Category: Travel

United increases 2025-2026 elite status requirements

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United increases 2025-2026 elite status requirements

United released their 2025 requirements for 2026 MileagePlus elite status and it’s not great news. I’ve put two tables with the 2024 requirements and the new 2025 requirements below. For reference, PQF is Premier Qualifying Flights and PQP is Premier Qualifying Points or dollars spent. For every dollar spent on airfare with United you earn 1 PQP.

Year Premier Silver Premier Gold Premier Platinum Premier 1K
2024 12 PQF and 4,000 PQP or 5,000 PQP 24 PQF and 8,000 PQP or 10,000 PQP 36 PQF and 12,000 PQP or 15,000 PQP 54 PQF and 18,000 PQP or 24,000 PQP
2025 15 PQF and 5,000 PQP or 6,000 PQP 30 PQF and 10,000 PQP or 12,000 PQP 45 PQF and 15,000 PQP or 18,000 PQP 60 PQF and 22,000 PQP or 28,000 PQP

As you can see, this comes out to 25% increase in PQF and PQP needed to qualify for each status, with some minor differences for specific ones (1K only needs 11% more PQFs with 22% more PQPs).

In an email sent to MileagePlus members, there are the following perks coming for PlusPoints, a currency that once earned, allows flyers to upgrade flights from economy to Premium Economy and Polaris (Business class).

Starting in mid-2025, PlusPoints earned upon achieving the highest tiers of
Premier status will become even more versatile. In addition to using
PlusPoints to request premium seat and cabin upgrades, you’ll soon be able
to redeem PlusPoints for new perks, including:

  • Premier qualifying points (PQP) or Premier qualifying flights (PQF)
  • TravelBank cash
  • Bonus miles
  • Gifting Premier status to other MileagePlus members

So as PlusPoints are earned next year, you’ll be able to use them in 2026 for these new “perks”. These new options seem to be in response to the general complaint I hear which is that PlusPoint upgrades rarely clear. So elite flyers are earning these points and are then unable to use them which is frustrating and deflates the value. And United would much rather having pay business class passengers in those seats rather than upgrading someone using PlusPoints so they needed a way to give the points value and these perks are what they came up with. The PlusPoints now feel like a second currency, in addition to the existing miles you earn from flying and credit card spend.

Keeping it classy in United Polaris business class.

I have mixed feelings about the increase in qualifying points and flights for their respective statuses. One one hand it feels like United is trying to thin the herd of elites in their ranks. By making it harder to earn each level of status, theoretically there will be fewer elites at each of those levels. But that theory doesn’t match what United has said about the market in general, which is that business travel is way down. So with these changes are they insinuating that leisure travelers are spending so much more that they have to thin that out? If so, that’s insane because it doesn’t match the broader economic picture that everyone is painting; That we’re in an economic slump and people are saving not spending.

United clearly has overcrowding issues at their hubs, especially at Newark and San Francisco. Just go browse Threads or Twitter and you will see people complaining that their San Francisco-Newark pre-boarding call for 1Ks, who get early boarding before Group 1, was half of the plane. These are fortress hubs for United with limited competition so lots of elites are expected but with these latest requirement changes, they make it just a little harder for those flyers to earn status. Maybe it knocks that early boarding number down by 5 people per flight. United must have some data to back up their decisions, or they are simply getting very greedy.

What are my plans?

I have my doubts that these increases impact the number of elites at each level but I would love to be proven wrong. I think the spend requirements for 1K, where you get lots of PlusPoints for upgrades and generally more perks, is outrageous and don’t see my travel patterns ever meeting the $22k and 60 flight requirement to qualify. What I struggle with is where to go instead. United’s schedules out of Portland are actually quite good and my cursory searches of other carriers aren’t promising. Delta has similar schedules but they also have similar spend requirements for elite status. Alaska does not have all of the spend requirements but their schedules out of Portland are not great, especially if they don’t fly somewhere non-stop out of here. Because they lack a middle of the country or east coast hub, the connection options are limited to one of their other west coast hubs or via American Airlines and one of their hubs; American’s schedules aren’t much better.

