Getting Comped 1K
 

I didn't start travelling for work until May of this year when I took a different position. As it is I will be close to achieving 1K with only travelling for 8 months of the year. If I don't make it, but get quite close, is there a way to petition for 1K status next year based on my travel pattern in the last 8 months of the year? I would guess I will end up with 85,000+ EQM's.

You can ask, but I've never heard of anyone being given 1K status without getting 100,000 EQM.

No, there is no such way.
If you want the status, you will have to earn the miles. Besides, there is a huge difference between 100K and 85K. If you want the 1K status, I suggest finding an extra 15K EQM's somewhere. This is just too far of a stretch.
People have petitioned UA after only being 100 miles away and haven't gotten it. If you perform a search, you will find multiple threads on this topic.

In your instance... I believe no chance. I have heard (here) that some have had been able to re-qualify a few (less then 100) miles short, but I have only ever heard about FT'ers turned down for coming up short for an initial qualification (and those stories were for a couple miles short.... 15K is alot short).

IMO, fly the extra 15K.... the SWU's are worth it alone.

What about comping an AA PLAT who has switched to UAL now with 20K already this year?

Fly to BKK/SIN/HKG for Thanksgiving and it will give a new appreciation of having the 1 K perhaps... Thinking about this myself... LOL

Comped to 1K? Not a chance.

20k already this year? That's not very much. They may comp based on your Plat status but the 20k isn't even on pace to make UA equivalent to Plat (PremEx)

United is very strict with 1K status as being earned, not nominated. MPI almost never gives it out-- and WHQ will almost never ask. If you are a very high-revenue traveler, you can alert UA to your presence (you'll need a contact at WHQ), and they might be willing to try to help-- but I put your chances at less than 1% unless UA has changed their tune in the last few years.

I did get bumped to 1K (not requal) in June after about 85,000 high revenue EQMs. UGS invite followed about a month later so I'm not sure if the 1K membership was granted early in relation to that.

BIS baby, BIS!

Also get a Chase sig VISA card for 5K of those 15K miles you need.

Actually you only need 10K BIS if you buy premium fares - like 1 Z trip to Europe.

I've been closer than that, asked and they wouldn't do it. I will tell you this, it never hurts to ask though.

If enough people ask, maybe they 'might' change their policy for dedicated customers on high dollar flights...?

are other levels easier to comp (premier exec, etc.) or are all levels non-negotiable?

I believe UA will do a one-time only status match from another carrier up to 1P.

If you work for a very large corporation that has UA as its preferred carrier and is given a certain number of GS nominations to distribute, you may ask them for a 1K nomination too.

I was prepared to switch my company's international travel to UA last year, and had already flown 5 trans-pacific round-trips in first on UA when contacting them. I had almost 300k status miles on Star Alliance alone that year. I asked for GS comp, said no. Asked for 1k comp (though I probably wouldn't have done it anyway), said no. Basically offered a worse deal to us than we already had, so I walked away. Haven't flow UA international since.