Anybody observe the line in the regular mileage plus website that puts GS below 1K for fee summary after October 6? =)

Anybody else see the place in the chart for $25 close-in change fee for 1K's in the very near future?

Count me as one. entropy and I are identical. MM-plt. Starting last year, instead of trying to achieve status by flying United, I started using the FEQ miles to achieve Plat status. The zero change fee is the only tangible plt benefit to me. Almost never get upgraded. Almost never check more than 2 bags. Never, ever have bags heavier than 50 LBs. Almost never have to get more than one companion into E+. Group 1 boarding is nice but is it worth giving up 60k rdm a year (cost of Presidential Plus card vs club card)?

Thanks to AA, Delta, Air France & KLM, I fly with discounted business class fares instead. Life is much simpler when achieving upper tier elite is out of the picture. Used to direct all flying $$$ to United until last year. Now United gets less than 20%

That 1K/GS inversion was noted early on in the main thread regarding these changes with the expectation that it would soon be fixed. Soon means something different at UA IT than it does for many of us, I suspect.

If there comes to be a $25 close in change fee for 1Ks, then I will also feel "relieved" as I noted in post #2 in this thread.

IMO far and away the most valuable Plat benefit.

If all my changes and cancels had cost $50 per ticket, I would have incurred something like $500 in change/cancel fees so far this year.

And as others have commented, it's not just the money, it's about the award booking strategy. With free changes, I can book what's available now and then continually seek to upgrade the itinerary with better / more convenient flights. If I know changes are going to cost $50 each ($100 for a 2 pax itinerary), my entire approach to award booking gets revisited.

That is just one aspect of it. Having been 1K and Platinum since about 1998, I don't think I have ever changed or cancelled an award ticket. But you and I are just a sample of 2.

This is going to be the first year I hit Plat instead of Gold.... I don't book very much award travel, so I guess it's all the same to me. I'll be pumped for group 1 and getting upgraded on 4/90 flights instead of the current 3/90 flights

I am not relieved. I will make Plat this year and I was very much looking forward to not paying a fee for award changes. It matters quite a bit for booking something like LH F where space only opens up at T-15 and better routings open up a few days before departure. Have been saving up miles for just such a redemption and I'll now have to be very cautious about the initial booking, rather than not worrying about making last-minute changes.

You are neither too old nor too sensible for this game Mike. Rather the rules of the game are being changed on a massive scale given that there are now only three US based big carriers. What loyalty used to mean to an airline is being displaced by a transactional customer relationship model. They now value selling miles to credit card companies to make profits rather than awarding miles to customers for flying on paid airline tickets. The revenue based scheme for awarding redeemable miles results in the majority of flyers earning 30 to 60 percent fewer miles on the majority of paid airfares. Perhaps being a fee agent is something to explore. Given the great TATL & TPAC Business class fare sales seen from OW or ST, it may be best to choose whatever carrier presents the best value for the money.

Obviously, you're the flip side of "relieved." Nobody who has already committed to 75PQM is going to be "relieved"; only those who aren't yet very close and would have had to go to some effort to make the cut.

Just really glad it was announced now and not a couple months down the road. In your case, would it have been a different story had you known going into the year that the award fees would be implemented?

Not really, I only ever made plat because I had to travel that much or got really close and pushed for it.

I do need to do more longhaul UA flying so I can get my lifetime to 1MM. Been choosing better carriers for the overwater segs this year.

my "whew" moment was when i gave up on UA status and moved to AS

i am still waiting for the other shoe to drop over there and i don't think it will be long, but yes...then i will be relieved. i'll start flying who i want, when i want, in the cabin i want and cut my 'discretionary' travel by at least 50%

the airlines don't realize that it can quickly become a double edged sword when they start drawing all this attention to what we are spending. at least 60% of my travel is discretionary and for leisure. there are plenty of beautiful places within two tanks of gas from where i live. if the airlines wanna gouge me for going further away, i'll just do more 'staycations'.

I'll probably move from Gold to Plat later this year as well. As I've said in the other thread, there's really very little difference, even before the latest change. I haven't changed an award ticket as Gold, Plat, or 1K. But I suspect this isn't the last devaluation for Plats. I'll bet anyone here a dollar that they drop down behind 1k's for boarding by the end of 2017.

I look at Gold and Platinum as pretty much the same. Platinum has a few tiny extra benefits that most people don't use, but it's not something to chase, unless you're at 74,000 and can do a quick $100 trip in December.

I was seriously considering buying PQM to hit Plat just for the award change fee waivers.

Thanks for saving me money Oscar!

Not a plat but I make probably 100+ changes/cancellations per year. This comes from both optimizing the quality of travel times/itinerary quality as well as needing a flexible schedule for my job. It's the main reason I target hitting plat on Delta too.

You must make a LOT of changes to pay money for PQM's (not cheap) to save on change fees for awards.