All of this to say, I feel quite stuck. What makes this even more difficult is that I am at 1.5 million lifetime miles on United, guaranteeing lifetime Gold status. If I fly another 1.5 million miles I am guaranteed lifetime 1K. I would love to reach that milestone but just don’t know that I can do that quickly (or cheaply). So, for longhaul work flights, I think I am going to fly the better carriers when I can and credit to Alaska. For domestic travel I am thinking I’ll give preference to United but if they are outrageously priced I’ll consider other carriers. We will see how this plays out in the next few months, I have a few international work trips in the planning stages and I’ll need to make a decision.

Summary

United has raised the qualification requirements for elite status and announced some new things that elites can redeem their PlusPoints for, making up for the fact it is so hard to redeem the PlusPoints for upgrades. The qualification requirements have gone up around 25% for most status levels. If United sees a shift in the economy they can change these requirements or give bonuses and adjust next year.

United’s 2025 route announcement

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United’s 2025 route announcement

The Announcement

On October 10, United Airlines announced eight new destinations and a few other new routes. I had predicted, because of my own selfish desire that United fly the routes, San Francisco-Hanoi and San Francisco-Bangkok as well as Newark-Palermo. The only one I predicted accurately was Newark-Palermo. The full list of new destinations are:

  • Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – United will serve Ulaanbaatar from Tokyo-Narita on a 737 starting May 1, 2025.
  • Kaohsiung, Taiwan – United will serve this southern Taiwan destination from Tokyo-Narita on a 737 starting July 11, 2025.
  • Dakar, Senegal – This will be flown from Washington-Dulles starting May 23, 2025. I’m guessing this will be flown on a 787-8 but that info is not confirmed yet.
  • Nuuk, Greenland – From Newark, this route will start on June 14, 2025. The speculation is that this will be flown on a 737 MAX 8, but no confirmation from United yet.
  • Palermo, Italy – United will fly to this destination from Newark and the route will start on May 21, 2025. This route was originally planned for summer of 2020 but the Covid lockdowns prevented it from happening. The route will be operated by a 767-400ER.
  • Bilbao, Spain – Starting May 31, 2025, United will fly to Bilbao out of Newark. United didn’t state what plane they will be flying on the route but my guess would be a 767-300ER or a 757-200.
  • Madeira Island, Portugal – United will operate a 3-times weekly flight to the Portuguese island out of Newark. This is another route that might be operated by a 737 MAX 8, but we don’t yet know for sure.
  • Faro, Portugal – This Portuguese beach destination will start out of Newark four times a week on May 16. This is another flight I think could be a 757-200.

A few other items were announced as well, including year-round service from Tokyo-Narita to Palau. This service is in addition to the flights on United between Palau and Manila and Palau and Guam. There will also be a new daily flight between Houston and Puerto Escondido, Mexico on an Embraer E-175. San Francisco will see a new service to San Jose, Costa Rica once daily. And lastly, United will fly Washington-Dulles to Venice, Italy and Nice, France in summer of 2025 in addition to the Newark flights to those destinations.

My Thoughts

It is nice that United is adding some new routes and I think a few of them really stand out. Their announcement in summary was, “people are bored going to Rome” and that sentiment doesn’t necessarily sit well with me. Yes, people want new destinations and there are travelers who want to go to these new destinations but I wouldn’t define most of what they announced as popular tourist destination.

The exciting routes to me are Nuuk, Ulaanbaatar, and Palermo, with Palermo being interesting because it is in Sicily and directly competes with Delta’s newly announced route to Catania. The most exciting to me is Ulaanbaatar; I would love to visit Mongolia and spend some time on steppe exploring. It is not an easy place to reach on Star Alliance with transit of China, South Korea, or Turkey being the only way to get there until this United flight starts.

Seth recently visited Greenland on the new Air Greenland service to Canada and I think he raises some very practical questions on the ability of Greenland to handle a large influx of tourists. The route is super cool though and I do hope to experience it and explore Greenland.

I am sure Bilbao, Spain will perform well for United but I do wonder what United will run the route on. The runway at Bilbao is 8,500 feet and surrounded by hills and mountains so it will need to be a performant aircraft, making me lean toward a 757-200.

Faro, Portugal makes some sense because of the large Portuguese population in New Jersey and Faro being a well regarded beach/coastal locale.

