chavala

I like your plan : )

guw

Ha! I was thinking the same. All of my paid upgrades or paid business fares were mostly Z (if not D) given availability at booking time FRA-SFO-FRA. It's usually hard to get P inventory there. However, I recently scored three good P roundtrip tickets Jan-Mar (2k€ each). Sight.

It's still better then Lufthansa Miles & More, though. LH's P fare only gets 100% status miles if you are collecting with Miles & More. A (most of the time) cheaper E fare (Premium Economy) gets you more status miles than P.

Ocn Vw 1K

This is one reason why i think Plat. will stay as a popular and meaningful UA level. Other reasons: Plat. was the top published level in legacy Continental and many of the post-merger UA flyers are from the legacy CO ranks. DL -- oft-emulated by UA -- seems to be solid with its Plat. level, and it was DL's highest published level, too, prior to Diamond.

As others have said, and I agree, it depends on your travel patterns. Based out of SFO, there are oodles of GS and 1K, so, as a 1K, I was often 3rd/4th on the UG list for popular elite-booked flights. As Plat, I may be 8th or 16th, but when the door closes, I'm in the same E+ seat as when I was typically 1K. As Plat, I do get free SDC/SBY privileges, freedom from most M+, and call-center fees, and have cleared CPUs when I'm away from SFO/ORD/EWR hub flying.

Aussienarelle

If they were to make that change this 1MM would hope there was a grandfathering/mothering clause for Gold but do understand why they would do this as I think they have far more 1MM than they may like - I did most of my 1MM on UA (only a little was on CO).

I see your reasoning from UA's side for keeping Platinum but for this pax Platinum has little benefit unless they are going to differentiate the PE/PP product for Platinum members.

narvik

I don't, which is why it is likely to happen!

Actually, I believe that has been their go-to excuse on many occasions!

Totally agree with this, and is also my experience for 2018.

schlang

this is not correct. while P is almost everytime < 2k€ you pay always more than 2.2k€ for E

IAH-OIL-TRASH

But as we have all experienced, it is nonetheless a valid (considering it's UA) excuse...

flyerbjorn

So 2019 will be the last year to enjoy lots of RPUs? Bring it on!

I prefer upgrade certificates to CPU. Upgrade certificates allow you to request upgrades for the flights you care about.

tomwhom

The biggest draw to me as 1K is 6 GPUs and to less extent no award fee & IRROP treatment, the Polaris lounge food is not better than those at Centurion lounge SFO and Polaris on board meal is much inferiour to NH, BR, SQ’s and I don’t drink Alcohol so can’t compare, normally I board 20 to 25 minutes before gate close so the pre-boarding means nothing to me. This is my second 1K year and I will re-qualify next year, so far I have successfully applied all 12 GPUs for my TPAC flights as I only buy tickets with R >=1 (I’m super flexible). Since my travel is almost exclusively TPAC SFO to East or Southeast Asia I really don’t care CPU or RPU, I wasted all RPUs though I tried to upgrade my non-elite friends but failed. My travel pattern is each year I have 7 TPAC round trips and my 1K strategy before this devaluation is: 2 Award first/ business RT ( BR from UA RDMs and SQ from Amex Platinum and Chase CSR) + 2 paid P RT (8500 to 9000 PQD 65K PQM ) + 3 paid W round RT (4000 to 4500 PQD 35K PQM), my total spending is around $14K (PQD + tax), averaging 2K per round trip with credit card points. You can see I’m a marginal but happy 1K since I can sleep flat which is single most important thing to me.

I’m OK with UA’s new ‘enhancement' and I can live with it. My new strategy of next year is: 1.5 award RT + 2.5 paid P RT (11000 to 12000 PQD, 65K PQM) + 3 paid W RT (45 PQD 35K PQM) as long I can get GPU cleared I would be still happy. The new total yearly spending will be around 17K averaging 24K per round trip, still not bad, huh?

Do you think this makes sense or am I a little crazy to be UA’s refuge? Every one’s travel pattern and value proposition is different.

I don’t know what to do if UA raise PQM to 125K or PQD to 18K or 20K in the future? I just checked Cathy Pacific’s top tier 4 system wide free upgrades qualification, it seems too difficult to achieve 160 tier points to get this benefit, for me I have fly 6 round trip discount business and 1 PE trip to get 160 tier points and possible total spending 25K north, too much stretch so not option.

narvik

"No additional Regional Premier Upgrades can be earned after qualifying for Premier 1K status."

This devaluation is not really effecting me negatively; I have 22 RPUs right now, all of which are likely to expire.

John Aldeborgh

vsevolod4

Not happy at all about the RPU restriction -- that's about 10 fewer RPUs for me per year. This will harm my friends and family.
Maybe with fewer RPUs floating out there, the odds of getting upgraded on a transcontinental p.s. flight from EWR or IAD to LAX or SFO will increase. Sadly these are few and far between.
Changing from two GPUs every 50K miles above 100K to one per 25K is good because for example last year I ended up with 242,422 miles, and would have gotten at least one more GPU. But it really should be one every 16,667 miles ... 100K divided by 6 ... to accumulate at the correct pace.
As a 3MM lifetime 1K, I'm not as concerned about the $15K PQM; been averaging $24K/year. But they don't give out the 6 GPUs until I hit $12K, which usually is around 125K. I suppose now I'll get 7 GPUs at that point (or 8 GPUs when I hit $15K at 150K).
What I don't know is what happens if I don't hit 100K and/or $15K at some point in the future.
When it comes to the RPUs, apparently I get 2 RPUs at hitting 75K/$9K, but if I don't, I still get 2 RPUs.

What are the policies for GPUs for lifetime 1Ks?
And I should hopefully hit 4MM and lifetime GS in the next 2 years, so ditto same question for GS.

UA_Flyer

I earned 30 last year and everyone of them gets used in the 2018 calendar year. This one hits me hard.

PPM

I am probably at the opposite end of this discussion. For the last several years, I have reached 1K by July, and end the year have acquired 200,000 miles or more with a spending well over 30,000. This is not enough for GS status but still puts me in the same "bucket" for GPUs, RPUs, and award travel as those who barely reach 100,000 and spend $12,000. This year I reached 1K in July, but have 4 GPUs from last year (due to the extra ones given after reaching 1K) that I will need to forfeit because I am not able to use them, despite multiple email complaints to the 1K desk and completely available premium class cabins. I don't even keep track of RPUs, because those are truly only instruments that are allocated at the gate if no one wants to pay a small fee to upgrade. I will forfeit at least 6 of these this year. I don't know but wonder if this is an attempt to further reduce the competition for the program perks. While I hate to say that with so many miles and a spending pattern well over $12,000, I think I should have greater access to GPU availability and award travel.

WineCountryUA

For LT 1K/GSs, if they don't re-qualify as 1Ks during the year, will received the 6 GPUs and 2 RPUs at the end of the year.