I just signed my PassPlus Secure contract tonight ($15k). First of all, thanks a lot to those who helped answer my questions here. I really appreciate your willingness to share your knowledge and prompt responses to my posts.

A couple of interesting things after going through the process:

* Domestic fares are booked on F, J or Y, whereas international fares are booked on F, J, Y or M. I didn't know about M bookings until I got the contract.

* International fares are NOT upgradeable and if they (United) find out that you applied an upgrade, they reserve the right to charge you for the difference and take the funds from your PPS account. This means that if you book business (J) and use a systemwide upgrade to fly on F, they can charge you the PPS fare for F. Wow!

* The PassPlus Secure (PPS) account includes a Red Carpet Club membership. I don't think this was evident from the UA web site, but it is on the docs that the PPS rep sends you as well as the contract. This is worth a few hundred dollars.

* You can gift the amenities you receive with the PPS account to another Mileage Plus member (i.e. Premier membership and Red Carpet Club). I'm sure most of you would use the Red Carpet Club, but you know at least one person that would be happy to get Premier as a gift. Nice touch.

* That's all folks. I'll report once I've used it and see how it goes.

I know it's still early, but so far so good.

My account was activated within a week of signing the contract. My Red Carpet Club membership (included in the package as an amenity) was activated today without me having to do anything else.

I've booked two flights so far and everything has been very smooth and fares work exactly as advertised. Flexible routings and booked in Y for all flights.

The first call was answered by the PassPlus desk and the second one was answered by the Global Services desk (I'm not GS). Both calls were very smooth with no wait and no haggling with voice prompts. The service representatives on both calls were competent, quick and efficient.

Like I said, still early... but I'm loving it so far.

FYI - the PP desk IS the GS desk. Same Detroit call center. I'm assuming a greeting pops up based on the number you call.

Wow - how did you find that out? Was that in the contract? I have the PPT you're referring to, and it does not specify anywhere in it that fares are NOT upgradeable. really want to see this info in writing somewhere.

Also, are you getting COS EQM bonus for the flights? If they are booked in Y domestically, are you getting 50% COS bonus?

My company notified us of the upgrade issue when we started on the program, so it's got to be spelled out somewhere. I get COS bonuses on F/C tickets so I'm guessing it comes with Y as well; there's a small additional bonus that I don't think UA is aware of so I won't spell out in public

Can someone who flies Y through PassPlus Secure please let me know what the typical taxes are on a $500/$650 RT ticket?

This is actually pretty well documented in the material. If they didn't have this restriction, I would have signed up for the program a long time ago..... been spending 50% more per mile....flying 50% more.... and would have been happy about it.

I have no idea why they have this restriction. I can't see how it is at all beneficial to United.

Well, I saw this on their website:

When I read that last sentence, many times, I have always assumed that they were talking about UDUs. They really SHOULD spell out that SWUs cannot be used internationally. I wish it was clearler....

The excise tax is 7.5%, so a $500 RT becomes $537.50 and a $650 RT becomes $698.75. This is the same tax that applies to all fares, PassPlus or not.

In addition to that you have any aiport fees and miscellaneous taxes which usually are around $10 each way. You can figure these out exactly by making a dummy booking on UAL since these are also the exact same fees that apply to all fares.

The policy on international fares not being upgradeable is clearly spelled out in the contract as well as the penalty -- they are very clear that if they find out that you upgraded somehow, they can charge you the fare for the higher cabin of service.

The additional bonus is a 50% RDM booking class for PassPlus, so they are indeed aware of it.

If you fly IAD to DEN for example (1,452 miles) and you are 1k, you would get a total of 3,630 RDM (100% base, 100% 1km 50% PP).

There is a nuance to it, though, that I don't think they are aware of. As I said, it's small, but nice.

$500 I recently booked came out to about $580, and I can finally confirm it books into Y (YPASP1).

What is the actual cost to fly using Passplus to from U.S. to Europe?

It depends...

The base fare is based on the miles between the origin and final destination (regardless of routing) and class of service (economy? first?)

Then there is a 7.5% excise tax added to the base fare and finally any additional fees/taxes such as airport facility charges, Sept. 11 fee, foreign country taxes, etc. The additional fees/taxes would apply to all fares anyway, PassPlus or not.

Here is an example, flying from Dulles (IAD) to London (LHR) in economy. For this example, lets assume that you are flying IAD->ORD->LHR outbound and LHR->EWR->IAD on the return (yes, there are direct flights but lets use these routes for this example):

Distance = 3,670 miles (this is what the base fare is calculated from)
Base Fare = $700 x 2 (roundtrip) = $1,400.00
Excise Tax = $1,400 x 7.5% = $105.00
Additional Fees = $166.40

TOTAL = $1,671.40

If you wanted business class instead, it would be $2,400 each way for the base fare and the total would increase to $5,326.40

Hope this helps.

What's REALLY nice is going to the top of the UDU upgrade list. Once I got my PP, my upgrade % has been a mere 100%!!!

How good is that (-;

Does anyone know how/when the 50% RDM bonus posts?

I just completed a few segments of my first PassPlus booking and I got the base miles + 100% elite (1K) bonus. But that was it. I didn't get the 50% bonus.

The latter doesn't sound like much of a deal as I recently bought Z on SFO-LHR-SFO for around $3,000.