The Kaohsiung route is an interesting addition out of Tokyo. My understanding is that there is a ton of demand to Taiwan and this is another option where United can route traffic to the country on their metal with a single stop in Japan. With slots at Narita fairly easy to come by I could see United continuing to explore options out of the airport to tertiary cities in Asia.

Overall I was relatively unimpressed by the announcement. It almost feels like United hired a British stag/hen party planner and just went with whatever destinations they recommended. Maybe folks really want to go to places on the Mediterranean for the Instagram novelty but that doesn’t excite me very much. We’ll have to see how the routes perform, especially as year-over-year travel numbers start to decline.

Exploring the new terminal at PDX

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Exploring the new terminal at PDX

This past weekend I had the opportunity to participate in Portland International Airport’s “dress rehearsal” for the opening of the newly built main terminal building. The building has been under construction since early 2021 and with this phase, a big portion of the airport will reopen, reducing a lot of the check-in desk congestion that is present today. The dress rehearsal was to help the airport, the airlines, and TSA make sure that things were operating as expected and to work out any major hiccups before the terminal officially opens on August 14. I believe over 1,000 participants signed up.

All participants had to register before entering the space and this process was a bit painful as it meant waiting in the parking garage in a very long line. The bottleneck seemed to be that they were doing a quick orientation of around 75 people before releasing them into the terminal. To me, this seemed problematic from a realism perspective as the waves of people during the morning rush can be well into the 200-300. Each person received a script that let them know what airline they were flying, whether or not they were checking bags, the security line they needed to go through (PreCheck, express, or regular), and how they were checking in (app or website, kiosk, or with an agent).

The Nitty Gritty

The terminal is beautiful, no doubt about it. On the right in this photo is the temporary wall that blocks the current check-in area from the new space. Then there are the new check-in areas. They are long open areas giving plenty of space for travelers to maneuver, even if an airline’s queues are long. Then you reach the wooden floor and a large opening in the ceiling letting a ton of natural light fill the space.

New PDX Terminal

The wooden floors lead to a tiled space and here you are facing west. There are stadium seats (more on that later) that face the area where passengers will exit the secure area after their flights. In the next picture the security checkpoints are to the right and left of the center of the photo.

New PDX Airport Terminal, Looking at Exit Hall

The security checkpoints are where some of my qualms with the design start to become apparent. Each security lane, or spot where there is a body scanner, has three places where passengers can line up to fill the plastic bins with their luggage, shoes, toiletries, etc. This is marked with the lane number and a letter (5A/B/C in the next photo), but there is zero explanation of what this means. As you can see, people were kind of bunching up. This will speed up people going through the I.D. check but will probably cause some frustration as people try to jockey for the next open bin space. I’m not sure how to solve it but I brought it to the airport staff’s attention as well as the TSA’s, so maybe they’ll come up with something in the next couple of weeks.

West Security Checkpoint at new PDX Terminal

After you go through security you are in a new atrium area that will lead to the old terminal hallways, so no big changes there.

But, the good news for travelers is that the secure connector hallway between B/C and D/E terminals will reopen when the terminal reopens! This will be a huge help to passengers who are connecting between some of the airlines that interline and codeshare out of PDX. The downside is that this hallway is now contains the singular exit for all passengers. I’ve been told this is temporary until phase II of the airport is completed, so hopefully that is true. The other downside is that the connector hallway no longer has moving walkways nor the chairs that it used to have. If I had a flight delay I would typically grab a coffee, sit in those chairs, and enjoy the views of the airport operations. My guess is that the hallway is too narrow now and putting chairs in would just impede traffic.

Terminal Connector Hallways and Exit at new PDX Terminal

Now, back to those stadium seats. These seats face the single terminal exit. There is going to be a lot of traffic around this area with people waiting for their friends and family to arrive. I’m sure Loyal Legion will do great business but do you notice that glass partition between the booth and the area above the terminal exit? It’s definitely not high enough to prevent a child (or adult) from tossing things down onto the heads of people exiting after their flight.

I also don’t love the lack of backs on the seating in the area but it is an improvement to the current waiting areas for families, which is essentially 5-6 seats at each of the two exits.

