notquiteaff

There are occasionally targeted spend promos such as

UA Select Visa: 3x on Gas, dining thru June 30
UA Select Visa: 5000 bonus miles for $3k spend (Q4)

that, depending on one’s circumstances and card portfolio, might make a temporary shift of spend worthwhile for a few extra miles.

Other than that, there is probably no reason to wait. A reason not to wait is the risk of forgetting to cancel later on.

STS-134

Here are the prices I see:
Paid membership, 1K and GS - $550
Paid membership, Platinum - $600
Paid membership, other - $650
United Club Card - $450

So you are literally paying $100-200 more by not going through the card. Is there some Chase rule that prevents toy from getting the Club card in addition to your grandfathered one? I am unaware of such a rule. And getting another card is NOT going to tank your score. Part of it is average account age (so opening lots of accounts actually helps you open more in the future with less of a hit to the score) and another part is % utilization, which is lower (better) with more open cards. I have 7 cards open and last time I checked my score, it was 850.

milepig

sorry. There were a couple parenthetical clauses in your phrase and my poor old eyes read is as the membership fee was $100. But, in any case I’ll be leaving Chase and UA, so it’s all moot.

STS-134

Yep, can't change the past, but I agree that this is the best decision moving forward.

It's pretty hilarious that my wife just got a Club card offer with a $0 first year annual fee in the mail yesterday, exactly one week after UA made changes that made her husband pull all business from UA. Might have gone for it if we were planning a lot of domestic travel next year.

VetteElite

I just got the $0 first year Club card mailer yesterday. I actually just got the Explorer a few weeks ago for the sign up bonus since I could use the miles and expanded award availability on an upcoming vacation. My problem (and the reason I'm going to keep the card probably even longer than just the 1st year) is that I'm a true free agent who also has a need to get to ORD and EWR a few times a year which is not enough PQM (or now PQP) to get any status, yet keeps me flying United since I want the direct flights and (in the case of ORD) don't care for American. So for me the card gets me Group 2 boarding, 2x miles on the airfare, and expanded award availability and thus is like a silver-lite status for a free agent like myself. I don't see why anyone with real status would keep the card around.

uastarflyer

Has anyone since the epic Premier deval been offered any retention options when calling to cancel Explorer or Club cards?

I am sure they are letting folks cancel discontinued cards with zero resistance.

DCEsquire

I understand the cards earn points at different levels but what's the reason you would want to transfer points between CFU to CSR if they are both redeemed at a 1:1 ratio.

STS-134

CSR is required to transfer points to other loyalty programs so redemption values are much better when the points are under the CSR.

RobH

Canceled my presidential plus MasterCard. The best they could do was a $100 statement credit. I declined it

DeaconY

Curious if anyone had any thoughts about the ability to use multiple UA cards (personal and business) to aid in buying down the PQP levels? Say you have a personal Club card and the Business Explorer cars, do you think they’d let you credit 1000 PQP from each?

sgfood

I did the same two days ago, PP MC, only offered me $65. When agent asked why I told her the loss of waivers. She just said thanks for past membership and cancelled

Brucemcdou

So you're thinking of stacking? Getting/keeping multiple cards to stack the max PQP credits? Assuming you can spend enough on each separate card to max out the PQP permitted, I'd say it would be one year before they'd close that loophole. And is the 500 or 1000 in extra PQP worth the huge amounts of spending you'd need to do on those cards, which spending wold earn more RDM on other cards?

WineCountryUA

From the main thread
but you need the spend on each card separately

DeaconY

Thanks! I missed that one. The thread was getting a little long to read through completely via mobile.

Definitely something to consider depending on how the year plays out in terms of progress towards status. I have more than a few good MS venues, so even hitting $72k in spend over a couple of cards isn’t insurmountable it it would get me over the next threshold. Hypothetically of course!

uastarflyer

I may now still hold onto Select for the Choices option. But need to see if the 5k RDMs still get posted annually or not. If they do, this is a pretty low cost sock drawer card.