandfathered status, my concern is that even though the status is outwardly the same, UA will use its software to continue to quietly put other passengers ahead of me in upgrade lists and lists of other perks - as already happens. It could only get worse, thus making status even less valuable.

UA vs NW

If this is going to be true starting January 01, 2016, when are they expected to announce this big change? It is difficult to image that they will give such a short notice for a big change like this.

I gave up working towards DL's 1MM status at around 820000 DL MQM a few years ago; now I am at 870000 BIS MM with CO/UA and is preparing to hit 1MM in mid 2016. What a disappointment if this change will be inevitably true starting 2016.

as219

Having been to the UA Rumor Rodeo many times, I'm going to go out on a limb and say I don't think this will happen. Granting 1MM lifetime 2P in place of 1P is such crazy bad business that not even UA would go there. When they took away the RPUs, they gave the spouse/partner benefit; it hurt some, benefited others. To devalue every MM threshold by a M+ tier is just pure meanness. At the very least I think it's only fair to give a minimum 12-month warning.

I know, I know... Call me deluded if you will, but even though they can and have done such things in the past, I just don't see this happening in the short term in the way the OP describes.

villox

While I truly agree that giving people lifetime silver for 1MM is laughable, I would like to dispute that Silver is precisely equal to having the credit card. The credit card can't get you free E+ at check-in, an extra 2 miles per PQD, access to standard awards on any flight, free changes to award flights (if O/D remains the same), reduced award fees, etc.

Yes, Silver is not a great status level, but it IS something beyond Group 2 boarding.

stimpy

As a 1MM'er, if the OP is true then I have no incentive to fly United. As of now, there is incentive to make it to 2mm and lifetime Plat status. But if they are taking that away, then I'll just fly UA when it's the best choice rather than go out of my way to choose UA. But if UA is going to make this change and they are smart, they won't take away that incentive and allow me to stay on track to hit lifetime Platinum once I reach 2mm.

As UA of course has the full details of all our stats, maybe they can do some trending analysis and see that a huge wave of people are about to hit 1MM in the next year or two. Maybe LH is aware of this too and doesn't want their SEN lounges forever filling up with a lot of Lifetime Star Gold's.

jason8612

When UA did the other deval to the MM program, what time frame did they gave us from when it was announced to when it was implemented?

Doing my math now. I got 962.6K now. I got my return next week which will earn me another 4.6K and in the beginning of Jan I have 15.5K booked. That would give me some 17.3K to do, which I can easily do. But I don't know if its worth panicking now about it or assuming they give us some notice just do this the 2nd week of Jan...

luckypierre

Isn't that the ultimate destination? In defense of UA, DL seems further along in the disassembly of the loyalty programs. The belly whopper of a strategic mistake that Smisek and his merry band of corporate marauders made was not getting the airline side in working order (in contrast to DL) before starting down the path. There will be many logical inconsistencies as the programs slowly strangle the loyalty inducements. The biggest being the credit card imbalance. Let's see for $95 I can roughly obtain the same privileges and miles equivalent to $10,000 spend in airline fares.