Standing on Stadium Seating Area in New PDX Terminal

Overall the space is a huge improvement. The amount of natural light alone is a massive upgrade to what the old check-in area, security checkpoints, and waiting area were like. This new pre-security departure hall offers lots of open space for passengers and passenger’s family/friends to wait. And the concessions and stores that disappeared during the construction, we’re getting those back and some new ones, like Loyal Legion, outside of security that everyone can enjoy. What do you think of the new terminal?

Looking at new PDX terminal from stadium seating area

 

Delta dropping Portland-Amsterdam, KLM picking it up

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From KLM —

Starting from October 27, KLM will fly three times a week on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday between Schiphol and Portland in winter. In summer 2025, KLM will fly five times a week on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday between Schiphol and Portland. The flights are operated by the Boeing 787-9 and offer 30 seats in World Business Class, 21 seats in Premium Comfort Class, and 224 seats in Economy Class.

 

It isn’t outright stated in the release but this service replaces Delta’s daily A330 service between Portland and Amsterdam. This is overall a large reduction in seats on the route, especially since it will no longer be daily in the summer.

This route originates from Northwest’s old route network which Delta continued for a little while and then slowly started shrinking over time. Delta has operated it as a “scissor” route, meaning the flight would fly Portland-Amsterdam-Detroit so that the plane could rotate through a Delta hub for maintenance. The return flight to Portland would operate in a similar fashion. This probably created a small amount of planning headaches, but Delta had been doing it for years.

Because Delta has a joint-venture with KLM/Air France, KLM flying the route will still earn Delta cash and they can connect some traffic through PDX, though I think that will be rare. KLM will operate a more fuel efficient plane, the Boeing 787-9, reducing costs on the route.

At the same time, I think it’s a downgrade for Portlanders both because of the reduction in schedule and because of the plane change. In economy Delta operates the A330 with 2-4-2 seating while KLM’s 787-9s operate with 3-3-3 seating. For a couple traveling together, those 2 seats by the window are a great option. The reduction in service is disappointing but maybe KLM will up the summer flying after selling the route for a while and seeing how well (or not well) it is doing. Of course the news release doesn’t acknowledge the reduction but in my opinion it should.

It does make me wonder about the future of Delta’s base at PDX. It feels like they are so focused on making Seattle work that they’ll reduce other west coast flying in pursuit of that goal. There have been rumors of Delta trying to get a Portland-Seoul route operating but I am very skeptical of that happening.

One little side note, at the bottom of the KLM press release it states:

Portland is the capital of the state of Oregon.

 
Portland is not the state capital of Oregon.

WestJet’s new UltraBasic fare

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From WestJet.com:

Starting today, WestJet is introducing its newest fare offering, UltraBasic. Replacing the Basic fare offering, UltraBasic is WestJet’s lowest priced option and has been designed as a no-frills fare that gives guests the choice to add certain extras like reserving a seat in advance or adding a checked bag.

It is a basic economy fare with a different name. Seat is auto-assigned, no carry-ons allowed (personal item is allowed), and passengers will be the last to board. It is really their old Basic fare with a new name and no carry-on bag allowed.

United’s Latest App Update is a Visual Flop

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The United iPhone (and Android) app, in my opinion, has been one of the better airline apps on the market. For one, it historically has been a native application, not a web view like Delta or Alaska’s apps, making it faster to respond and return information. The United app has also been a really good case study in information design and presentation; It is extremely easy to find what you’re looking for, from flight status information to searching for new flights to looking for your account details.

Over the last few years United has started straying from the design philosophies that really set their app apart. They have started using web views in certain areas of the application and have complicated what were once simple views. However, all of those were changes that didn’t reduce a user’s ability to use the app.

But today they released a new version and it is a bit of a mess. Most of the changes are cosmetic but the impact really hits some of what made the application usable.

Take for example these two screenshots:

The first screenshot is the new version of the app while the second screenshot is the previous version. They both show the same screen, the flight status information (granted, for different days for the same flight number). The amount of wasted space in the screenshot on the left is really frustrating. The user is forced to scroll the page to see further details, when that information could be displayed in the available space.

They have also made some font and color choices that I find questionable. The overall font on the app has changed and has become smaller and harder to read.

