zombietooth

I haven't been able to use many PPs in 2022 primarily because I am flying for business most of the time, with set dates and times, and there is just too much competition from cash buyers (and some GSs) on my routes. I've been able to give around 240 away to strangers which accrues no economic benefit to me. The random pax that I've UG'd have been K-fare buyers, so it took 80 PPs per UG. The odds of a successful UG are maximized if you buy a higher fare, and I would bet that a lot of folks are now buying P+ regularly to improve their position on the UG list. UA is successfully baiting pax into spending more to improve their UG chances, so your argument has validity.

Those who have wide flexibility in travel destinations/dates/times, or who don't mind flying in Y if their UG fails, are able to use PPs more effectively. Those of us who are locked-in with our travel dates and destinations find them almost useless. I am not one that is willing to fly multiple connections and extra hours in Y to get an UG on an international flight e.g. an itinerary from EWR-SFO in Y and SFO-NRT in PZ. Thus, a lot of my spend goes to other carriers that have a better routing or price than UA. Loyalty to UA has little value to someone like myself. One could argue that you could get rid of excess PPs on CC and thereby get some benefit from them, but that seems way too risky these days. I don't want to get cancelled by UA.

fumje

As noted above, with all the extensions, current +P balances represent multiple years of accrual. Also, they include some amount of conversion from GPU/RPU to +P, which were often easily earned at much lower than the recent / current rate of $2k or $3k per 20 +P.

Hilmar Lehnert

YMMV but it worked for me the last two years. I'm in the lucky situation that it's fairly easy to find available PZ space even in mid-summer on my main routes (BOS<->BER/FRA/FCO/MUC). A United PE ticket costs me typically around $1200 plus 60PP to upgrade. It's very hard to find reasonably lie-flat itineraries on these routes for under $2500 and occasionally it gets way more expensive than that. That puts the value of a PP to about $20 (rounding down) and 280 PP are worth at least $5600 to me and quite likely a good chunk more.

I understand that this works differently for many other people, but I wouldn't summarily dismiss it without running some actual numbers.

jsloan

Just because that’s been the case in the past doesn’t mean it will be the case in the future. If you haven’t noticed the steady decline in advance PZ space, I’m not sure what to tell you. It was as bad as I’ve ever seen it last year, and yet so far 2023 seems worse yet.

If you think it’s worth a $2K investment to you personally, and you don’t value your time in searching, or making extra connections, or traveling on non-preferred days, at all, and you are willing to absorb the risk of PlusPoints expiring, so be it — it’s your money, and UA will happily take it. But, even though I’ve also been able to use all of my PlusPoints, I am absolutely applying a valuation tax when I make my own decisions.

Howard

For me it's not worth it. I ended 2022 about 2500 PQP short of 1K. My travel is almost all domestic. With let's say an average cash upgrade price of $300, I can buy 8 cash upgrades in 2023 for the $2500 I would have had to spend to get 280 PPs. However, unlike PP upgrades, which are almost always waitlist only on the flights I book, cash upgrades can be confirmed instantly. On those few occasions when I've tried to waitlist for PP upgrades on domestic flights, I've ended up flying in economy. Thanks, but no thanks.

Hilmar Lehnert

I have indeed not. We took our last trip on upgrades about 3 weeks ago (Christmas Markets in Germany !). I just checked and there is good availability for next week as well, if I wanted go again soon. I agree, that it's a bit of gamble, but for some reason availability on my frequent routes appears to be consistently good (within my personal constraints). Many people have a different set of constraints which makes this a lot less attractive so I guess everyone needs to figure out their own "devaluation" factor based on their own specific situation. But so far I had not trouble putting my Plus Points to effective use (knock on wood).