I am 1,800 PQP miles from hitting gold with United. I have all the segments, just coming up short on PQP miles because my flights are usually short and hub to hub.

I have one trip left this year and it will only be about 400 PQP miles.

Other than booking a very round about trip with multiple stops, are there any strategies to make up this 1,800 PQP miles. I can't buy them, it is something like $12,000 for 500 PQP miles.


TIA

water turkey said:

---

I am 1,800 PQP miles from hitting gold with United. I have all the segments, just coming up short on PQP miles because my flights are usually short and hub to hub.

I have one trip left this year and it will only be about 400 PQP miles.

Other than booking a very round about trip with multiple stops, are there any strategies to make up this 1,800 PQP miles. I can't buy them, it is something like $12,000 for 500 PQP miles.


TIA

---

Is it that much if you buy them as an accelerator on your upcoming flight?

PQP's aren't miles, it's spend. If you constantly fly short flights, gold probably isn't worth the money.

My husband is 40 PQP away from Premier 1K. Any way he can achieve the next level without taking a flight just for the heck of it? He currently does not have another flight planned this year but is willing if needed to bump to the next level.

Editing to add to OP, sorry for high jacking your post

I was also like 40 pqp short. You can only earn them from purchases made for a flight. So the flight and upgrades. You also need to fly that segment. I ended up getting a one way to South Texas and found a ride back to Houston.

The Lost said:

---

PQP's aren't miles, it's spend. If you constantly fly short flights, gold probably isn't worth the money.

---

This. Assuming you have a mileage plus card to cover bag fees, if all you do is fly Houston to other hubs gold doesn't get you much more than silver. You'll never get upgraded out of a hub airport at gold. Upgrading to economy plus at booking is nice but I've never had any trouble moving up at check in.

Fis4Favorite said:

---

My husband is 40 PQP away from Premier 1K. Any way he can achieve the next level without taking a flight just for the heck of it? He currently does not have another flight planned this year but is willing if needed to bump to the next level.

Editing to add to OP, sorry for high jacking your post

---

In this scenario I'd definitely book the cheapest ticket possible to get to 1K. If for no other reason it'll be harder to get to 1K in 2023 and the deposit bonus at the beginning of the year may make it easier to keep 1K in 2024 depending his planned travel volume.

Also, if he has a united branded card he should look at how close he is to a 500 pqp bonus on spend. You get 500 for every $12K spent. Might be some Christmas purchases or future travel he could buy to get a bonus award.

I will drop from Premier 1K to Platinum for next year. I'm 1200 PQP short.

I'm about 2200 PQP short of Gold which means I'm dropping to Silver for the first time since about 2009.

I haven't left the USA since March 2020 and my job has changed so I'm not on-site with customers as much as I used to be. It's weird going back to practically being a civilian.

Qantas was nice enough to extend my Gold status through 2024 - since they've only recently reopened Australia. So I guess I'll be leaning toward AA / oneworld for 2023.

46 flights this year to/from IAH. Gold in July and Platinum in October. 3 upgrades this year. We'll see how next year goes but the upgrade game is not what it used to be. Economy plus is nice yes but arguably not worth dedicating all travel to one airline.

You need to be 1K to be competitive for upgrades if flying out of a hub like IAH. Even then, it's been difficult because there are a ton of holdover 1Ks who didn't earn it.

For example, one of my friends hasn't traveled for work since end of 2019 and he is still 1K because United kept extending his status. A lot of that glut will clear out in 2023 so hopefully it'll be better.

Basically if everyone has status then no one really has status.

I'm taking a flight tomorrow from IAH-DFW just to get my 2 segments. I hit the spend but not segments. But I'm just getting to Silver. Not high rollers like many of you.

Same situation here. 1k. Cleared PQF a while back but i am short about 2,000pqp. So will be platinum next year which means goodbye upgrades from IAH. However I think after next year will reset everyone as both 1K and platinum got fat because of the reduced thresholds. I come out of gate in Q1 with a lot of travel and should hit 1k again at some point next year, but will miss upgrade, tapas box/drink, and pre board for a while, haha.