 

This is the flight status search results screen. Again, the new app is on the left, the old one on the right. I can see that they were trying to establish some form of application flow by moving the arrow to select the flight to the right but they have again used this new font at a smaller size and it is extremely hard to read. It almost feels like the kerning is off on the text.

 

Lastly is their choice of this blue. I know it’s part of their new branding but it is really, really hard on the eyes and it is everywhere. Mixed with the new font there are some places in the app where I have to look away to let my eyes focus. And can we talk about the pointless whitespace? Even in the old app there was too much, but they added more.

Part of me wonders if this is some new template with a new font family that someone in the United design department liked and just ran with it or if they actually did any user testing of the new user interface at all.

These flight results have the new bright blue everywhere. Paired with the new font, it just isn’t great to look at. When looking at a phone screen you have to strain your eyes because of the way the font is smaller and the bright blue clashes with the white background.

I really hope United reconsiders these changes. The font could probably stay if the kerning is adjusted and the overall size is increased. I think that’s actually my biggest complaint is that it was a larger font that has seen a size decrease with the new font. The native app font size should be adequate for most users to read easily without having to zoom in via the iPhone’s accessibility features.

United has long touted their app as the industry leader for helping travelers navigate their trip and book new trips but this latest update really hinders usability and ease of use.

What is happening with United reward prices?

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From Live and Let’s Fly:

As flagged by Chazza in a comment on Live And Let’s Fly, Lufthansa redemption rates have risen from 121K to 154K one-way between the USA and Europe. Even more alarmingly, ANA redemption rates have risen from 121K to 242K one-way between the US and Japan, a devaluation of 100%. The change was effective April 24, 2024.

While initial searches Seats.Aero suggested some differences in pricing, it is now clear that all prices have risen for both transpacific and transatlantic first class awards.

The whole post is worth a read but the gist is that it seems United has made some award price changes, in some cases a 100% increase in the number of miles needed for a long haul first class award. There have also been other reports of coach award prices on partners going up as well. In addition to this, the above linked post mentions there are dates with the lower prices still available and that’s what I have been seeing as well. This leads me to think that this is actually dynamic pricing being tweaked or fully implemented for partners.

I don’t love these higher numbers but with the peddling of credit cards around every corner and every “influencer” sharing how they got a crazy expensive vacation on points these higher prices were bound to happen. If you are a frequent traveler and look for rewards you may have noticed that it’s harder to find premium space, specifically business class, on a lot of long haul routes. With so many credit cards being marketed to people and the number of points in people’s accounts going up, the airlines are sort of forced to raise reward prices to try and remove those new outstanding miles from their liability sheet.

This is as good of a time as any to remind you, spend the miles when you have them, they are not accruing interest nor are they gaining value.

In case you missed it, you can support me by buying me a coffee.

Great Read on the Anatomy of a Credit Card Rewards Program

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Anatomy of a credit card rewards program —

This is… far less incentive compatible for you, particularly if you decided that the business of manufacturing books-dollars was so lucrative that you could rebate more than the direct interchange revenue given mix effects. These users will have blended costs very close to your headline number, not to your modeled blended costs.

These users will even band into tribes, find each other on the Internet, and swap tips for exploiting poor, defenseless credit card program managers like yourself. The tribal elders will eventually run businesses, with names like The Points Guy, which eventually get quietly acquired by very sophisticated private equity firms. Those PE firms are betting that you continue paying generous per-signup affiliate commissions to Internet properties which send you new card users. You bet you will also paying tens of millions of dollars annually to Frequently Adversely Selected New Accounts Dot Com. And Redditors bet they will continue chortling that they have pulled one over on you, because haha, you’re not nearly as good as they are at fourth grade math or keeping spreadsheets.

There are some real great insights in this piece by an advisor to Stripe, a huge financial infrastructure provider and credit card processor. One that stood out to me was Chase going to Visa to create a new product to compete with American Express. We also talk about it a bit in the Patreon supporter part of the Dots, Lines, and Destinations podcast Episode 478.

One thing that is public but not well appreciated: Chase didn’t just decide to create an extremely lucrative-for-the-customer offering out of the goodness of their hearts and out of their own P&L. No, they pitched Visa on this idea. For too long, Visa, you have watched your competitor American Express outcompete every issuer in the Visa system for the best wallets in the world. They can do that because they can afford to, because American Express charges systematically higher interchange rates than Visa does even at its topmost tier. Visa, you should create a new tier where your not-exactly-chosen champions can try to spend those interchange dollars to give American Express a run for their money.

