WineCountryUA

For elites -- those not yet Silver, get actual mileage

FlyerTalker70

Depending on what your requirements are UA Gold may or may not be the best *A program for you. Other programs, like OZ will give you Gold for as long as 4 years after hitting 50,000 miles. They also have benefits that UA doesn't offer such as lifetime Gold after flying 500,000 miles across all *A partners (UA requires 1,000,000 entirely on UA metal). The primary reason you would choose UA over these programs would be:

• You intend on flying UA regularly and using the Premier benefits that go with it (i.e. free E+ seatings, 3 checked bags at 70 lbs, zone 1 boarding, etc.)
• Will be flying on the cheapest fares on the * network (i.e. K fares on UA which still earn 100% PQM) and are willing to commit to that year in and year out

Supposing you do want to move ahead with UA, the main question I have for you is:

• Where do you reside?
  • Non-US residents need only fly 50,000 miles with 4 segments on UA operated flights to qualify for Gold
  • US residents have an earning requirement unless you have a certain UA credit card (I'll let those familiar with this requirement comment on that)

In terms of finding the cheapest routings, that will very much also depend on where you reside. For instance, if you live in say Toronto, a flight to Asia or South Africa can easily get you 20,000 PQM roundtrip. As a matter of fact, last year, I took 2 flights to Asia (YOW>HKG and YYZ>SIN) which racked up around 40,000 PQM for myself due to my routings. In total I spent around $1,700 CAD on the two tickets. If you live in Europe there can also be good deals but keep in mind flights to Asia will only rack up 12,000-14,000 PQMs due to Geography. On the other hand, a flight to Australia/New Zealand can easily rack up 20,000 miles there. If you're specifically travelling from the UK, remember you'll pay a passenger duty on the outbound segment. There are ways around this (i.e. leaving from Dublin, Paris or nearby Inverness)Flights to North America aren't as great an option from there due to TATL flights now getting hit with Basic Economy not to mention that a flight like LAX > LHR will only net you 12,000 miles in an ideal scenario. From LATAM, in particular, South America, your best bets would be Europe, Africa and Asia routing through the US. FT has a forum dedicated to spotting fare deals and sharing it with the community, I'd recommend looking there. Another resource I use is Scott's Cheap Flights which is a free email newsletter sent out 1-2 times per day that shares fare deals based on where you live. I have an email filter set up so it only leaves fare deals that involve the * carriers.

In terms of what's a good price try to aim for the miles to cost you 2 to 3 cents (USD) per mile when pricing out itineraries. Typically the cheapest way to get to Gold will also happen to be the method that requires taking the fewest number of trips.

Hope that provides some guidance.

Safe Travels,

James

ContinentalFan

ngarcia79

Hello all. I'm a new user here. I have recently flown multiple overseas longhauls to Hong Kong. I have met the PQD qualifier but I am 10,558 miles short of receiving my next status upgrade. I know I have plenty of time before the end of the year but I don't really have any plans to travel much more this year where I would earn enough miles to qualify without doing some sort of points run. Any ideas on some good places to look?

Saw a decent deal to Singapore where I would also earn 3 times the miles on flights to Singapore before the end of May. Prices were pretty reasonable but was wondering if there was any other options out there.

Based in Tampa but frequently fly up to ORD

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Noah

WineCountryUA

Welcome to FT!, ngarcia79
As this is a regular discussion area, will merge this in a "consolidated thread"

These threads may help
UA/Star Alliance: 2019 Consolidated Mileage/Status/Challenge Runs help needed
Mileage Run Discussion
Mileage Run Deals
Premium Fare Deals

Poor man's MR planner
Google Flights enter a starting airport, leave the destination blank, select airlines - Star Alliance, set travel days and max cost and view the Map for options. Try multiple dates.
kayak.com/explore has similar functionality

ContinentalFan

LoungeLizardHugo

Searched here and elsewhere but can't find what I'm looking for.

Starting from scratch (no miles/no status on any airline), what is the quickest, fastest way possible to achieve MP Premier Platinum? No United credit cards, but probably every other card :-) Fly F or J to SIN or SYD a few rimes? Or? Try to add a ton of stops? I'm on west coast USA if it matters. Thanks in advance, and appreciate suggestions!

findark

This hardly seems practical, but since you did only specify "fastest"... off the top of my head something like SFO/LAX-IAD-SFO-SIN and v/v in full J will earn a little more than 75,000 PQM and certainly more than 9k PQD.

If you are interested in a slightly more economical way of dumping $9,000 into a status run and getting 75k PQM right away, I would also look at full J to GUM via creative routings.

jsloan

UA doesn't offer F; flying Z fares from SFO to SIN three times would get you Gold and 5 times would get you Platinum. You could do it in a little over a week if you were really motivated.

That said -- why do you want status, and Platinum in particular? Platinum isn't much of an upgrade over Gold.

Zorak

Wouldn't the fastest way be to marry or move in with a MM+ Plat and have them designate you as their companion? whether that's more cost-effective than dumping $9k into a status run depends on whether marriage/inheritance is involved and the terms of the prenup etc I guess

WineCountryUA

Any cost constraints?
From the thread's wiki

findark

I feel like the amount of time to arrange that (plus the time to register as an MM companion in the UA system) is probably higher than hopping on the next flight and staying on it until you get to 75k

wco81

To make Gold. Yeah I know, I probably shouldn't bother because of the devaluations but I would have gotten it until they changed the P fare earning from 200 to 150%.

I have enough segments and PQDs already.

So the idea is to do another TATL in August/September, which would be my third this year. I think it would be too close if I just went for a transcon. Probably end up at least a few hundred miles short of 50k PQM.

Plan would probably be to fly into VIE and fly out of INN.

If I do the outbound by mid August and come back early September, I can get a P fare for about $2800.

Otherwise, coach would be about $1500 and I could go about 2 weeks later, which would work better for me.

For flying in J, I could take the LAX-VIE direct on OS, which people have raved about. Alternative is UA direct from SFO to either FRA or MUC. For the return dates I am targeting, there is no OS VIE-LAX that I could see, at least probably not at the sale prices.

Or I may just save $1300 and fly coach. Not sure if OS Y is worth flying through LAX. Maybe I could pay a one-way SJC-LAX separately.

I guess if I'm flying through LAX, might as well try the Polaris lounge there but it would be a long slog from Terminal 7 to TBIT? I've done it, not sure that I really want to do it again. For one thing, on a separate ticket, I would fly some other airline down there, make way to Terminal 7 to check in, then go through security there to get to Polaris Lounge and then get over to TBIT?

GBadger

Totally depends on your comfort level in Y, but it seems to me that you can get 6-7k PQM for a whole lot less than $2800 (or even $1300) if you fly domestically. I would be surprised if you couldn't make it work for <$600. If you want/need to go to Europe anyways then that's another story.

Santander

SFO-BOS/EWR will easily get you over 7k PQM in relative comfort for around $1k. Of course, if you're looking for an excuse to go to Europe, you could find a cheap one-way to Europe and fly back on a cheap TP J fare ex-Europe. DUB-LIS-SFO one-way on 8/23 is available for $728 and will earn about 6700 PQM. SFO-JFK-FRA on AS/SQ is available in August for $459 one-way, and you'd earn PQMs on the TATL leg.