Tag: MileagePlus

Saying goodbye to United

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Saying goodbye to United

I recently wrote about United Airlines increasing the spend and flight requirements for every status level in their MileagePlus frequent flyer program. The changes bring them in line with the monetary requirements as their equivalent Delta Medallion statuses, the one difference being that Delta does not require a certain number of flights in exchange for lower spend.

My take on the changes is that United is definitely trying to push people to spend on their credit cards, even upping the number of elite points you can earn from that spend. They are also looking to get a little bit more spend from those frequent flyers who were right on the cusp of earning the next highest status. Lastly, they are trying to “thin the herd” of frequent flyers a tad bit, though I think this isn’t as much of a motivator as some make it out to be. If you want to hear more about the motivations of United, you can listen to a recent episode of Dots, Lines, and Destinations where we had Ed Pizzarello on as a guest to talk about United’s elite status requirement increases.

From the title, you can probably guess where this is going. This year I made it to United’s Platinum status and could probably push it to make it to 1K for 2025, but requalifying next year for 1K with the new requirements would be close to impossible. I am a lifetime Gold with United after flying over 1 million miles on them (and Continental) and so I will have those benefits no matter what. If I really wanted to spend a lot of time on airplanes over the next year, I could shoot for 3 million miles (I need about 1.3 million more) and get lifetime 1K but I think I value my sanity too much to even attempt that.

So, going forward I am not going to prioritize United in my travel plans. I’ll look at schedules and price and make a decision based solely on that. When possible I am going to lean toward flying Alaska Airlines or their oneworld alliance partners. If United comes up cheaper and/or with a better schedule, I will still consider them but I just can’t justify going out of my way to fly them.

This isn’t an easy decision, I love Star Alliance and the number of options they have around the world. I love that United does offer a really cool upgrade option PlusPoints, even if it has been difficult to use them on long haul international routes. I love that United has been adding lots of new destinations. I love that the 1K phone line actually gets you to the front of the queue. That’s what makes it hard to just go fly someone else.

Here’s the math I have been pondering. I used to fly Portland-Newark every week for about 30 weeks a year. Looking at average prices it was around $500-$600 roundtrip. Taking the high end of that, it was about $18,000 in spend and 60 flights. That used to qualify me for 1K. Next year I would need to spend an additional $10,000 to qualify for 1K. And I don’t travel nearly that much anymore, but I do quite a bit of long haul international travel that is fairly expensive and I still didn’t make 1K this year and don’t really want to give United the few thousand dollars it would take to make it.

There is also the question of where the airlines think they are economically and just how long the post-Covid travel boom will last. If in the next year travel were to slow, they could easily adjust their requirements or give bonuses to help people qualify that otherwise wouldn’t, but I can’t be the only frequent flyer who doesn’t live in a hub looking at these changes and questioning which airline I spend my money with and why.

What do you think? Am I making a rash decision? Should I stick with United for another year?

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.

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.

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Make Your United Partner Reward Bookings Now!

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If you missed the news, United is lowering the value of their mileage currency on February 1, 2014. The main area of impact is international premium cabin rewards, with those flights on United metal going up in price slightly, but flights on partners going up significantly.

Be sure and book your rewards soon if you want the lower prices. After February 1, 2014, any change to an award that requires the ticket to be reissued has the potential to be repriced at the new reward levels. I do have a prediction: the implementation/roll-out of this new price reward chart is not going to go off without a hitch.

If you want more information on the devaluation and what different flights will cost, Seth has a great breakdown here.

United Award Travel Complexity

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Yesterday I wrote about the United reward miles devaluation. The post focused on the change in the award redemption levels but I came across this post from Gabriel Leigh about how adding a level complexity to rewards is another piece of the devaluation puzzle.

However, and this is the important bit: the connection has to be one class of service lower than the longhaul segment on United. So a United business class booking to Frankfurt entitles you to economy on the Nuremberg connection. It’s just the sort of thing to exasperate thousands of unsuspecting Mileage Plus members when they call up to book a ticket. In a way, it gives you a break of sorts – you can book on partners in some cases when you have to, without paying more miles. But it’s also an unnecessary injection of complexity whose drawbacks are worse than its benefits, if you ask me.

I touched a little bit on this in my post but reading Leigh’s thoughts reiterated the idea that this creating a new complexity that will simply frustrate those who are not mileage runners or advanced mileage redeemers. I think the example Gabriel gives is a little too simple as a business class seat in most of Europe is really just a coach seat. Where it is going to get really frustrating for people is Asia. If I am flying Houston-San Francisco-Seoul on United metal and then connecting to Bangkok, Singapore, etc. on Asiana then I will have to fly that last segment in coach if I want the United mileage redemption price. That is a long segment (some upwards of 7 hours) in coach when redeeming a business class reward. When someone calls in because they found Asiana business class space for that one segment only to find out that they will have to pay the partner reward price, they are going to be a little irritated.

While there is a miles increase for partners, there is a complexity cost that only time will be able to measure.