Maximizing PQP/PQF
 

[Apologies if this needs to be in an existing thread.]

What tactics do you use to maximize the PQP/PQF you earn in a year for the least amount of $ spent on flying? I can think of a few:
1. Credit card spend: finally I got the Quest card, so I'll probably end up earning 2-4K PQPs on that.
2. Cheap partner fares, particularly long-hauls: I've done this in the past. But I just don't like that none of the partner airlines have the kind of flexibility that UA provides in terms of canceling and/or changing your tickets. Some airlines are in fact very inflexible. I value flexibility above all in my travels, so unless I'm absolutely sure (which only happens very close to the proposed trip date, by when fares are high, thus negating any partner advantage), I try to stay away from them. Has anybody hacked the partner ecosystem to get UA-style flexibility while earning partner-level PQPs?
3. Flying multiple stops or short hop flights to increase your PQFs and thus reduce the PQPs needed to achieve a particular status. This is hard for me because most of my travel is long-haul international. But I'm considering taking unneeded mileage-run type same-day cheap flights (e.g., SFO-LAX) to bloat my PQFs.

Are there any others that I should look into?

Are you asking about maximising PQP per dollar spent, or literally maximising PQP per PQF? The latter is easy: shell out. The former is kind of covered by your points 1 & 2. Point 3 actually seems to be about maximising PQF per dollar spent, which is only useful if you're below the PQP+PQF qualifying requirements.

I think the goal could use some clarification.

Why not just string a series of connections instead of flying non-stop on international travel. Instead of flying SFO-LHR, just fly SFO-IAD-FRA-LHR, you get 3 PQF instead of 1. Of course there will be a chance of delays and IRROPS.

But per above, not really clear on what the maximizing goal is.

To clarify, it's to achieve the highest status you can with the least $ spent. This primarily involves (1) getting the highest number of PQPs per $ spent on flights and (2) secondarily getting the max number of PQFs per dollar spent.

If you fly UA, it's 1 PQP per $ spent (on airfare). So the only way to do better is fly partner flights. Generally the beneficial ones (>1 pqp/$) wind up being in discount business or premium economy. See https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...ner-metal.html for more details. For the joint PQF goal, add connections wherever possible. Fares are filed by O/D city pair, so you only pay extra taxes and airport fees when connecting.

But of course all of that — finding super excellent fares, connecting — takes time. So maybe you pay another way.

Redeeming miles for travel or upgrades on UA also earn PQP and PQF.

For me:

1) don't do airline credit cards. Put necessary spend on other credit cards with better return.

2) partner earning but only PE and above generally make sense. Inexpensive economy fares usually have limitations on PQP earning (e.g. less than 100%).

2a) don't have any reluctance with non-UA ticket. If I am buying a ticket, I am flying the ticket, short of some unforseen events

Being flexible is the key.

Also not UA focused (free agent), so a good deal is not limited to UA/*A only.

Some of these are good especially for PQF purposes. 15k miles for a 3-segment domestic itinerary wasn’t uncommon earlier in the year.

And not too long of a flight. I’ve struggled to find an itinerary that works in most cases. Will probably look harder next year. The PQP cap per flight really stings for long-haul.

Fly. A lot.... TATL, TPAC and lots of domestic. I'm at 85 PQF & 37k PQP.....

Interesting. What cards have better returns for your needs?

Yeah, the 500 PQP limit per segment on non-preferred partners sucks when you're flying SFO-SIN or FRA-SIN on SQ, SFO-IST on TK or SFO-TPE on BR or SFO-BLR on AI even in PE. I forgot to mention that this was another big reason I've not been able to fly partners as much as I'd like.

Yes, that too.

A combination of cards with multiple transferrable options (e.g. AMEX MR, Chase UR, Citi TY) and cash back features, 5x or higher for specific spend categories (e.g. travel, food, utilities) and 2x or higher for everyday spend.

and what do those cards cost you? Have you truly analyzed the cost benefit ratio?

This is the main reason I too tend to gravitate to UA for most international travel. Only way round that is to (where possible) buy partner flights through United and that way you have the flexibility and ability to change. That though, generally, restricts you to preferred partners, as non-preferred partners generally overpriced on United, but sometimes can get reasonable fares on non-preferred partners but may have to go through Google flights to get them to show up. Other thing that can work sometimes is to call as may occasionally can get an agreeable agent. Couple weeks ago I bought a BR ticket on 016 with no UA segment over the phone .

