TMAYER

This is a little bit long, but i thought fellow FT'ers might enjoy the exchange that I had with Global Services. It is pretty self explanatory, but I previously had UGS status for several years, but a change in job responsibilities along with having kids reduced my international travel substantially and I lost all meaningful status. I now will be travelling back to Asia monthly based on new job responsibilities and have been evaluating whether I continue with United or switch to the Cathay/AA network.

I had no expectation at all that they would reinstate my UGS status simply based on an email, but i thought that I would at least get something a little bit more personal or some kind of trinket or small inducement to stay with United.

(And separately, if anyone has thoughts on United vs. Cathay/AA to Hong Kong please feel free to share here or via PM)

TMAYER

Dear Mr. TMAYER,

Thank you for your interest in qualifying for 2010 Global Services status.

Your request to review your account for consideration was forwarded to the relevant business owner at United and regrettably, you do not currently qualify for membership.

Global Services is an invitation-only recognition program that United offers to a small group of customers. Qualification for this recognition is dependent on an extraordinary contribution of revenue for flights completed in 2009 on United and United Express by customers who generally are 1Ks, as wells as top executives from our largest corporate accounts. Typically, Global Services members purchase several international First or Business Class tickets annually or when traveling on our domestic routes are ticketed in refundable full fares so it is not based just on the total Elite Qualifying Miles one accrues as EQM's include bonus miles and Star Alliance flight miles which are both excluded from consideration for Global Services membership. An annual review identifies those who meet the selection criteria and the limited number of invitees (1% of our elite customers) ensures we are able to meet our commitment in fulfilling some unique benefits.




Thank you for your loyalty to United and we look forward to welcoming you onboard soon.




Best regards,




United Global Services





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: TMAYER
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 5:47 PM
To: UnitedGlobalServices
Subject:


Hello, I was previously a Global Services Member based on travel to Asia and Hawaii required by my job. I was a 1-K member for a number of years including Global Services member in 2005/2006. Subsequently my job responsibilities changed and did not involve travel.

I now have taken on new responsibilities and will be travelling business or first class to Asia on a monthly basis. I am currently evaluating whether to consolidate that travel on United or on the joint American/Cathay Pacific network.

I would like to find out if there is any way to have my Global Services status reinstated – that was a significant perk which I enjoyed and would make me inclined to stay with United instead of choosing American /Cathay.

If you would like to have a sales representative contact me, I would be happy to speak with them.

Regards,


TMAYER

planemechanic

Can you book and pay for the travel you say you will be taking? Isn't that the typical way of qualifying or UGS?

n198ua

Hi Tmayer~

Can you elaborate on this a little bit. Were you wanting UA to give you GS based on what you might be flying, or were you wanting a lower status?

Cheers

5khours

Buy a $50k PassPlus membership and you get GS automatically.

fastair

Check out post #3 on this one TMayer... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ml#post7074817

Given your travel plans, and your experience, I don't think it will be hard for you to re-obtain your status, but just as your status earned that year was good for basically a year after your travel changed (were reduced) via job change, so to does your previous year's lack of flying count against you for the immediate future.

One of the benefits of the system is that your status stays with you when you don't fly for a period of time, so to does this double edged sword cut you when you have to build it all up again.

I hope you stay with UA, but if the one world offers you a better product/prices/schedule/value, only you (and potentially your employer depending on your booking restrictions) can decide what will work best for you.

On your initial GS qualifications, did a sales rep contact you prior to the spend/flying, or after? I don't work in that field, and I am sure if I did, I would have some strict NDA rules, but I would expect the same process again. Sine you didn't re-qualify, I believe you have to start from scratch, as you did in the 2005/2006 years.

How close are you to the lifetime 1P/*G you get for 1,000,000 miles? If you are on a pace for that, that can be a carrot to get you something of value for life that concentrating your spend on UA can get you relatively soon. Many factors go into your decision, and I wish you the best, whichever direction you take.

TMAYER

[Can you book and pay for the travel you say you will be taking? Isn't that the typical way of qualifying or UGS? ]

On one hand I could buy a bunch of tickets, but i don't know what my schedule will be yet and I am not sure my employer would be to keen on me submittting $50k plus of expense reports in advance of when i actually take the travel. I also suspect that they don't give you credit for the tickets until you actually use them - similar to the mileage accumulation.

