Hipplewm

I am kinda in the same boat, although I will re qualify 1K, but with so many easy to use GPU, I have bought much more econ and used GPU, that I have lots of PQM, but much less PQD than typical. Kinda nice to always be up front, but also kinda bad it is so cheap..... I will be out of GPU for sure and have 2 RPU left before i qualify 1K this year. I was at 150K PQM, last year, so I started with 8/8

jsloan

Flying further for less money is (almost) always good. :-)

Depending on your situation, there are three sure ways to reach 1K:

1 - Register a foreign address -- only US residents are required to meet PQD requirements. (UA will require proof of residency)
2 - Fly more. If I want to re-qualify for 1K this year, I'll probably need 140K PQM, between the low fares I fly in general and 200% PQMs for P fares when I pay to sit up front. It sounds like you're in the same situation, if not more extreme still.
3 - Pay more for your existing tickets. If you forecast that you will be $XX PQDs short, look for more expensive tickets on your existing flights -- maybe purchase business or first instead of economy, or pay for a slightly more expensive economy fare, or whatever, depending on how much additional spending you need.

If you cannot / choose not to do any of those things, you leave yourself at UA's mercy. They may allow a buy-up, and they might not. I don't know if I've actually heard about PQD buy-ups; PQM buy-ups are common. Even if they do offer you a buy-up, they're under no obligation to allow you to buy up to exactly $12,000; if you finish at $11,550, they may offer you a $1000 buy-up, rather than the $450 that you actually need.

Ultimately, your question is going to be, how much do you value 1K status? Everyone's going to have a different answer for what amount of incremental spending makes sense.

findark

Heh, I probably have a higher CPM in Y than F - my premium tickets are rarely twice as expensive as economy ones

Lani1

Amazing! you are finding some great fares!

MY-OTHER-BROTHER-"TED"

PQM earned in 2017
80,038
PQS earned in 2017
45.5
PQD earned in 2017
$3,097

... and I AM NOT "BUYING UP" to anything that UA has to offer --- Period!

About 100K more miles til I'm a 3MMer and 1K for life. Right now Premier Plat is just fine, and being retired I have plenty of time to do some MR's to get to my desired status.

Several questions asked above, "How much do you value 1K status?" In my case it looks like about another $4,000 and about 50 segments over the next 12 months.

A true MRer (which is a dying breed) NEVER EVER pays UA for anything except for the cheapest ticket, with the most miles, that they can find, and in the past few years, in my case, it is ONLY to accumulate PQM's, being so close to a "Life Time - 1 K" status.

If you're on the company's dime, then go for the 1K spot the easy way ($12,000.00)!

steveo

I'm at about 16,000 PQM and 6000 PQD. Sounds like we need to trade our travel habits!

matrixwalker2012

If you're willing to fly more, you could just aim for flying to hit 200K PQM or even 250K PQMs. If all on UA metal, you'll probably hit 12K spend along the way. When you do, you'll get 1K, the 2 RPUs from achieving Plat, the 2 more RPUs from achieving 1K, the 6 GPUs from 1K, and then the bonus RPUs and GPUs for each additional 25K/50K threshold you've passed along the way past the 100K PQMs.

The way I see it is for UA metal flying, if you're going to fly 200-250K PQMs, you probably don't even have to think much about the PQDs because you'll pick it up along the way, unless you're flying on bulk fares...

afrozenfyre

This sounds like a question for Is it worth it to stretch for 1K (over Plat)? [2017 Consolidated]

With PQDs being the limiting factor for status, the decision (IMO) is much easier to calculate. OP is exactly the flyer UA is trying to trim from the 1K ranks, and it's up to OP to decide if he wants to pay to play the game with UA.

If you do agree it's worth $6,000 more in PQDs for the year, then this thread has some options for how to spend it

wh6cto

I don't think anyone has brought this up yet...here's the buy-up offers reported earlier this year:

2017 UA MP elite status buy-up offers (for higher status than earned in 2016)

Can't find your exact situation, but #80 was at 94.5kPQM and 11.5kPQD.

It has been reported that you get NO GPU/RPU with buy-up to 1K. So the value is greatly diminished going this route.

But at 6kPQD and less that halfway through the year, isn't that on-track for making 12k by Dec 31?

Kmxu

Just accumulate PQMs until you reach the 12K pqd. This is the only solution, sadly.

MSPeconomist

If you want 1K, take some premium cabin trips using fares that earn additional status miles for MM. Think also about earning additional upgrade instruments, assuming that you can use them next year.

EmailKid

Could have sworn that went away:

Kacee

I bought P/Z fares in December 2015 and 2016 to clear the spend threshhold.

Whether it's worth it is debatable and depends on (i) amount you need to spend, and (ii) value you will get from GPUs and other 1K benefits.

John Aldeborgh

The PQD thing is simple and unyielding, UA takes it very seriously so if you want 1K status you can't only look at miles flown. People who fly exclusively in premium cabins never think about PQD, only miles. Folks who fly with an eye on controlling costs should focus on PQD and not think (or worry) about miles flown. In my case I hit $12K PQD (earning my GPU's) at about 140K PQM this year.

skimthetrees

This does not help the OP but as an interesting anecdote in December 2015 the company I was working for at the time had their annual charity auction. They do a lot of business with UA and one of the items up for auction was a certificate from United that increased the status level of an MP member one level (up to 1K - explicitly not valid to upgrade status to GS) through the end of the 2016 membership year. If the status were increased to Platinum or 1K via the certificate my recollection is that the terms said that the GPUs/RPUs normally awarded by earning status would not be awarded when upgrading status via the certificate. My recollection is that it ended up selling in the $1700-$1800 range.

Has anyone else seen something like this?