Should We Assume The end of PQP Bonuses, Plus Point and Status Extensions?
 

Given the price of airfare is now double last year and United has already extended plus points multiple times, extended status several times and reduced the target for premier status in 2022 for 2023...

Can we assume the following for planning purposes?

No more significant bonus offers.
No more status extensions.
Only the traditional 80 PPs extended assuming you reach 1K in 2022

That would be my guess but curious what others are planning for.

I don't think UA even knows the answer to this yet.
There was already a bonus this year for some

As for your question, I'd never plan for yes.

I was just thinking the same thing last couple of days. Likely nothing more.

Only way that changes IMO is if the current market dip becomes a 2008-size crash and/or we’re in a deep recession by Q3/Q4 (we’re likely to be in one as we already have one of two quarters of GDP contraction under our belt), the question is is it mild or worse?

24K PQP

Bring back 100,000 miles while at it.
And no more extensions of PPs please!

Other than the credit card one presently occurring?

zero promos -- doubt that
Smaller, more targeted, more likely

baring another set back, probably not

Anyone claiming they do is claiming they can predicting the future which the past few years should suggest the foolhardiness of that stance

UA will certainty go there once,if, things improve

If recent events did not undo this, can not imagine what would it take to make that happen

After no travel for two years I think we're putting this year to bed.

I've been talking in other threads about bumping up to Business/Polaris for some international travel but now I'm hesitant about safe travel this year.
Probably staycation for the rest of the year. Living in Dana Point isn't so bad.

(Although my wife's 20th reunion is in ND, August. Might make a road trip of it from CA. Requalify for my Hilton Diamond. UA Gold can wait till next year.

In addition, not in lieu.

At 24KPQP, the number of qualifiers not making at least 80-90K flight miles is vanishingly small.

In the 100K PQM days, with fare class multipliers, 100Kers were doing no better.
100K flights miles has not been the metric

Its easy to make 24k PQP on a handful of OPM trips. Flying 100k (or whatever the segments were) is much harder.
But yes, its not going back to that.

Believe you grossly over estimate the numbers doing that especially with corporate discount fares.

Not really with 1.5 and 2 x fares multipliers

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to get to 7500 actual PQP and keep my Platinum status. (I got a 1500 PQP bonus). When this flight lands I'll have 6 segments for almost 400 "real" PQP (just under 1900 total)

Flexible leisure travel is really, really cheap. I need some international bulk long haul fares or something.

It's only "easy" to make 24K PQP on "a handful of OPM trips" for the vanishingly small subset of people who travel internationally in business class on company dollars. They're overrepresented on FlyerTalk; much less so in the real world. And, again, if someone doesn't fly very much, their status should't matter to you. :)

On the other hand, I found it much easier to fly 100K PQM than to spend 12K or 15K PQD. Until they allowed partner fares to count at a high multiplier, it was looking pointless.

The point is, any system that they have will benefit some groups and hurt others. UA doesn't care about my perspective or about yours; they only care about theirs. It's not personal; it's business. :)

See the N threads about how expensive UA fares are this year. :D it's very much a market-driven situation. For weekend travel, I'm seeing domestic fares higher than I ever remember seeing for 3-6 week advance purchase. It depends upon where you are and where you want to go. :)

Yeah, same boat here. I'm at ... 2 segments this year, and it's already May.

I guess I should count myself lucky with all the extensions, as without international long haul there's no way I'd ever requalify. Stuff is reopening abroad, but with all the confusion with testing requirements and "pandemic-related staffing challenges" at airports around the world, I just don't see myself leaving the country this year (plus I need a new passport, and GlobalEntry renewal, etc.)

I'm in PHX. I just finished a round trip to MSY (4 segments; 270 PQP) and I flew one way from BNA (2 segments; 124 PQP) because the direct flight on AA was too expensive.

So there are cheap flights out there if you are flexible enough. And a nice bonus is that cheap flights usually are the result of light loads, which make for easy upgrades. I'm 4/6 and the 2 that I missed were the result of an SDC (I actually had a confirmed upgrade that I SDCed out of). But there's no way I'll requalify for platinum at this rate. Even gold might be a stretch.