pdg63

At YE my stats will be:

99,840 PQM
118 PQS
30K+ PQD

What are my odds of making 1K? Do I need to call and ask for something special or will it automatically be given?

drew in the air

No one knows, they might or might not Do have high PQDs which help, but I'd figure out a way to get that 160 miles either through an accelerator purchase or short MR.

goduke7

I'm in a simlar spot- i'll be heading on a short RT this weekend. Cost $20 out of pocket due to vouchers from previous flights.

findark

Buy up to a higher cabin class now (change fee will be waived). If you are already in the highest cabin class on all of your flights, just take the shortest possible same-day turn in F from your home airport (you can basically always make airfare arbitrarily more expensive).

delackrj

was really surprised by this one since it was even short of silver

sdltraveler

Trying to help my relative re-qualify for UA Gold, and he is falling about $1600 PQDs short. He values SA Gold immensely due to his business travel. He doesn't have a CC PQD waiver, and when he called last month to see if they had any offers to extend to him, they said they didn't. He would rather pay outright than do a milage run just for the PQDs, since he is already over the PQM threshold.

Should he:

1. Try calling back in for an offer to pay cash to cover the PQDs?
2. Try to see if UA will extend a status challenge at the beginning of the year, since he will have quite a bit of travel in Q1?
3. Figure out a way to do a run that will get him to the PQD threshold?
4. Some other option that I am not thinking of.

UA isn't my sweet spot, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all.

Two Bee

They're really tight about the PQD thing. I've got over 220K PQM's, this year, and I'll be at $10,850.00 PQD's at years end. However, 3 weeks into 2018 I'm a 3MMer, so i'm not going to spend any more unnecessary money in the next few weeks

If I were your relative, and he really wants status he shouldn't rely on ANY good will gestures from these people. MR's have always worked for me, just to play it safe, and it eliminates the need to beg.

As other have mentioned there are buy-up opportunities, which does NOT include paying them cash, asking for the corresponding miles to be applied, and having the luxury of staying home.

SFOrunner

Does he have any travel remaining this year? If so, he can look to buy up to a higher fare class and pay the difference that way.

Ocn Vw 1K

Assuming that your PQDs are all UA mainline/United Express, your chances should be quite good of getting 1K. One easy way of ensuring it, would be to audit your flights to double check that they were all credited and that the PQMs posted in the correct amount. (A few years ago, I found a few of these short-credited PQM flights. This year and last, they seem to have posted correctly.)

Nihon_Ni

Personally, I wouldn't leave it up to United as I'd rather be in control of the outcome.

If you have any flights left for the year, you could try to SDC to add a stop. You wouldn't have to go out of your way very far to get an extra 160 PQM. That would be a lot easier than making a MR.

jsloan

I have yet to hear of an offer to pay cash to cover PQDs. Frankly, I can't figure out why not, since "Here, take my money" seems better from UA's perspective than "Here, take my money and provide a service." However, UA seems to insist that people fly in order to accumulate PQDs.

If he truly wants to spend the most money with the least travel, go to United.com, do an advanced search ("All Search Options" on some pages); then select "Business or First" and "Unrestricted Fares." You'll be amazed at how much United will allow you to pay for airfare.

For example, for $1787 ($1642 PQDs), he could fly PHX-SFO roundtrip on Saturday. You can do Denver as well for about the same price, but it requires a little extra finagling lest the result come up a little too cheap.

Having said that, what is it about *G that's worth $1600 to him? There may be cheaper ways to achieve his goals.

WineCountryUA

The January 2017 status buy-up ( 2017 UA MP elite status buy-up offers (for higher status than earned in 2016) ) for those that met the PQM levels but are short PQDs came pretty close to that.

jsloan

Ah, I stand corrected. I didn't think of that, since it's not presented in that manner. :-)

Of course, the problem is that there's no (known) way to guarantee that an offer will be made. Skimming the thread, it looks like people may be able to go to the URL and see if an account qualifies, but if not, I don't see any way to appeal.

pdg63

At least 29K was UA metal. Thanks for the tip on checking PQM posting.

I agree that ideally this wouldn't be left in UA's hands but due to some time constraints around working hours, SDC is not an option and I refuse to do a MR for 160 PQM. I think i'll take my chances.

PSTraveler

Hi all - I currently have 51K PQMs but am $33 short of $6,000 for 2018 Gold status. A United rep told me that it's likely that I'll be given Gold status despite being just short in PQDs, as I'm within a small $ amount of the hurdle. Can anyone confirm that United will do this with PQDs? Thanks!