monkeys

Wondering if I'm confused about how PQP are awarded. I thought they were 1 per $1 of base fare, seat fees, etc. - but am seeing a weird number for a flight I recently booked. I booked a one-way ticket for $469 ($423 fare), paid $27 for a seat, and then a few days later, paid $299 to upgrade to first class.

On the app, there is a button to view "Accruals for this trip", and it says 1,530 Miles, 1 PQF, and 306 PQP. It was showing these same numbers before I purchased the $299 upgrade also. Where is this coming from? I would have expected 450 PQP (423 + 27) before purchasing the upgrade, and 749 after, but I'm probably confused about how PQP are calculated. If I'm right, it is common for the accruals to be incorrect before the flight occurs and will it correct automatically, or should I expect to spend hours on the phone getting it fixed?

This is particularly important because I currently have 2253 PQP and 7 PQF - thus if I got 749 PQP, I'd have 3002 with 8 PQF, and qualify for silver status. This would be nice to have before my return flight (2 days after the flight above, booked as a separate one-way). Should the premier status qualification take affect immediately after the first flight (and thus be effective for the return)?

Thanks.

Lux Flyer

The seat and first class upgrade will post as PQP separately from the flight (unless the FC upgrade was an actual fare exchange as opposed to DOD departure upgrade). Regarding the base fare, without seeing the fare construction line, can't say definitively, there could be non-carrier imposed surcharges included in the construction which wouldn't count towards PQP, even though they're not necessarily taxes either.

monkeys

Thanks - makes sense about the seat and upgrade - looking back at previous earnings I see those as separate. "Unfortunately" from looking at the receipt, it looks like they'll refund the $27 for the seat since I later paid $299 for the upgrade, leaving me 25 PQP short of silver status - I'd rather just pay the $27!

re: the base fair, this is from the receipt - does this help? This is a pretty vanilla flight from LAX to ORD. I'm not too familiar with the pricing breakdowns but would that flight typically have $118 of non-carrier imposed surcharges?

Airfare: 423.12 USD U.S. Transportation Tax: 31.73 USD U.S. Flight Segment Tax: 4.50 USD September 11th Security Fee: 5.60 USD U.S. Passenger Facility Charge: 4.50 USD Total Per Passenger: 469.45 USD Total: 469.45 USD

PushingTin

When is that you have to use a United card to pay for upgrades to get PQP or is it miles, based on the upgrade amount??

Lux Flyer

Historically, probably not. I don't think there are too many domestic surcharges. The only one I can think of is a Q surcharge, which is usually a domestic fuel surcharge. I have seen it on some TCONs recently but usually max I've seen is ~80. But theoretically there could be something hidden in the fare that wasn't seperated out on the receipt, which doesn't qualify for PQP. Or it could just be a system glitch.

I'm actually not sure if UA makes the fare construction available like DL or AA does. What I was thinking of was a line, usually in the receipt, that looks something like 10JUN21 CHI UA X/DEN UA SFO 1509.60JA0XDFN USD1509.60 END XT ORD DEN 85.52US 10.40 ......

That would tell us if there was a surcharge included in the Airfare, since I'm not sure if UA breaks the Q surcharge out on the receipt summary (or if they give PQP for a Q charge)

PQP comes from $ spent on UA airfare, carrier imposed surcharges, seats, upgrades, or mileage upgrade copays. You earn these PQP regardless if you use the United card.

If you used the United card, you also get the 2 award miles/$ on United purchases, but award miles aren't PQP. For every $12,000 you spend on your United card (regardless of UA purchases or not), you earn 500 bonus PQP, subject to a max PQP earning amount depending on the type of card you have.

WineCountryUA

That refund is standard published policy. most people would scream if it wasn't


for a domestic flight that is the PQP earned

Note the PQPs from upgrade, seat access fees, ... don't earn RDMs / award miles and post separate as mentioned
And they never show as PQPs on the reservation
All UA imposed surcharges are PQP earning and earn RDMs. The Airfare number includes carrier surcharges. It is only seperate when base fare is listed and surcharge is separate.

Have never seen a domestic only fare with a surcharge (since PQPs or PQDs started)

findark

Q is imposed by cat12 in the fare rules, and is mildly common including on domestic fares.

However, it is indeed included in PQP as carrier-imposed surcharge, and is often lumped into the "fare" component in the construction (this is DL since I'm lazy about finding a UA one):

WineCountryUA

Do you have an example where there is a (domestic) separate surcharge and not included in the fare for UA?

jsloan

Yes.

Usually.

No. If it doesn’t post properly — $423 sounds about right for a domestic $469 fare — contact the MileagePlus Service Center. They’ll correct it without much fuss.

findark

Not right now, unfortunately. They are normally used to surcharge peak days of travel or specific routings/choices.

Technically not domestic, but they template something like this for the Hopper, e.g. SFO to GUM:

United.com shows this as part of the "fare" on the purchase screen, but a proper fare construction would be eg. Q1000.00 1414.00HFE0XSMH

However, UA also seems to similarly lump YQ, at least on their current display.

Lux Flyer

Sure, the following fare construction contains a Q surcharge of 9.30 on the LAX EWR U-Fare.

The UA website shows the following cost breakdown when going to book this, with no indication of the Q surcharge, instead just rounding it up into the Fare total, even though the proper breakdown is the fare filing for 506.05 plus the separate surcharge of 9.30 as shown in the fare construction.




However the fare filling does state


But I will say, the PQP earning estimate does appear to include that Q charge, so does appear to answer the question that UA gives PQP for Q-surcharges (unknown if they do for YQ, as I believe other carriers don't?) And getting back to the original topic, does not explain the OP's discrepancy of estimated PQP earnings from the actual fare amount. So probably as has been suggested just a website display error and OP will likely earn PQP for the listed fare amount on their receipt.

h2oflyboy

Yes, UA uses the FC (linear) on their tickets - unless they're Bulk, Consolidator, and the like. UA doesn't email this info to you, but you can ask a CSR for a printed copy of your ticket and you will see it there. BTW - your example is pretty pricy - $1500 for FC ORD-SFO and not on a non-stop!

Lux Flyer

Wouldn't trust anything in that fare construction, I literally just made it up on the fly, prices and fare basis code included. Now that I think about it, I actually think most domestic J filings wouldn't even have fare basis built like that and are usually just "JUA" since a full fare J has basically no restrictions. And for it to have "F" in the 7th position, it would need to start with an economy booking code then book into a discounted F bucket. And of course that construction has a nice 2% discount on the US transportation tax, among other issues.

WineCountryUA

Thanks for the fare construction example but to the best of my known, UA does not breakout Q -- during purchase or on the receipt. To the UA flyer Q appears to be invisible.

YQ is a different animal
There is no doubt, UA provide PQPs for YQ, common on international trip. This has been true since day one and UA specific mentions it

findark

Just to come back to the original point - both Q and YQ as well as any other carrier-imposed fees have always counted for PQP/PQD etc. going back to UA first introducing spend-based qualification.