But I am still unclear about SWUs. Do we still get the usual six in January? Or do we get them once we cross 100K this year (which many have already done), or do we have to wait until we hit 100K during 2011 (which means we have none through most of 2011?

Appreciate the change made to CR1s but still mystified by the SWU situation.

Me neither. Ya'll don't even know the real details of the "CO Platinum tier" (75k/90EQP), I expect it'll have CO PLat-like features like free SDC and fee waivers for rewards. If so, for most segment-monkies, you'll get the most useful benefits for 10 less segments. I think its fair for 75k-100 to get higher priority than 50-75, and you'll get that.

If you hit 100K+ EQM (100EQS) in 2010 you will receive your SWUs on Jan 1 2011. During the calendar year 2011: when you surpass 100K EQM (or 120 EQS) you will receive, soon thereafter, your new SWUs.

Nope. Not even Star Alliance miles count towards lifetime MM status. Below is from the UA web site:

"When you have flown one million lifetime base flight miles on United and United Express, you are rewarded with some exclusive benefits including:"

I think there's more to it than that; I think it's so difficult to qualify for 1K based upon the former 100 EQS standard that there simply aren't many of them around to complain about it.

As for why 2P & 1Ps haven't been seen complaining about how tough it is to qualify on segments, I think some of that is simply subtle intimidation. It's not that the 1Ks are rude or look down upon the lesser elites as much as it is a fact that the majority of significant discussions here revolve around 1K issues. This is not a representative sample of UA flyers, or even UA elites. 2Ps and to a lesser extent 1Ps simply don't feel as comfortable airing their grievances.

After all, consider the proposed numbers given in the past for the various elites. 50,000+ 1Ks, 250,000 1Ps and approximately 1/3rd of the country for 2P (OK, not quite that many!) if I recall correctly. The fact that posts here are mirror images of that is all the evidence needed to see just how skewed the sample of flyers on FT really is.

I'm late to this thread, but just wanted to add my voice of discontent regarding the devaluation of the 1k program with the reduction of CR1s by a factor of two (4 instead of 8 per year for 100,000 flight miles). This does not bode well for future changes to MP.

-JoAnne, 1k MM and United flyer for 25 years. Perhaps I need to rethink my main carrier.

Please re-read the last 6 pages or so of this thread. You will actually earn more CR1's in 2011. The reduction will not take place until 2012. There will undoubtedly be a number of other changes that will be announced in November 2011 for the 2012 Plan.

So, should we be happy in 2012?

They bought you off with a couple of extra CR1s?

You have just handed Jeff the playbook that he was looking for.

If they really meant what they said in their email reply to many of us, there's an easy way to implement that.

-David

From what I hear in reports from that private forum chat with Jeff F., the 120 segment increase impacts just a small number of elites. But I wonder why UA then found it to be worthwhile making a change if the economic benefit for them is likely quite limited as well. One would think they'd have bigger fish to fry? Or that they'd want to be careful in a year where a lot of their customers are likely nervous about the impact of the merger for them. Were they purely driven by mathematical perfection? Did they want to test the response from elites?

Seems to me that its not about us. Its passifying CO plats who are in limbo. Frankly they should just keep MP as it is and tell the 75k CO "top tier" to piss-off. they are all hub captives where are they gonna go?? they've been riding the gravy train too long. Sheesh DEQM = 37.5 k for top tier ?? give me a break. yet it seems they want to ram nonepass down our throats.

Agree on UA, but we're not talking about UA being the issue. Based on my limited understanding of CO's system (having used it a few times myself, and what I've read on FT) there is just one fare bucket (ZE), which is very closely aligned with their discounted first fare bucket (Z). The only thing Continental controls is when you can access the ZE fare bucket. People with more knowledge will jump in, I'm sure. But I am 90% sure that how UA handles Y-ups and Q-ups is VERY different than how CO does YBM.

Of course continental could change their inventory management system to capacity control CR-1s, but that seems a lot harder than just doing what they did. And I think it would lead to a lot more unintended consequences.

From what I read, COs new RUs will come from R which is the same bucket as eua's and the same bucket that CO holds closed at 5 days 3days and 1day out........even up to 30minutes before flights, while they are trying to upsell everyone for the UGs its crap

I guess in the end we all tend to react to these changes based upon the personal impact to us individually. In my case, I will end up with at least an extra 16 CR1's in 2011 (anticipated 250,000 miles). I definitely believe that there will be a number of changes announced in November 2011 for the 2012 plan year and I'm hoping they won't adversely impact me. If these changes are significant to me and are not modified after protests, I'll move on if I can find a better alternative. In the end, the mechanism the controls the situation is the competitive market. I feel for the EQS qualifiers, and based upon what has transpired in the last few days, I'd be moving on if I found a better alternative.

I remember lilfe as a 2P and was 1P for many years.... even then I never understood why the EQS ratio was 30/60/100 instead of 25/50/100.

If you think about it, there is absolutely no correlation of EQM to EQS. One is a measure of distance and the other frequency. It's like Hertz vs. Amps in measuring electricity - they're both related to the same topic but totally different units of measurement.

If UACO really wanted to squeeze in a 1P+ tier the "most fair" way would be to standardize the tiers to 25/50/75/100 across the board for both EQMs and EQS.

It seems to me that the only internal discussion was centered around how "90 is too close to 100" so they raised the later instead of thinking through the ramifications to those impacted. The message it sends is: "we only care about the mileage flyer. The rest of you can get bent."

120 segments is a really high bar to clear for almost all but the most dedicated of segment flyers. 100 is tough enough as it is. I've said it before: if you think it's "easy" to make 1K on segments then you've obviously never done it.