thanks all

I'm with you, there is no way I can maintain gold status next year with these changes. Any suggestions on a good SA partner? I will be based in Asia next year so need one that flies intercontinental to US and back. My thoughts were Sing Air, Thai Air, ANA, AC or possibly Lufthansa. Which one is the easiest to maintain gold and provides fairly direct routes?

I suggest you figure out your planned 2020 travel schedule, city pairs and routings, carriers you prefer, and type of fares you plan on purchasing, and then determine which program fits you the best based on the qualification requirements and benefits offered. In terms of low mileage requirements to reach *A Gold, the lowest ones are usually A3, OZ, and TK, but again, depends on what fares you're purchasing and crediting.

Thai Airways (TG) does not fly to the USA. But Eva Air (BR) does, with connections through Taipei (TPE). :)

Looking at the results, roughly half of us should have or should be in the process of switching to another program.

I switched to DL. I have been busy booking partner flights to get to their MQD requirement. by the end of march. My last two UA flights are to and from SJD later this month. I burned pretty much all of my miles (I have like 10k left). I am losing 320 PP, but that is unavoidable. I tried to use the GPU's earlier this year but they would never clear. On the bright side, I already have 4 Global Upgrades on DL, so I got half back. I figure it is a fair trade.

Has anyone else actually moved?

I contemplated doing a DL status match, but with an infant in tow now, I have much less flexibility to go out an do a mileage run (even if I wanted to) in order to hit the benchmark for Platinum Medallion. Also, getting to EWR is simply far easier and more convenient, IMO, than having to deal with LGA and definitely JFK. No interest in flying DL out of EWR since it means I will have to connect pretty much anywhere I want to go.

So...I am sticking with UA. Hitting Platinum will be a cinch with my (soon-to-be) FPQP, and there's a possibility that, since most of my travel is going to be concentrated on business travel, that I can still make a run for 1K. It's unlikely, but there's more of a shot to keeping meaningful status on UA than it would be starting over on DL. I have not bothered considering AA given that they seem to be having a lot of trouble operationally, and some of their hard product is even more ancient than UA's.

I matched to DL and moved most of my travel, although as noted this was mostly because I relocated to a DL hub :)

I have still been splitting my time since I am using my 1K benefits until the last day and still have a sizeable stash of UA miles I can finally pay down since I don't need UA status credit. I doubt I will keep flying enough to make or retain DL DM, so I am getting comparably less out of my status there since it's a meaningfully lower level. However, positive-space SDC is a nice money-saving trick from time to time, and overall I've found the experience on DL to be a little bit better than UA (food, service, ops). So far my int'l travel has stayed on *A and I'm not really looking forward to flying with ST abroad, but it will probably be okay.

You could burn them on StW at 140 each.
Just matched to EXP. JFK over EWR, F lounges in HKG and TYO, and domestic clubs with showers. Will fly combo of AS, AA, JSX, and UA for domestic.

Do tell - I have no idea what this means but I am curious. What is StW?

Ah - a little googling. Skip the Waitlist. I am not sure I can - I would love to jet off in January - but I have to have my knee redone in the middle of the month. And I have three kids. I suppose it is possible but I am just not sure how I would handle an infant and two small kids on crutches.

No available foe Expiring PlusPoints (not offered until 1st Feb). ut there is a better discussion in https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...questions.html

Not moving as I am one of those who will benefit from the change - at least as long as I stay with my current employer/line of work. Instead of making MRs to barely make Gold, I should easily hit Platinum and maybe even 1K depending on how much added travel I have for the total year.

I’m mixed feeling over the change though. I don’t have time to travel on far away MRs unless it’s a vacation that I have already planned and I’m flying mostly OPM right now. At the same time, I already know that other airlines are better than UA for international travel and travel deals can come from anywhere. If I no longer have OPM in the equation, then I would most likely just fly free agency, only favoring UA domestically because of their hub dominance here.

Can’t wait to see if 2021 actually brings fewer in the Group 1 and 2 herds that are practically half the plane, if not more.

I status matched to Delta on 11/14. I basically stopped booking UA the week after the announcement came out, opened an AMEX Plat and CSR, canceled the Explorer (but kept the Club). I've had several flights on DL and the experience has been markedly better than with UA. From the clubs to the aircraft (A220 is awesome) to the front-line folks, I'm wondering why I waited so long. I can pre-order my meals, the offerings in the club beat most of the UA ones and the people just seem much more service/customer oriented. I'll be doing a couple international long hauls in January so will truly get to compare D1 and Polaris - but if it's anything like my experience domestically, (save the Polaris Lounges) D1 will surpass UA Polaris.

I'm loosing about 280 P+ but they're really of no use. It's been a cleaner break from UA than I thought (considering I was married to an FA for 12 years and have been flying UA since I was 13). But, so far very happy with the switch.

1K Looking
 

I've been 1K or higher for >10 years. I'm just short of 2MM, and will complete that milestone. After that, I'm going to shop around.

1k for 6 years straight. tired of annual changes. Remember the days of you just gotta fly 100k and you are done. Did a MR with flyertalkers to Bahrain via IAD early in my flyertalk career...good old days. this year put my tatl on free agency based on price since most of my travel was for fun. will fall short of 1k by 3500 PQD though i'll have over 100k pqm somehow. Only going to make one more trip already booked on UA to LAX and free agency year begins next year. doubt I'm ever going to put 100k pqm+ on the same carrier again, oh well. Guess UA got rid of us cheap flight scum...though I did put 6k on swiss and AC business this year because I was just dang tired of UA changing everything all the time (thus the high PQM and low PQD) and it was priced ridiculously: 5k business iah-gva UA/LH/SWISS while lax-gva on swiss was 2.4k rt for example (have a brother in LA i don't mind visiting!). Had a good experience with both carriers. Biggest miss will be 1k line. That was the only good thing since I usually just booked straight into business anyway, and rarely needed to clear upgrades. Losing 2 GPU/80 PP in Jan..applied 4 times and never cleared....and the 40PP gained for plat will be used asap.

2020 Star Alliance Elite Status?
 

Hi, current 1K (have been for at least 10 years), but I already know I'll be lucky to make just Gold with United with the changes for 2020. Are there any recommendations to collect in a different mileage program with a different airline to get top status? or should I just stick to the crappy United program and take what I can get? Also, any idea how they're gonna calculate lifetime miles with the new program?