Earning more PQMs Being Based Europe?
 

Hi,

Thanks for all your help, I've submitted my change of address to United so I'm off the PQD hook. Now onto the PQM hook!

Since Europe is so small (compared to the USA) racking up PQM is kind of tough! Particularly for me being based in France which is kind of the center of western Europe.

So are there any tips people have?

One direction I thought is can I get 150%, 200% or even 300% PQM if booking in the right class. As I understand it, as long as the ticket is an 016 ticket I'll get multiple PQM.

Any other suggestions/directions?

Ticket stock (or use of UA as ticketing agent) has no impact on PQMs.
Fare class, operating carrier and program crediting are the only factors.

Don't chase UA status based on flights within Europe. That's almost certainly a money-losing proposition.

Fly whatever airlines are cheap and go where you need to be without the extra connections. Pay the few dollars for the legroom and priority boarding. I bet you come out ahead in the end.

So I can fly any Star Alliance carrier so long as I credit it to my UA Mileage Plus account?

I guess I never knew that as I was always interested in RDMs.

Yeah, that's the other strategy I'm going to explore. The EU carriers all have reasonable Premium Economy classes. But if I can get UA Gold fairly easy, why not? Useful for lounge access when flying in Europe on a Star alliance carrier.

United has a slightly different mileage accrual chart for each star alliance Carrier based on booking class you should probably reference that before making a ticketing decision.

https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/mar...ate=2017-08-01

Here's a grab bag of tips that I've learned over the last few years being based in Europe:

1. Always check the MileagePlus earnings tables as you're looking for flights, to be sure your fare earns mileage. E.g. watch out for K fares on Lufthansa, which do not earn PQMs

https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/Mar...spx?itemid=343

2. Check your fare class before booking - Lufthansa and SWISS websites have an option to see more info about the fare, and you can see fare classes easily. Note that choosing a higher fare family, e.g. "Classic" vs. "Light" usually doesn't change your fare class.

3. If you're already Premier, remember that you have the 500-mile minimum earnings on certain carriers, so if you are based in Paris, for example, and flying to Italy, connecting in Brussels will give you 500 miles for the first segment, not 156 miles. This gives a nice bump up on short intra-Europe flights, so you can keep it in mind when choosing itineraries. Note that this applies to certain airlines only e.g. SWISS, Lufthansa, but not others, e.g. TAP - so check the tables in no.1 again

4. Booking business class can be a way to top up your account if you need to, and occasionally it's not much more than Economy, but again check no.1 : only certain airlines give you extra PQMs for higher classes, e.g. SWISS, Lufthansa, Austrian, Brussels.

5. For intra-Europe, I find that Brussels, TAP, and Eurowings often have fares that are competitive with Ryanair, Easyjet, etc. (yes, you can earn PQMs on Eurowings even though it is not Star Alliance - we can make this tip no.6 ;)) - BUT, TAP and Eurowings can be a gamble because you only find out your booking class after purchase, and certain booking classes do not earn PQMs. If you book Eurowings via Lufthansa.com, or either one via Expedia, you should be able to see the booking class prior to booking however.

Hope some of this helps!

Yes, that's the great benefit of the non-US address. You don't have to worry about ticket stock for elite qualification purposes.

There are other considerations, as others have noted.

Doing at least one TATL RT on UA metal in J to the US west coast with a domestic US connection per year is enough to get you the 4 segment requirement and (almost) UA*S. Try to aim for EWR/BOS instead of ORD/IAH/IAD/... and continue to SFO/LAX, since most TATL fares include access to the p.s. flight inventory for no additional cost (although some may be P0 during peak times), making your travel just a bit more comfortable.

Add another east coast trip and together with a few flights intra-EU you'll qualify for UA*G easily.

Some premium fares intra-EU can be had for cheap, e.g. CDG-LHR, BRU-LHR, BRU-CDG, AMS-CDG due to the serious competition of the train on those segments.

I concur.

The *A partners are getting more and more stingy.
It looks harder than ever to get any PQM's on LX flights.
SA, TK and AC are quickly approaching equally bad.
The ROI for pumping in more $$$ is falling rapidly.

At least LH is participating in TSA pre-check now...

what are you talking about?

AC and LX earn at least 100% PQM an pretty much all fares. Except intra-Canada flights which makes sense because they don't want to compete that way with UA. So these are extremely generous earnings. So what exactly is your concern?

To the OP, LX in Europe is a really good alternative.

I appreciate that K fares on LX and OS earn PDMs (but not PQS). Of course, K fares on LH earn nothing.

This is extremely time consuming, I can tell you that. For me, it's a puzzle I have some fun figuring out but most people aren't going to want to put that kind of time into it. I spent six hours last night squeezing over 13k PQM out of a CRW-LHR-DUB-BOS ticket that runs over the course of a month for requalification purposes. It didn't cost me anymore money wise, just my time searching and on a bunch of stupid connections in Y. 😂