For sure. In chatting with a UA sales manager, he still thinks 1K flyers "fly a lot", and I had to correct him that they spend a lot instead these days.

while it might be a frequent purchase program - remember, it does take a level of commitment to still reach those levels and an assumed value proposition.
sure, there are many other ways that I can benefit from "spending" $10,000 on a credit card - or even a direct wire transfer - but, and potentially foolishly, I and others feel that paying for status by cc spend might actually be worth it.... it is still loyalty, just a different kind. As such, I would be surprised if there are that many 1K's who get it on cc alone and are not traveling much to benefit from some of the perks. People like me, for example, value the perks from flying a lot, except it is harder and harder to reach that level based upon BIS or W-class tickets (OPM) alone

I see this sentiment a lot here, but I’m not a believer, for UA at least.

For AA, you could get Plat Pro (equivalent of UA Plat) if you were willing to throw about $3K into the wind without too much trouble (specifically with ghost stays on AAdvantage hotels, with the exec card).

On UA, though, the only way to earn PQP (aside from flying) is from actual spend, best case with the UA club card, and even hitting Silver (6K PQP) would take $90K of spend on that card. $180K for Gold.

If I had to put my finger in the wind, my guess would be less than 20% of UA Golds achieve it with primarily (say, 80%+ of the required PQP) card spend. (This also based on zero evidence! :) )

EDIT: also said another way, even with organic spend in 1x categories, AA EXP status would be 200K in CC spend. UA 1K status would be 420K spend. UA is much more difficult to spend your way to status, IMO.

I am still adjusting to this new spend-based world where we should expect thresholds to go up on a regular basis because spend is subject to inflation. The old world was so reliable with thresholds of 25/50/75/100 not changing and comparable across airlines (with some notable differences, of course) because a mile is a mile is a mile and not subject to inflation. Sadly, for the sake of simplicity, that world is gone.

Attended a United event the other month and asked someone senior-ish from the MP team this exact question. Got the expected attempt at a winding non-clear answer since obviously they couldn’t just “tell” me, but to me the clear takeaway was “no” we won’t be changing the thresholds for 2026.

Let’s see if that read was right!

I am Lifetime GS but that view is just as short as those chasing year by year status

The rules of the Game not only can be changed, they will be changed in the House's Favour. I have absolutely no expectation that a lifetime GS will receive the same benefits as a paid GS in the years to come, and that is exactly how I would run the program if it were my business. The big three all have great networks of worldwide transport and can capture revenue across the 10+ travel market types as they see fit. They dont need faux loyalty programs to do this at all, except to capture your marketing data to make the revenue decisions that suit them.

Revenue vs miles travel has taken the first step in this direction with smorgasbording of J benefits.

Hey, this is the Speculation Thread, isnt it?

back to the topic of the thread - my sense is that they will not change the thresholds, but might give starter bonuses?

UA has given starter bonuses for years already.

Repooc17 - yes, I think it is easier to adjust the threshold bar by giving more/less starter bonus than coming up with new ones
... and probably helps "reward" the higher spend groups more?

They already give more starter PQP to those with higher status. I do agree that this toggle is likely going to be changed next year, versus UA changing the topline thresholds.

Definitely hoping they don’t make many changes, given the changes they made last year.

for me, I’m making probably 20-25% of PQP via card spend. And I needed it, especially given the hit I took on PQP flying SQ PE SIN-SFO, where I think I got like half the PqPs I would have compared to flying UA metal (I also somewhat blindly booked it thinking it was worth it (it was) and that the point cap was higher than regular Y (it wasn’t)).

I know there’s probably a lot of debate over whether card spend to earn higher UA status are worth the loss of flexible currencies/benefits from other cards. I guess it depends on situation, but would say for me, it is. We are lowly silver, so the waiver of bag fees alone pretty much makes it worth it (most travel is with 2 kids, so we need to check most trips), not to mention the higher priority compared to the masses for IRROPs, etc. E+ is moot on most flights (nice, but as a fam of 4, hard to get unless we want to pay for it at booking) and I just don’t consider upgrades at all, since we’re lucky of that happens once a year.

Decreasing in recent years plus there is now a credit card starter bonus, so at best I would expect another decrease this year if any.

I think you raise a good point, though I do think CC spend is probably enough to make or break Silver and Gold for a not-insignificant amount of people. It’s probably less of a factor at the Plat and 1K levels given how much is still needed to reach those.

I agree that there are probably very few people out there putting crazy amounts of spend on UA cards but not flying UA much or at all. With that said, there’s probably a good number of people who fly UA a dozen or so times a year, and the ~1,000 PQP they get from their Explorer cards is enough to get them over the Silver threshold.

Ever since UA switched to the PQP/PQF system, my hunch has always been that there are probably a =lot= more Silvers out there than before. That’s probably a win for United: they have more “brand loyal” customers who think they’re getting something out of the program when Silver really doesn’t offer much for customers or cost much for UA as an airline.

FF programs drive the profit wheel in an overtly monetized fashion. They are no longer primarily tools to generate loyalty amongst BIS FFs. The airlines are incentivized to dangle the carrot for status and its illusion of benefits as high as they can... without causing the rabbits to get too discouraged on their treadmills, of course.

DL has been more business savvy than UA for awhile. DL has a better hard product. DL has a more compelling CC partnership than UA, complete with seamless integration at the premium cardmember levels that includes cross-product lounge access, as well as more extensive ancillary card benefits. Yet DL has lower qualification thresholds than UA. No way UA could bump their PQP thresholds against that competitive force.

By the way, it isn't hard to see that simply holding a Delta SkyMiles Reserve card is actually better than being standalone Diamond Medallion Silver or Gold, and simply holding a Chase United Club Infinite card by itself is better than being standalone Premier Silver. Low-mid tier status is meaningless, and anyone chasing it is a fool.

It's a good reminder why we need real consumer-protection regulation. I'm not sure why it should be acceptable for a company to aggressively market a benefit that you can earn in exchange for literally a million dollars of loyalty and then, whenever convenient, rescind or terribly degrade the benefit after you've earned it.

Yes, I know. Line 38 of the small print states that none of United's MP offers are binding and their fingers were crossed the whole time and they can stick it to you as is their wont. I just don't know why our society should tolerate such a bad-faith approach to business. We don't allow various other sectors to behave that way; why should airlines, a consumer-oriented business?