Retired this yr and about to lose GS - tips for the final countdown?
 

Hi all -
long time lurker and almost 10 year GS. I retired earlier this year and will certainly not make GS in 2024 as business travel has zeroed out. With the hour glass running down, I'd appreciate (1) suggestions for GS perks/tricks that I should take advantage of before the end and (2) thoughts on life in the air after GS. UA did take care of my simple needs as an east coast GS with upgrades, rebookings, preboarding, pilot recognition notes, etc. No complaints, even on those rare disaster days inside and outside the USA.

Amazingly, or not, I'm not particularly nuanced in award travel or PP upgrades or partner upgrades because I either didn't need to with about 10 international round trips/year (all UA metal in paid polaris) plus domestic, or didn't have the time. I let over 400 plus points go on July 31, and am working down the 600+ I have left, and with 2M award miles in the pot. I have a couple of europe trips set in the next two months. I did score a nice immediate economy to polaris upgrade into Geneva for 40K miles and pluspoints in late september. An upcoming FRA trip looks promising with 50% polaris waitlist availability.

So, beyond travel travel travel, I'd welcome any use or or lose it suggestions (for this year into next) while I still have GS options, or just your experiences for those who transitioned from a life in J to Y!

Kpete

what MM tier are you at, and how close to the next one?

Congratulations on retirement! Find something you enjoy doing and explore things you have not done before.
GS is only good if you fly. Since you still have PP+ to burn, if you can afford it ($ or miles), I would encourage you to take advantage of going to places you have not been or have wanted to visit but never had a chance or time to do so.

Not sure your coverage around the world, but United has the best international network amongst all the US airlines + *A network.
I would not let the GS status to go away without planning "trips of a lifetime".

Load up on snack boxes since you won't be getting anymore for free :p

First off, heartiest congratulations on your retirement!

I’m just curious, had you to do it all over again, is there anything you’d have done differently?

In my case, when I was much younger, I’d likely have been much more aggressive about generating miles, but we live and learn.

Today, quite frankly, I wouldn’t recommend being loyal to any US carrier, as it’s not reciprocated : everything is now up for sale.

It’s too late for me; I got hooked on status. 😞

Re: PP, they cannot be used for flights post-dating the expiry date. I figured I could save and use them up to the expiry date, for flights after that. Not true.

LH and NH seem to have best likelihood of clearing, or close-in UA. As you are retiring, perhaps try later.

Thanks all.....

@jhayes - I'm just under 850K UA lifetime miles. with the way i was racking up miles to DEL, PEK, and MEL, and MUC, thought 1M would be no problem. then covid... oy. At least I don't wear masks overnight now.
@eng3 - I did snag a tapas and stella on my outbound to the Indian Market in Santa Fe this past weekend! Thought I would double down on the return, but a post-boarding upgrade led me to the Thai meatballs in first!
@UA_Flyer - Thanks for the well wishes! I have been very very blessed with opportunities. As Im sure many FTers would understand, when you've been so many places the mega definative trip I wanted to do are a little hard - maybe Namibia, seriously. I am already filling in Prague, Split, Athens and Lisbon before the end.
@ContinentalFan - yeah I thought about how I could have targeted at least one or two airlines earlier, but that just wasnt the nature of my least cost flying jobs at the time. woulda shoulda.
@marks88 - I just started to look at an ANA flight to burn some. Been there, but didnt finish tokyo or get to other major cities.

tick tock

overall, I tend to agree with the other thread on when do you fly or pay for business. Well, when and as often as I can - outbound TATL and inbound AP.

Job 1 is to fly the UA metals to achieve the 1MM status if you plan to have a lot of international trips in retirements. The lounge access and E+ seats are the huge benefits for you and your partner with the lifetime Premier Gold status. Pluspoints will make your MM runs more tolerable. Some routes are easy for upgrade, especially, for PN space.
Good luck.

Out of curiosity does soft landing continue to plat/gold after GS to 1K?

Btw in the absence of frequent flying the biggest impact was from lost ability to upgrade award tix - that saved us lots of $ during gs years..

I would book plenty of saver awards international flights and apply plus points to them.

Definitely true. The OP should maximize flights on UA metal (meaning, including TATL and TPAC) until hitting 1MM, whether it's this year or not, in order to achieve lifetime Star Gold status. After 1MM, that criterion can be relaxed.