This approach though would defeat your objective of maximizing PQP as you end up with spend based PQP, but given the PQP caps, it seems to me that on practical basis, it would be the exception rather than the rule that buying a partner ticket on non 016 stock will lead to substantial increase in PQP per dollar spent - those very cheap premium cabin tickets are largely theoretical (other than a pure PQP run) as they are generally impossible to find for routes and times that one wishes to travel. All the times I have flown partner airlines on non-016 stock in 2023, I ended up with well below 1 PQP per dollar spent, sometimes lower than 0.5.

With OO dropping some of its EAS routes, I missed out on a lot of "easy" PQF from the past few years... these weren't connections per se, things like IAD-SHD-LWB where you didn't even get off the plane at SHD, but still got 4 PQF for the roundtrip.

Instead, I've added connections, typically EWR (ugh!) for east coast destinations, ORD for midwestern ones, and DEN for the rest. LAX and SFO have been either pricing insanely for connections (e.g. to SNA) or are zero chance of using PP to upgrade, unfortunately.

The big challenge is that adding connections is asking for trouble, and recovery from said trouble often means overnights or flying in a middle seat in the back even if booked in paid F depending on the day and route. So I book longer connections to account for potential issue... and still have been hammered by problems. 4 hour connection in ORD, well, meet 4:10 MX delay out of IAD and an overnight at ORD! 2.5 hour connection at EWR, meet a combo 1 hour WX delay and then a 1 hour wait for a gate at EWR! The other big challenge is that unlike days of yore, connecting flights often seem to be significantly more expensive than nonstops. I witnessed this looking at my final travel of the year, where the nonstops were all around $300 to any of the destinations I considered, but adding either an EWR or an ORD connection added $400-500 additional to the fare. Same for transcons; I used to prefer connecting in SFO (particularly on redeyes) as the flight was longer and gave me a chance to sleep, whereas now, if the destination is served by a nonstop (LAX, SAN, for example, from IAD), adding a SFO connection can at times double the price.

I suppose if I hadn't bought F outright on as many routes as I did this year, I'd be short on PQD and not grumbling that I am already over $18k PQD and still have several PQF to go this year. Want F, buy F, anyway.

I recall when I first got into frequent travel that I qualified entirely on segments (50 for UA *G/PremEx, 100 for UA 1K)... which was a slog, but one could do an itin like IAD-LGA-ORD-TUL-SFO-MRY in a day and not have a huge risk of irrops blowing the whole thing up (and if they did, reroute, then request original routing credit). The way the banks and fare rules are set up today, it would be a challenge to do more than 3 connections either way in a day, and at that, those 3 connections are at huge risk, particularly if they involve EWR or ORD. And even then, my tolerance for flying just for the sake of flying is much lower after having flown for decades; I hate the thought of IAD-ORD-DEN-CNY as recently contemplated to add an extra PQF to an existing itin.

I wish we'd see a paid promo like UA used to run, a decade or more ago, where you could earn double PQF during a qualifying period. I get that the shift to spend-based qualification means this is incredibly unlikely--after all, can't make the PQF, then make the PQD threshold instead, and there's no PQF-only mechanism of qualifying. But they do let you buy PQD, so I wish they'd let you also buy PQF (even if at an outrageous rate, like 1 for $500, which this year I'd have paid to not have to add yet another EWR connection and know I am going to be sprinting through the airport or cussing as we just sit and sit and sit waiting for a gate to open up).

If traveling on a 016 ticket, I prefer to fly UA metal in Y because of E+, and on many international segments, you get the middle seat empty in E+.

As for non-016 tickets, sometimes you get really good PQP deals on LH, LX, NH and others. One of my favorite routes to harvest PQPs is SFO-CGK on a NH ticket, which could include UA metal from SFO-TYO. For instance, if you book that route in January 2024, for a B fare basis in Y you pay $1800 and get 3000 PQPs. Sometimes you get fares as low as $800 and yet earn nearly 1500 or more PQPs, given NH's preferred status and hence 750 PQP per segment limit. It's a lot of work to look for these deals. But for 2024 I'll spend more time monitoring the Premium fare section of FT. When you buy cheap non-016 business class tickets they can yield good returns too.