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Fasttrack to 4MM and Lifetime Global Services
My wife thinks I'm absolutely insane, but I have a goal to reach Lifetime Global Services with 4MM on United before we retire in 8 years. I'm 1k out of SFO, I don't travel much for work maybe 45k miles a year but I have an itch to get this done before retirement when the wife and I will pretty much just travel almost full time.
Current United Lifetime: 349,679 (in the past rarely flew United metal) Budget: ~$50k/year (contemplating Pass Plus to get Global Services ASAP) I'm calculating I need to fly 420k/miles a year. In mostly business class, I think I can get that done with $50k a year but would love to get thoughts from the community. Year 1 Plan East Coast 10 times - 50k Europe 10 times - 200k Asia 3 times - 80k Sydney x 2 - 64k Singapore - 30k Total: 424 Looking at this I am feeling batshit crazy, please tell me there are others out there that think this would be cool.. BTW: please don't flame me about what GS is worth or not, or god forbid how awful United is - I'm thinking of this as a challenge that is worthwhile. |
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Originally Posted by flyme2theriver
(Post 29938872)
My wife thinks I'm absolutely insane, but I have a goal to reach Lifetime Global Services with 4MM on United before we retire in 8 years. I'm 1k out of SFO, I don't travel much for work maybe 45k miles a year but I have an itch to get this done before retirement when the wife and I will pretty much just travel almost full time.
Current United Lifetime: 349,679 (in the past rarely flew United metal) Budget: ~$50k/year (contemplating Pass Plus to get Global Services ASAP) I'm calculating I need to fly 420k/miles a year. In mostly business class, I think I can get that done with $50k a year but would love to get thoughts from the community. Year 1 Plan East Coast 10 times - 30k Europe 10 times - 200k Asia 3 times - 80k Sydney x 2 - 64k Singapore - 30k Looking at this I am feeling batshit crazy, please tell me there are others out there that think this would be cool.. BTW: please don't flame me about what GS is worth or not, or god forbid how awful United is - I'm thinking of this as a challenge that is worthwhile. Where are you getting your lifetime status miles per trip calculations? Depending somewhat on the route and your location, a RT in coach to Europe at 100% miles earning is unlikely to yield 20,000 status miles per RT. Similarly, Asia from the west coast won't normally be over 25,000 status miles per RT at 100% earning. Purchasing business class or extremely expensive coach fares such as FULL Y will earn more miles, but exceed your budget. Will the time commitment interfere with your current and presumably full time job? |
Originally Posted by flyme2theriver
(Post 29938872)
...would love to get thoughts from the community...
BTW: please don't flame me about what GS is worth or not, or god forbid how awful United is - I'm thinking of this as a challenge that is worthwhile. I don't believe you can hit the numbers on your budget, and the time spent will be significant. You're probably better off just buying tickets smart when you want them going forward. |
Your "year 1 plan" won't give you 420K BIS miles on UA/UAX metal, assuming base SFO.
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
(Post 29938894)
Where are you getting your lifetime status miles per trip calculations? Depending somewhat on the route and your location, a RT in coach to Europe at 100% miles earning is unlikely to yield 20,000 status miles per RT. Similarly, Asia from the west coast won't normally be over 25,000 status miles per RT at 100% earning. Purchasing business class or extremely expensive coach fares such as FULL Y will earn more miles, but exceed your budget. Will the time commitment interfere with your current and presumably full time job? |
Originally Posted by flyme2theriver
(Post 29938911)
I pulled the rough calculations by looking at PQMs from previous flights. SFO to BCN as an example is 26k PQM depending on routing.
Sydney is 7,417 miles from SFO (a little more if you route via LA). ~15K return. ~30K if you do it twice. Not the 64K you've quoted. Somewhere your math is way off... |
Economy fares to Asia, especially, PVG and PEK, are very cheap from SFO. You can get a 10-yr Chinese visa for $140. You can take PVG trips in low seasons every weekend. You may likely get an E+ bench seat (3 seats in a row). You will need 40 such trips to get 0.5 M BIS miles. Assumed that each trip costs $500, the total will be $20K. good luck. |
My feedback: I agree with your wife.
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To be honest, I think you are crazy.....I retired 3 years ago but we have been fortunate to be able to travel a lot including Asia and Europe trips. So now I am sitting on almost 850,000 life time miles and not even thinking about trying to make a million and life time gold. Forget the cost, it is just not worth my time to spend that much time sitting on airplanes.
You asked for opinions.... |
Originally Posted by sbm12
(Post 29938902)
Do you want feedback or not?? :confused:
I don't believe you can hit the numbers on your budget, and the time spent will be significant. You're probably better off just buying tickets smart when you want them going forward. |
Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
(Post 29938894)
Purchasing business class or extremely expensive coach fares such as FULL Y will earn more miles, but exceed your budget. Meaning even though the OP will earn 2x for a P or higher fare for PQM yearly calculations; he'll only earn 1x for the BIS aka lifetime miles. Is my understanding correct? So buying business fares won't really help him? |
Originally Posted by laxmillenial
(Post 29938949)
So buying business fares won't really help him?
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you're right - thx I was conflating PQM with BIS.
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It's BIS miles. You probably should factor in the cost of a divorce if you actually try to pull this off.
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