[Can you elaborate on this a little bit. Were you wanting UA to give you GS based on what you might be flying, or were you wanting a lower status?]

I didn't realistically expect them to just give me GS status, but I was hoping to get on their radar screen so maybe after I might get it faster or something. I would have been happy with pretty much anything - even a "Welcome back to United, we look forward to you rejoining GS when you qualify, in the interim we have sent you 2 red carpet club passes" or reinstated your 1K / 1P status for 3 months or pretty much anything.

[Buy a $50k PassPlus membership and you get GS automatically]

I may look into that, but i am a little leery of forking out the $50k since i probably can't get reimbursed by my employer until i actually take the trips and we have to book through a certain travel service, so using that to pay might be problematic.

My point in posting was that I was just surprised that a business gets a message from a former customer who says "Hey, I am going to start spending $100k a year again on either you or your competitor, what can you do for me" and they give a form response telling me nothing except things i already know.

I understand i am not entitled to anything yet until i travel enough to qualify, but I also have a choice of which airlines to fly.

Rpcfly

Don't take this the wrong way but..... You've got to pay to play and be present to win.....

travelinmanS

If you are traveling first or business class to asia on a monthly basis and NOT flying CX while crediting to AA, YOU are missing the boat!

This choice is a no brainer. You'll be top level on AA in no time and this give you emerald One World status which will entitle you to first class lounges throughout the system (much better than *A gold). If you end up having to fly AA trans pacific you will have 8 SWU's to upgrade from Biz to First rather than the 6 UA gives you. If you are flying Cathay business class then you will have a better seat and entertainment system than UA (even with the new biz class on the 747's). Cathay also fairly frequently op-up's the One World emerald passengers in business class to their first class cabin which is miles ahead of AA or UA.

As you can probably tell I've switched most of my earning to AA rather than UA over the past 2 years and I'm never going back...

TMAYER

Thanks for the feedback Travilinman

I live in a UA hub and had historically been "addicted" to UA due to continually rolling over and mantaining status, but now that i have lost all status and am starting from scratch, I am definitely considering my options.

Rpcfly

If he's traveling every month to Asia he's going to get 10-14 SWU's on UA depending on EQM's....with AA he'll only get 8...period.

Lets be fair here you're not going to have status on ANY airline until you get the EQM's in. I prefer UA over AA on the TPAC flights, better seats, schedules, connections etc etc.

YMMV

UNITED959

If I were required to fly back and forth between Chicago and Asia in paid business and/or first, you would see my fat [behind] trucking it over to SFO, and taking SQ SFO-HKG/ICN (if I wanted to stay in Star) or jumping up to YYZ/JFK and flying CX to HKG.

Other than having bragging rights and access to the security chute at ORD, there's really nothing more I envy of GS members.

ORDnHKG

Well you don't have any itnerary purchased, do you ? If they can't see if you already have trips line up. What is the point of giving you more information or some sort of status ? As if they give you something now, you may take it and fly the other carrier instead.

yad

I see your point, but it's not like he's some random shmoe. He was GS for a number of years previously, so it should seem quite plausible to UA that he is seriously considering doing $100k/year of flying in the near future. Not saying they should comp him status, but some sort of personal contact wouldn't seem out of place.

TMAYER

For me at least, the benefits of GS were typically more signficant when i had any issues during personal travel (in coach of course unless upgraded).

Probably the best experience was a trip my wife and i took to the south pacific - flying back from Tahiti there was some type of flight attendant strike on Air New Zealand and we ended up delayed by 12 or 18 hours and landed in LAX having been in the same clothes for a long time and badly missed our connection. We walked into the GS office at LAX - the woman looked at us a little bit skeptically since we hadn't showered in a while and were a bit ragged, but when i handed her my GS card she immediately said "Oh, Mr. TMAYER, you missed your connection so i rebooked the two of you on the next flight and i have your boarding passes right here......"

JetAway

Even though GS represents the "top 1% of elite flyers" it still is a lot of people (ask any 1K flying SFO/IAD). As a result I think UA views members and potential members somewhat generically, which is what the response letter to the OP reflects. Doing a special favor for one could have a serious domino effect.