uanj

OP, I think you should follow where you heart leads you. If you are serious about this, I would caution you on the amount of time it would take and the impact (positive and negative) on your lifestyle. Why not try out GS for a few years by sticking to UA metal on your current travel plans or buy Pass Plus which gets you GS? Over a couple of years you can try out GS and make the decision if you want to go for the 4 million or not.

I'm well beyond 4 million. I can see no difference between GS under a million BIS or over 4. You can give it a test run with Pass Plus. Good luck and safe travels.

JDT1955

I've been at this 30 years and was helped immensely by living in Cleveland and flying Continental domestically and United for most international, achieving Platinum and 1K, respectively, most years. I was pretty well respected by both airlines, but when they merged, I suddenly was at 3.6MM and someone to be reckoned with. I (and many others) were also greatly helped by the fact that Continental factored fare class into their BIS calculations, and when the merger occurred, the United BIS miles were similarly up-sized to reflect the fare class. That little boost is sadly no more, and now it is literally grind them out your butt-in-any-seat's-the-same miles. As someone worked the math earlier, your quest requires just about a year in the air, probably two with turn-arounds and airport waits, so a quarter of your next eight years to do this. What's your wife going to be doing all this time??? Just invest in some great trips together now and then accelerate when you retire with all the money you've saved by not engaging on this quest and getting divorced!

Nihon_Ni

If it were me, I'd fly what I had to until retirement, perhaps playing the loyality game around the edges to make my required business travel more appealing (i.e. fly extra miles/legs to get Gold out of those ~45k PQM annually), and then I'd bankroll the extra money required to get the additional ~3 MM over the next 8 yrs.

Once I retired I've give up on the airlines completely and charter my own flights. The level of service you can get on business jets makes GS look like child's play. No long lines at check in, no TSA pat downs, no waiting in crowded clubs, no race to get in line in BG1, no waiting for your departure time, no missed flights -- just walk into the corporate side of the airport where your flight crew is waiting for you to arrive, where you and your wife and whomever else you wish to tag along will be whisked off in style to your destination. (Once you buy the airplane, you can fill the seats up or not for the same price.) The money you're considering using to make a run at LT GS would buy a lot of personal charter service

(Full discoloure: I'm a corporate pilot who also travels like a regular United customer every few weeks.)

findark

All round-trip fares below M and D have a 12-hour minimum stay; however there are some relatively inexpensive one-way fares.

Frayed_Yak

I get that GS is better compared to CK than OWE. However, absent information on future travelling patterns, I don't think Lifetime GS is a clear slam dunk over Lifetime OWE. If you're flying alliance partners internationally, for example, GS won't necessarily mean a better experience than OWE. My impression is that GS is generally only super valuable on UA.

laxmillenial

Oh Yes. You are correct. I assumed that the OP would be traveling a lottttttt on UA post retirement hence the push for GS and rather not just Lifetime *G. It's a big jump from 1 Million -> 4 Million.