This. When I was sitting around 875K BIS, I took every opportunity to fly UA metal because I knew I only had a few years of frequent business travel on the horizon. Don’t regret that decision at all.

kpete -- Congratulations! It's a great feeling to wake up in the morning and not start thinking right away about all you feel (or others feel) you have to accomplish that day. Enjoy it to the fullest.

You may also find that you don't need to travel as much as you think. When I retired, travel had been such a way of life that I had forgotten how nice it is to not do it all the time. Actually it was more Covid that made me realize that which helped make the decision to retire all the easier. If you want to get these last trips in, go for it. Just don't make it a "job".

Million Miler status is based on cumulative distance flown. GS aren’t known for flying a lot, nor for being into the UA experience, just for generating high in-year spend on a few round trips on pricey routes.

OP, do you expect to travel much after retirement and if so, will UA or or Star Alliance be convenient for you? I second all the suggestions to get to one million lifetime miles to get lifetime Star Gold if you wil be travelling. May take you some time to get there though.

Remember that only paid tickets on United credited to MP count towards lifetime status. Award or partner operated flights don't count.

Going to go against the grain here a bit and offer a different approach.

Since you seem to indicate that MM is likely not happening, and you currently have 2 mio award miles, I propose to not try and cram it all in this year while you're still GS, but instead, hold on to a good portion of the miles.
It wouldn't be too far fetched to think that in 2024 or 2025 you will get travel-withdrawal-symptoms, get itchy feet and the urge to travel again.
Since there will be no work that will necessitate or pay for J travel at that time, it might not be bad to have some miles in the vault to use for some UA mileage deals.

Yeah, you won't be GS anymore and the miles are going to devaluate even more over time, but if you can score some good deals, you could still travel up front to some great destinations and continue to benefit from all your previous work travel.

Yes, I was thinking that OP can buy Y tickets which will give him BIS lifetimes miles and upgrade with miles, he has enough for that. And possibly reach one million in a reasonable amount of time. But if travel is not part of retirement all that is moot. I find Star Gold is invaluable on intra-European or intra-Asian flights if I am in Y. Just flying domestically in Japan having Star Gold helps. But I am not retired, so maybe I will feel differently if I stop traveling.

what advice do you want ?
 

Wait, you forfeited 400,000 MP miles and now you are asking for advice? IMO, seems like the worst decisiojn is behind you.

400k Plus Points, not miles...

I retired last year, thankfully hitting 1MM in 2019 before Covid hit. I pretty much only fly United, as I'm based south of EWR at the Jersey Shore. Having Star Gold for Lounge access when flying internationally, being able to get economy plus seats, gifting Mr jtwiz Gold status, boarding group 1, etc. have all been very useful perks.

I used to be 1K or Platinum most years, but honestly don't miss it now that all my travel is leisure-based. Four domestic and two international round trips for 2023, with a similar outlook for next year. I don't miss schlepping to SFO, LAX, DFW, etc one bit. I do miss the international business travel, loved adding on some personal time when possible!

So I'm going to say work on getting to 1MM! Unless you have no intention of traveling in retirement.

Huh?
- OP had let 400 PlusPoints expire on July 31, 2023.
- OP still has ~600 PlusPoints.
- OP still has ~ 2'000'000 award miles.

OK, so your not close to MM... I might give a different answer if you were within striking distance of a lifetime tier (like sitting at 950,000, 1,875,000 etc).

But your status will be good thru Jan 31, so I'd book revenue trips until the PP are expired (or exhausted).

Beyond that, burn the RDM once your done with revenue tickets.

Its nothing official, but you might get lucky with a soft landing next year.

OP is at 850k lifetime miles, so he is not THAT far away. Depends a lot how much traveling he is planning for retirement. But I would go for one million and secure lifetime Gold while it is still on offer.

It's still 15 trips of 10,000 miles.

Tough one for the OP with LT Gold at MM. As JiminOhio noted it is still 15 10K trips, not really easy. I am in a similar situation in that I have about a 3 year horizon on retirement but I am a LT Gold with MM. 2 MM is too far for me to catch. Having had a recent taste of on Gold status having been 1K or Gold for over 10 years I must admit it has been a definite let down. Gold status is definitely worth something so not overly complaining but never expect an upgrade. First have of this year with extended PPs and Gold status I was basically never upgraded. My location on the upgrade is always pathetically low. I think I can hit 1K again by years end (no thanks to UA but that was another post) and will ride that out for a couple years. But as many noted above I'll probably retire with UA LT Gold and pay for F class when I want it and on what ever carrier looks the best. I actually do that a lot of that already. Good Luck

Even at 2MM you'd "only" be lifetime Platinum, which really doesn't add much of anything. :tu:

Totally agree and have like 500K I think to hit 2 MM, believe me I am NOT pushing it. Although it looks like I will finish off my work carrier with a bit of a travel bang.

