Parikh1234

Does anyone know if the 30 day extension applies to global services challenges? I lost GS last year but got a challenge and there’s no way I’ll get the $18k by end of April due to restricted travel.

uastarflyer

I agree. Some of us here assumed UA wasn’t even considering this angle. Obviously enough folks have asked the question so they responded.

Truth is nobody knows the answer. But if we are all grounded into Q3 I assume they will do something.

almostfrench0612

I don’t think so - I just checked my challenge and it still says end of April

garykung

We can't demand UA to do anything for any of us. This is a straightly business decision. Beside - this is not yet a final decision. So to say, how UA handled this (i.e. poor) is immature.

However, the email is indeed poorly written. UA's business is in jeopardy because of the coronavirus situation. So sending an email addressing what UA will do can provide assurance to its customers. But when UA starts using the term "no plan", regardless how it will turn out, it gives an impression that UA does not even care, making its loyal customers even panicking more. And distinguishing normal elites against challenging elites? That optic isn't good.

UA screwed up a lot in the PR perspective. I would say UA has not learned its lesson well since Dao incident.

UA can simply say, due to the developing situation, we can't be certain how we can help our elite customers. And we will provide an update as soon as things are more clear. Using the word "no plan"? Be honest does not mean you can win your customers.

WineCountryUA

Probably too early to know.
The UA letter about non-GS challenges stated

emcampbe

I agree, as well. They don’t have the full plan since no one really knows exactly where this is going, or how far down the path the disruption will take us. We basically all know that, but they are saying that they will be evaluating. Completely makes sense to me.

not sure if you got the same email as me - I looked back multiple times for the words ‘no plan’, and never saw that at all. my best guess is you are referring to this sentence:

it doesn’t say they have no plan, it literally says they are not planning any changes, presumably, at this moment. Also specifically says they will look at options as they see how much this thing affects air travel (my read: how long these biz travel bans are in effect, since that is likely the biggest impact to how much, specifically their premier members, will travel.

As to challenge vs. earned premier status, I can see your point, but given the difference where challenges are all short term, while folks have longer to make up for regularly earned status, I suspect this is the reason. If travel bounces back fairly quickly (IMO, doubtful), then they likely don’t need to make changes. If this goes on longer term (3, 4, 6+ months, which I suspect it will, not to mention any further general economic impacts (ie, recession), which are more likely the longer this goes on at at least the status quo), and I bet you’ll start to see either status extensions or offers. ie, they will look at those options if they feel they need to. IMO, they basically said this. Yes, the specific words are different, but basically, the same thing.

thedon

I think they are phrasing it negatively to encourage people to travel, i.e. that if they say we will extend qualifying or similar, frequent fliers would reduce travel even more.
So on one hand they can't say nothing, but on the other they don't want to make their situation even worse.

LondonElite

Don’t get hung up on semantics. They could easily have said ‘no intentions’ which I think is right anyway. There is no way they will hand out elite freebies this early in the year. Perhaps in December there may be a bit of tallying up, but not now.

chleonard

I work for a large agency with a sizable overseas workforce, and we just this week finally received guidance. Only mission-critical travel is allowed (both domestic and international) and must be approved in advance at the A/S level. Also discussion of ramping up remote work in the near future. No restrictions on personal travel, besides strongly discouraging travel to current hotspots. No travel effects for me, but I've had a few subordinates who had to cancel travel (including a trip to SE Asia that involved some creative routing to avoid hotspots).

I recently moved to a largely no-travel position so I was expecting to lose all status at the end of this year anyway.

jjmoore

Same here. Only absolutely necessary travel is being allowed for me at this point too, which means I am grounded. Missing out on 2 TPAC trips this year already, and potentially a third. Without those trips, my domestic travel will only be enough to maintain Gold (I'm MM so that doesn't even matter). The int'l would have easily put me over 18K PQP. I won't even hit 6K, especially if this drags on for months, which I am suspecting may happen now. I have been 1K for 5 years and GS for another 4 years. I would hate to see my status drop to G, especially when the year started out in a strong pattern.

I suspect that if this drags on for several months and UA does not change their qualification requirements, FAR fewer people will have status next year.

milypan

The actual statement was that they have no plan at this time ("...we are not planning any changes for our 2021 Premier program but we will continue to evaluate our options as we learn more..."), which is corporate speak for "we definitely have been talking about plans, but we don't want to reveal them right now for business reasons."

They would be insane to announce a status extension now -- why would they want to further kill demand? Leave that announcement for the fall, when it can't affect booking behavior any more.

Of course they have to announce the challenge extension now; for those people it is already "the fall" of their challenge periods.

At the end of the day UA will make a simple business decision. If too many current elites cut travel in 2020, and they don't want to risk large-scale defections to DL and AA via status match, they'll do an extension. If not, they won't. Factors that will have no impact on the decision are things like "loyalty", "earning things the hard way", or whose money paid for your tickets.

Every airline will be doing the same analysis, but there is no reason to announce it at the beginning of the year. That would be silly.

mrmoo

I've always wondered about this. Aren't status matches a once-per-lifetime event? I.e. if I status match to AA then I cannot status match at AA in the future, correct? Maybe I'm in the minority but I wouldn't status match unless I was serious about switching loyalty on a mostly permanent basis, no?

jsloan

Each company has its own rules. Once every five years or so appears to be normal.

milypan

Varies by airline. AS is "once in a lifetime", though I doubt that's strictly enforced. UA is once every five years, and I believe through my employer's travel program we qualify once every three years. DL is once every three years. AA you actually have to pay $200 to start the challenge, so they probably don't care how often you do it.

mrmoo

Interesting, thanks for the information. I've always shyed away from these matching programs because I didn't want to burn my lifetime ticket. If things do go south for UA and me, maybe I'll see what AA or DL is like for a few years.