2027 (2026 earned) Premier Qualification Changes (speculation)
 

We’re almost getting to that time of year when UA and other airlines announce any changes to their elite qualification programs for next year. Any thoughts yet on what UA may do?

I’m hoping this will be another year of no changes after the pretty significant hike up in Premier qualification last year. It’ll be interesting to see how many people drop down a level or two after the end of this year. I’m hoping UA will let this be a recalibration before they do something drastic again.

Personally, despite my concerns a year ago, I will handily requalify for Gold for 2026. I ended up with a slightly busier travel year than expected this year, plus I took some itineraries that required connections, so I will probably end up with ~33 PQF and ~12,000 PQP. I gave UA almost all of my flying this year. UA was the best option most of the time, but even when it maybe wasn’t, I still went with them. I also put probably more spend on my Quest card than I needed to. Guess I’m the kind of “brand loyal” customer that Scott Kirby keeps talking about.

UA will look how many 1Ks will requalify this year to decide whether or not the PQP thresholds will be elevated. The rest should be unchanged due to headwind of economy.

I know Kirby alluded to some potential big changes they are thinking about to MP. The only thing I can contemplate would be something that drives more people to being captive to the ecosystem, i.e. making MP more along the lines of AA's qualification system (where you can earn status points through many more vectors). Hard for me to believe they would take a punt on that, though, in much more uncertain macroeconomic times.

My base scenario would be that UA does not change their status thresholds and will only tweak things around the edges (like starter bonus PQP).

UA's PQF requirement seems really dated at this point. Why should an airline care how many flights you take? With AA and DL it's all about how much you spend in their larger ecosystem.

DL kept it constant, doubt there are major changes in store. Minor tweaks, if any.

For qualification based solely on spend, UA is already higher than DL now for Silver, Gold and Plat, so I was a bit surprised that DL didn’t raise those levels. But since they didn’t, I wouldn’t expect anything but minor adjustments, if any, on the UA side.

We can always hope.🤞

Maybe that's a strategic advantage to capture domestic-only fliers who do not spend OPM for international business-class flights.

It's times like this that Life Time status looks really nice!

Was a relatively major hike this year, doubt they'll change much. Possibly starter PQP, that's all. It's been declining for a few years now and with the other options to accumulate PQP I could see it being phased out.

Especially with the new annual credit card "starter" PQPs.

the PQF vs PQP discussion is interesting
I have a friend who is an evolving road warrior - about 90 PQF so far this year and barely hit Plat - all domestic.... a few random CPU's
while I have about 46 PQF and, thanks to some cc spend earlier in the year, and more expensive tickets, blew through 1K a few months ago (most years, I typically hit it early winter - I think last year are mid December and I was getting worried).....
- I dont know how much BIS she has but most of here flights are sub-500 (lots of CLE-ORD and then somewhere else)
- I will probably end up with about 80-100k BIS..... but lots of over the pacific flying

I think - with zero evidence other than being an expert on the internet - there are probably a lot more people getting status with credit card spends these days than with true BIS miles.....

Sadly it is a frequent purchase program now.

One could have a tone of BIS and still don’t earn status if not meeting PQP and PQF thresholds.

PQF may provide an indication of being a frequent flyer, but I usually ignore reading the PQP numbers in this forum when I analyze if the posters are road warriors or simply being spending warriors.

being close but (not quite this year) to the 4mm prize, as long as they keep the Lifetime GS option available, I'd consider it a win. Just don't move the goalposts on me now!

PQF requirement is there to provide a qualifying “discount” to non-hub fliers for whom United must compete more aggressively. For (captive) hub fliers, they’re less likely to hit PQF and thus need higher spend. (Plus higher spend because they’re in captive hub).