$95 credit card = BG2, free checked bag, expanded award space, two lounge passes
$400 + afternoon of flying = BG2, free checked bag, expanded award space, E+, premier phone line, premier check-in line

So do you value premier lines plus E+ more or less than two lounge passes plus $300?

$600+ for an E+ subscription fyi so that's how United values that. You may value it differently.

Yes to both.

If on the same PNR, yes

What are your typical destinations? Depending on where you fly, your CPU percentage could be 100% or 0% (or anywhere in between), and a high CPU % would be easily worth $400.

I'd add in "chance at an upgrade". Each year I've been Premier Silver, including this year, I have managed to get a few upgrades (I was 5/23 this year) so I think it should be listed as a possible benefit.

I just got my first upgrade, IAD to LGA. Granted it was late on a Sunday. My direct flight got cancelled (thunderstorms all over the northeast) and I was auto-rebooked to a 6am departure the next morning, but a call to the premiere desk got me rebooked to LGA instead of EWR with a quick stop in IAD.

I do think my lowly Silver status got me to an agent quicker, and that agent was helpful in getting me home 3 hours late as opposed to the next day. And the cup of wine in the somewhat comfortable first class seat on an E175 from IAD to LGA was nice. Two things the credit card doesn't give me.

Would I put a high dollar value on it? No.
Was it nice? Yes.

Probably much quicker. In bad IRROPs, it can be hours quicker. I've also seen UA block a few seats for elites on flights during IRROPs, so you end up confirmed instead of standby. How much that's worth to you depends on where you fly and your personality, of course.

Not sure how bad the phones were last Sunday afternoon, but when I called in I had an agent on the phone in about a minute, and confirmed seats on the new flights (in E+) about 3 minutes after that. So, really happy with that status perk if the other option was 30 minutes on hold and ending up with a "standby, go to the airport and good luck" statement.

Not entirely true. The 500 mile minimum PQM earnings per segment could be helpful for one who flies a number of <500 mile segments and would otherwise be short of the requisite 50K PQM for Premier Gold.

My current situation is a case in point. I requalified for Premier Gold this year with 51K+ PQM. Had I started 2018 with no status, I would only have 49,340 PQM (actual BIS miles up to 25K, then greater of BIS or 500 miles/segment thereafter) and Premier Silver status for 2019.

Is there a new thread for 2019, or are we continuing this one?

It looks like the Wiki needs to be updated in regards to baggage on three points (as of Sept 28 2018):

Checked baggage allowance
Business/First/Polaris: 3 bags at 70 lbs (2 bags w/o status)
US-to-Europe: 2 bags at 70 lbs
All others: 1 bag at 70 lbs

Typically we wait until folks start discussing what there should try to earn for status in the next year, 2019 in this case. 2018 is a still an open issue with the January buy-ups.

Done

Newbie 1k PQM away from hitting Silver
 

I don't have any upcoming flights for the rest of 2019. I would really like to hit silver, but need a strategy. Can anyone recommend a way for me to hit the 1k PQM I need for Silver status ? Should I just book a flight and but not actually go?

You have to fly to get 25k pqm. Or use premier accelerator.

If i were you id fly. So many cheap flights out there.

If you book it and don't go you won't get the PQMs. Throw some dates into Google Flights and just do a mileage run. You should be able to knock that out in a few hours.