10 minutes wait time right now at the GS phone # “due to a spike in calls”

This theory was raised above and also in another thread in 2023. I don't buy it. The vast majority of GS benefits that can be "milked" relate to opening award and upgrade space, where all that happens in the overwhelming majority of cases is that the GS (or the GS's designee) takes a space that would otherwise go to someone else with lower status (or would just go unsold altogether). In either case, UA isn't losing anything, since they've already calculated they won't sell the seat (else it wouldn't be available in the first place, to anyone).

The point is that airline stories have legs and airlines are also vulnerable to the perception of the public. I’m always bemused by how many column inches or news coverage minutes trivial stories involving airlines are granted. Who knows how many people are impacted by these changes (or indeed what those changes are), but that won’t matter. A story can be had; people will watch/read; each news medium will sell advertising.

I think if what you suggest were the case, than at least some of my colleagues would have remained GS. It’s a larger database than the google doc posted at the top of this thread. Almost all prior GS. Average PQP of close to 80k in 2023. Zero invites in 2024. It’s extremely unlikely all were maximizing their GS benefits to the full extent. My personal habits really haven’t changed in the years I’ve been a GS. I reserve my plus points for personal use and family. Always have.
If Kirby is rolling the dice on this one he is betting that someone like me who spent roughly $130k on his airline in 2023 will be satisfied with a status I could have paid $24k for and not use the other $100k on one of his competitors. That’s a bad bet. I just spent 30 minutes making over $10k worth of airline reservations for February. Not a single one on United. If United has a change of heart and renews my GS status for 2024, I’ll most likely renew my habit of booking on United. But business is business. I obviously spend a lot of time sitting on airplanes. I’ll go where I get the most bang for my buck.

you should speak to your corporate travel manager or whomever manages the relationship with United for your company. If everyone got downgraded that really is an adverse factor in your relationship and deserves follow-up. You have significant leverage with your group, as you describe. If you don’t have a relationship manager, now is the time to self appoint (with company blessing).

Hmm
 

How would they know who you are though??

I guess this is the fundamental question now that GS invitation criteria went haywire: what incentive does anyone have to spend more than 24k on UA, get 1K and then become a free agent, if even 130k isn’t enough for GS? If a large chunk of those who spent 40-50k+ on the hope of GS now stop at 24k, that’s a lot of lost revenue and not easily replaceable. What am I missing?

Pure speculation: UA could have excluded the travelers on corporate contracts from the "normal" requalification process since corporate contract comes with x number of GS and 1K being handed out, and that process has not been completed, leading to people not qualifying on their own despite of the crazy amount of money they spent on UA premium seats.

A news story needs to be relatable. People cannot use SkyClub is relatable. A story about people spending over $50-100K in airfare and did not get invited into a secret club is not relatable.

You’re right …
 

… and moves like these from United will SOW DISTRUST among even those that were renewed at GS.

my guess would be: the vast majority of GS are not FT readers. At my company, most had no idea what status is and what it takes to get and simply book the best/fastest routing with attention paid to seat type and much more importantly cost.

this idea of “punishing” an airline by booking away from them (especially if they’re the quickest and most cost effective option) is (at least in my experience) lost on the type of people United cares about. They simply don’t have time for what one colleague called “rewards games”

Yeah if there's no clarification here then once I requal for 1K I'm going to play the field the rest of the year some. I'm more than halfway to 1K already so that will be pretty soon.

If united wants to use GS to drive us all to spend in certain ways to get the (ever-shrinking) rewards, I don't understand why it's beneficial for them to keep the criteria for GS qualification so secret. It seems it would be much more effective for them to be transparent with the criteria if they want us all to actually fly and spend in a certain way. Otherwise randomly rewarding certain people who don't know why they are being rewarded doesn't drive certain behavior or spending that they supposedly want.

Agreed, and I said as much in a later post.

It depends how the story is cast. Those lifestyles of the rich and famous gain traction; people lap up stories about royal families. The default expectation about airlines is that they screw up: schedules, baggage, frequent flyer programs; they’re now screwing up with their best customers; such a story has legs. It echoes the Delta debacle of late last year.

I for one haven’t worried at all about trying to optimize my effort to make 1k. I simply booked United for all my trips, didn’t even notice what it took to make 1k and moved on.

I can easily end up with 1k equivalent status on 2+ airlines if I tweak and start to play credit card games or whatever.

im not going to get to 4 million miles in my life. Not happening. It seems to me that not moving half my business to Philly on American would be irresponsible