I'm pretty similar to you, hoping to retire in 3-5 years and at 1,593,000 miles. I don't see making it to 2 million as I'm flying less than 25K miles/year for work now. It would take a job change for the last few years before retirement to get me to 2 million. I'm happy with lifetime Gold (I expect not to be upgraded, so that way I'm not disappointed). I agree with the others who noted the major benefits of Gold are lounge access and E+ (and exit rows) at booking.

To the OP: Congrats on the retirement. I'm in the camp that you might hold on to the RDMs to redeem later. You may also want to grab a UA credit card to help with things like checked bags for when you lose status. I'm not sure whether you can get a better sign-up bonus as a GS or not. I do like the idea of trying to do some travel to use the Plus Points, but also consider using them to upgrade friends and family instead of letting them just expire.

I was around there when COVID struck. Knew that the Premier hurdles were increasing to undesirable levels. Organically I would have crossed it easily within 2 years (if the world hadn't locked down). Never had thought I would have to do domestic mileage runs just for BIS credit.

I finished 2021 at 890K. United algorithms weren't very nice to me. No soft landing. Dropped me all the way down to my actual earned level regardless that my flight pattern had a significant amount of Asian travel.

Wasn't thrilled to do so much domestic flying without any meaningful elite protection. So at the urging of another MM, I called the MPSC and asked why I wasn't given the Asian travel exception (that my spouse had automatically been given). Luckily my call was answered by someone who agreed with me. So I used my 1× 5 year (I believe that is what she said) exception, got to keep my 2021 status another year. Boy was it handly in 70+ domestic segments! Received 20 CPUs across 30 RTs while avoiding the awful summer madness.

Now I no longer have to worry about annual spend. (The 110K BIS travel cost me only about $3,600.) I finally am spending my 1 million RDMs on Polaris upgrades now that the world has re-opened. Haven't seen a CPU in 2023. But also I no longer have to fly only UA for BIS reasons and I'm happy with LT Gold (including my spouse with the companion status)!

So long story short, go for the MM. It's actually within reach. Then sit back & truly enjoy retirement!

Hey, a happy story! Glad things worked out well for you in the end.

One last comment I will add to this thread is IF the OP continues to travel in retirement Gold status is so much better than no status. It does not matter that Gold is worth less than before, it is still worth quite a bit more than nothing.

Hi OP here closing the loop on a few questions I see.

Yes, I plan on downsized but ongoing travel in retirement. 2-3 international trips/year, mainly TATL, with a handful of yearly domestic trips and a couple of missing TPAC buckets to at least, separately, Cambodia and Thailand. At least for the next 10 years or so...

I like the idea to chip away towards gold 1MM. if I make it, great. if not, I'll survive, although *A lounges ex-US are nice to pop into, imo. I do see from this string, to back off the full award travel, especially beginning next year and use miles to upgrade.

I truly appreciate the insights to my post. to paraphrase for those trekkies online - "may you travel well"

Kudos on your retirement.

I would enjoy the miles for future intl travel ideally as partner Saver Awards because standard awards are so expensive. For Namibia ideally you go via FRA FCT on a saver F award. And indeed I would use the miles because they’ll only lose value if you save them.
for trips I would ask for ft help with routing as you think of them.
once you lose GS status and as you deplete your UA miles, you can consider free agency for future travel. I forgot to check your airport location and maybe other airlines will be useful for you.

also you can get tips for Namibia in the Africa forum - at the recent Chicago luncheon DO someone showed his recent Safari photos so you might also consider a lens. Camera tech is pretty great.

@kpete – Congratulations on your retirement! Hopefully you didn’t stop ‘cold turkey’. Getting 150K miles before losing GS is most likely not a realistic goal. That said if you have become accustomed to traveling just continue to plod alone towards 1mm. Lifetime gold is worth the pain only if you’re continuing to travel. Being retired should allow you the flexibility to shop around to find the best flight/price/seat combination. Being flexible I and have found several no notice long haul flights for few $$ and PP’ed into Polaris and racked up miles towards my 3mm goal. I’m not retired, yet,