It’s definitely a long piece but well worth reading.

Renting an EV for the first time

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During a recent work trip to Florida that required a rental car, the rental agency only had EVs available and because I didn’t want to sit around waiting for another vehicle, I took it. Overall it wasn’t a bad experience, but I can see why Hertz struggles with electric vehicles.

The EV I received was a Mercedes Benz EQB. I had zero issues with the quality of the car, it’s a Mercedes, it was nice, comfortable, and well appointed. These days I mostly care about CarPlay and this Mercedes checked that box for me.

When receiving the details from the rental agent I asked bluntly, “how much do I need to charge the vehicle before returning it?” to which he replied, “it needs to be at 70% of whatever its current charge level is”. When I started the car it was 40% charged, giving me a little under 100 miles of range. That’s unacceptable in my opinion. If I had needed to drive somewhere out of that range I would’ve had to immediately make my way to a charging station (more about that later) to charge before continuing my trip.

In addition, this particular rental company, Avis, had no notation of the charge of the vehicle on the rental slip. The fuel level simply showed 8/8, which with a 40% charge, was not true.

I had never driven a EV, so I took lap around the parking lot to get a feel for it before hitting the road. The single pedal driving setup was definitely a shift in thinking and by the end of the trip it felt a little better but I certainly wasn’t an expert. Once on the road the car felt very good and the acceleration was fantastic, making getting on the freeway and performing passing maneuvers super easy.

When I made it to the hotel I asked if they had a charging station but was disappointed to learn there was nothing on-premise and actually nothing that close so I started texting friends asking how they know where to charge their EVs when they’re on the road. The answer seemed to be PlugShare or ChargeHub, both of which I downloaded and started searching. I don’t know if it’s a data problem or a Florida problem but both apps seemed to be lacking a lot of useful information when it came to any type of charger besides Tesla.

As an aside, I also tried the car’s built-in charger app and it was subpar, suggesting charging stations that were much further away (maybe they were fast chargers).

I finally found a charger near the venue I would be attending my work event and drove over the next day to get a charge. Thankfully there was no other EV there as it was the only charger. The actual charging station experience leaves a lot to be desired. This particular charger was a Blink charging station and when I first got it all setup it seemed like it required a Blink membership to even use but after circumventing some of the prompts I was able to get it to charge. The charging process was by no means fast, I dropped the car off at 8am and it did not charge to 100% from ~45% until 3:30pm. It also wasn’t particularly cheap at $19.35 for 39.49 kWh of power or $.49/kWh.

The rental companies could do a better job with explaining charging as well, especially since vehicles can be configured to only charge to a certain point, such as 80%.

The return process was also very interesting. The attendant who checks the mileage and the fuel level in standard combustion vehicles couldn’t figure out how to do either of those things in the EV. I explained where the charge level was but I never saw him find the mileage on the car and when I checked my statement the car was notated to have fewer miles than when I left the rental lot.

Overall I didn’t have too much trouble with renting an EV but rental companies need to get better at how they communicate the process and should probably update their systems to accommodate EV specific information. It would probably help if the rental companies stuck with a handful of brands of EVs rather than buying whatever they can when they can. The charging experience is also less than stellar. Again, maybe it’s a Florida thing but the data on the chargers just seems to be bad. This could be another area where the rental companies work with the EV companies to customize the built-in mapping software to help renters find the charger they need when they need it. All in all I thought it was fun to be able to try out an EV and see what they’re like to drive. Given my travel driving habits, I don’t think I’d hesitate to rent another one.

Icelandic volcanic eruption

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From CNN:

The eruption began at around 10 p.m. local time, following an earthquake at around 9 p.m.

The meteorological office reported that the eruption is visible on webcams and appears to be located close to Hagafell, about 3 kilometers north of the town of Grindavík.

Of note, the Svartsengi geothermal power plant is very close to the eruption and is being run remotely right now.

If you are traveling to Europe in the near future keep an eye on your reservations in case this situation turns out to be like the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull.