chipmaster

What is the GS perk you are looking for?

Getting to be the very first to board, 1st in upgrade, GA waiting when you de-board with your name and a car waiting? ( any other secret perk )

I am with your wife, use your time/$ to enjoy vacations not spend time on a plane.

My CEO took two+ decades to get to 4M miles and is closing in on 5MM, we learned that over dinner and were teasing him about how many days of his life were spent on an airplane. Your schedule is putting you about one full month of the year on the airplane, not counting time to/from airport, lines, connections. Life is short enjoy it!

joe_miami

Nothing to back it up? Airline programs are changing all the time. The most valuable perk of GS is the upgrades, and anyone who believes the current upgrade system will look the same eight long years from now has a few screws loose.

findark

You know, I'll say this. If OP is going for it, he should try to do it all in one year. We discussed this earlier and while 4MM was determined to be physically impossible, I think with the 300k or so head-start it might actually be achievable if you get lucky and avoid being stranded at a foreign outstation by untimely MX. Best solutions I recall from that thread were like 3.8MM

boss315

I would eat ground glass first......

manstein58

Two Bee

I have gone over 3 MM's, and had a good time doing it (ALL on my own dime - and nothing close to the #'s being thrown around).

O/P, just do what you want, hopefully with the little woman's blessing, and don't let anyone, espousing FAKE NEWS try to scare you with unsupported, "The sky's gonna fall", rhetoric.

Frayed_Yak

I was mainly thinking about access to OW first class lounges (international and domestic), though I do get that for SFO this may be less appealing.

poohfighter

In terms of best bang for your buck without killing yourself, there are Europe-South America trips which run about $600-$900 that can be routed with stopovers in United Hubs in both directions. They produce about 20k miles and tend to be great because jet lag is minimized and they can be nested with other trips to europe. If you completed one of those routings every 2 weeks, you can easily fly 500k miles a year. Cheers!!

entropy

its not heroic, its silly. Spend money and time doing the things you want to do, life is short. I say that as someone who played the game and did Mileage runs, etc, but the game was different back then. I see little reason today to chase status, when you can buy all the benefits. You can buy F and J, for the flights you want to fly on, for less than monkeying around with all sorts of other flights wasting your time in Y so you can get a few nebulously nice experiences in the future?

I mean, on AC you can "buy" most of the F experience (Buy the F meals, and buy more legroom, including XR) for like $60 total on a transcon. And you can buy J/F very reasonably on a lot of routes in north america and internationally. I used to bank miles to fly J to TLV, but you can routinely get tickets for <$4k nonstop (vs. ~ 170k for connecting sub-optimal flights).

Is it really worth it to get a tarmac transfer in a nice car? (which you'd get anyways in paid J?)

And of course, if you have a year that you know is going to have intense travel, just do the prepaid 50k personal use, get GS for the year and bring your wife for saver points using the unpublished bennies,.

jhayes_1780

I've been thinking of a reason to support the OP to do this. But I just really am having a tough time coming up with one. I think the level of $$$ for the end goal could be used on so many other better flying/travel experiences. But for me one thing I can seem to overcome, is that the OP has only flown 350K miles on UA so far (and presumably 100K of those are in the last year, to get their current 1K status) so your looking to fly MORE then 10x your lifetime UA miles of a benefit that you have never experienced?

I would have a much easier time supporting you if you we looking to bump from 2.75Million to 3 or even 4 million. But to fly 3,750,000?

You mean scare you with the well documented case that UA had already weaseled out of a promised lifetime benefit?

WineCountryUA

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PBAudit

Flyme2theriver, I applaud your efforts. As someone who did something similar, (Making Lemonade Out of Lemons – How I made Lifetime GS) I understand and sympathize with proposed endeavor. It is always good to have a goal, and, after all, we live in a society where you should be free to choose how you wish to spend your money, time, interest, as long it is not harming others. I’ve looked at Flyertalk as a (relatively) “Safe Space” where we can discuss our eccentricities without the harsh judgment of the “outside world”.

I employed subterfuge to address the wife problem. Specifically, mentioned I was flying to gain/maintain status to allow us to upgrade to First Class on our trips to Hawaii. This was all she wanted to know.

Every situation is different, and mine was a little bit different than yours. My spark was when United implemented a minimum PQD ($10k, $12k) to retain 1k status. Buying cheap tickets created a conundrum as I outlined in my post. Over the next 4 years, I flew 1.38 million miles ($63.4k – PQD) to achieve Global Status (starting January 2018). During these 4 years, I looked for cheap Mileage Run opportunities including LAX-BAH ($700), SFO-PDX (via IAH) (<$200), SFO-SJU (<$400), SFO-DTW (<$200). Once I found these fares, I would go ahead and book several of these trips.

With respect to the parameters you outlined, I would look into the Pass Plus Flex program. Your objective is to fly as many miles, in the quickest amount of time. With $50k a year, and obtaining Global Status, here is what I would consider.

Fly SFO/SIN/SFO – Leave Friday night 11 pm, turnaround, return Sunday morning 9 am. You still will have all day Sunday to do other things. Since the plane turns around in Singapore, you do not need to worry about a missed connection. Look for weekends that appear to have light loads, so you may be able to get an empty coach seat next to you (or row). Price out W fares and selectively try to upgrade on some flight with a GPU. While flights are notoriously difficult to upgrade, as a GS, you should have a higher success rate. Also check Saturday/Monday flights. Once a month, 12 trips (16,888 miles) = 202.7k miles

Fly SFO/NRT/SFO - Leave Saturday Noon, turnaround, return Sunday 11 am. The plane turns around and gets you back to SFO within 24 hours. Once a month, 12 trips (10,248 miles) = 123.0k miles.

Fly SFO/HKG/SFO – Leave Friday afternoon, overnight, return Sunday morning. This requires an overnight stay in Hong Kong, but the flights are usually very cheap. 6 trips (12,828 miles) = 77.0k miles.

Fly SFO/IAD/SFO – Look for flights with lie flat seats. Look for cheap fares with IAD connections with lie flat seats. While there are chances of a plane swap, the chances of being upgraded (CPU) are very good.

Fly SFO/EWR or BOS/SFO – Find round trips for about $300, and use your RPU’s to upgrade. After your first year flying 400k miles, you will have 28 RPU’s. Also there are some times when the coach cabin in empty and you can get a row to yourself, where you may be able to save a RPU or two. 15 trips (5,269 miles) = 79.0k miles

With $50,000 to spend, you should have good selection of flights. Assuming you are OK with all this flying and have the time, you should be able to amass a minimum of 450-500k miles a year. Last year, I flew 450k miles ($18.1k PQD) and looking back, it was “a piece of cake”.

As a Global Service members for 6 months, the change has been day vs. night. As a 1k (on cheap fares), my upgrade rate was 10-15%. Now a GS (same cheap fares), my upgrade rate is 85-90%. I have been able to convert economy saver award 60k miles to business class (T fare, and PN fare) for a European trip later this month. I’ve had a few Mercedes transfer (very cool). I like the ability to board first (used to board at the end of Group 1 since I didn’t want to stand in line). Bypassing the SFO Pre check line is always nice. IRROPs is fantastic. This week on a BOS/SFO flight that was suffering mechanical delays. Gate agent came on board and told me I was also on the next BOS/SFO flight and she would come back onto the plane, when the next flight closing (boarding). My original flight was still delayed, and the agent came on board to escort me to the BOS/SFO flight just leaving.

IMO, the biggest concern would be United “normalizing” their Million Miler program. United is a huge outlier at 4 million miles (Global Services), when you compare this to Delta (Platinum) and American (Platinum). Knowing how United tends to follow Delta, it is quite surprising that they not devalued their million mile program.

Perspective – 25 years ago, I left the Corporate world to become an independent consultant. Several years later, I remember reading an article about Consulting. They asked a question, “knowing what you know now, if you could do it all over again, what you have you done differently”. My immediate response, was I wish I had started earlier. It was a positive indicator, that I had made the right choice.

If you ask me the same question about my sprint to Global Service, 4 million miles, my answer is exactly the same. I wish I had started sooner.

Good luck in your quest. If there is anything I can do to be of assistance, please feel free to ask.

spartacusmcfly

This won't work. The Fri flight arrives Sun morning. The new fare rules prohibit immediate turnaround. You would have to leave Thursday night...or return Sunday night.

Baze

Since when has UA been logical. They will do whatever they want with the program as witnessed in 2012 when they decimated the lifetime program. If they determine giving lifetime GS for 4MM is no longer beneficial to them they will stop. Sure they may grandfather the ones who have it, or change the names of the levels like they did in 2012 and say bye bye, there is no GS anymore so can't give you a lifetime status that doesn't exist, we will give you this status, like it or leave it. I am a Million Miler and left UA in 2016 and haven't been happier. Only on UA planes when absolutely necessary and other than free luggage and E+ don't really get much from my MM status. Out of SFO a Gold will never see an upgrade. And I book late due to they way work schedules happen and was looking at mainly middle E+ seats. So I said goodbye. Anyone who flies to get a Million Mile status is crazy, if it happens along the way, great, but I don't think anyone should ever shoot for the million mile levels as things can, and most likely will, change along the way and wouldn't a person feel silly to have invested all the time and money for something that suddenly went away. Well, that's my 2 yuan about the subject.

TomMM

Find a new job that requires travel and have them pay for it.