The 1k feature I use most is CLEAR. Everything else is mundane. Upgrades are pretty much guaranteed out of any non hub so that is nice.

I also just upgraded to United Club card this year to get more PQP as the max in it is 4k now. So will help pad some next year too

fire09 said:

---

The 1k feature I use most is CLEAR. Everything else is mundane. Upgrades are pretty much guaranteed out of any non hub so that is nice.

---

I love CLEAR and will miss that. I might end up paying for it now that I've had it.

I'm finding that airline status is not really worth it anymore. I've had it with United for years and more recently with Avianca as well. The upgrades are very few and far between these days as it seems like half the people on the plane have some sort of status. The airlines are also making things more and more complicated. I miss the days when miles meant miles. When this current year ends I am giving up on trying to maintain any type of loyalty to specific airlines and will just go with the best deal available.

I had the club card this year (doing a rotation with the sapphire reserve every 2 years) and the found the club access to not really be what I was expecting. When flying domestic out of IAH, often times the club was completely full or so crowded it wasn't worth it. The only exception was return legs on international flights, those lounges were always a nice experience.

The one perk that was unexpected about the club card is it bumped me up to group 1, ahead of the massive group 2. This is nice if you are someone who doesn't like to check a bag / worry about having anywhere to put a bag.

IMO United really needs to do something to make the groups more evenly distributed.

The status is still worth it for boarding groups and the dedicated counter if you're checking luggage.

Especially when you're on American with their 9 boarding groups. It's nice to get on the plane earlier and grab the overhead bin space versus being the 150th person on the plane and having to gate check your carry on.

Star alliance partner tickets count based on miles and fare type instead of dollars but I think it'd be hard to find a long haul ticket for cheap with only a couple weeks left in the year. TPG has an article explaining it if you're curious though

If you are just short on PQP's buy a plane ticket anywhere. Once you buy the ticket you will have the choice to buy PQP's - they won't be cheap so really only works if you are just missing. Then cancel the plane ticket you bought in 24 hours.

As others said I would spend very little on achieving gold. I guess its just how much you think you would save on the free premium economy seat.

I'm going to mix united gold by a few hundred points. Would like to have it just to book economy plus. Lately it's full when I check in with silver.

I think Gold is definitely worth a few hundred dollars vs Silver. For starters, you'll be able to pick economy plus seats for 2 at the time of ticketing which is important if you have strong aisle/window preferences or are traveling with a companion.

You also get group 1 boarding which separates you from the credit card holders that make up half of the plane. Additionally, Gold is the minimum status threshold that is recognized by Star Alliance partners which means you get expedited check-in and boarding (and sometimes security lines) within the entire network.

Finally, you get access to Star Alliance partner lounges when travelling internationally with Gold and that is a great perk when abroad. If that close, going on a last minute mileage run would be a no brainer for me.

I've heard that in January United will reach out to those with enough PQF but are short on PQP to buy the remaining PQP (dollar per point). Can anyone confirm? If so, that may be another option, but perhaps a bit of a risk if they don't do that again this year.

ArtVandelay03 said:

---

I've heard that in January United will reach out to those with enough PQF but are short on PQP to buy the remaining PQP (dollar per point). Can anyone confirm? If so, that may be another option, but perhaps a bit of a risk if they don't do that again this year.

---

They've done that in the past when status was still based on miles but it was super expensive. It would've been far cheaper just to go on a mileage run.

Thats always been super expensive when they offer it and this year they are actively trying to reduce the number of premier members so if they offer it I'd imagine it would be really expensive.

I wanted to try a mileage run this week but my wife and youngest son are both sick. Going to miss out on gold.

Just buy a ticket - then go to manage reservation and select buy additional miles and select the pqp option and get what you need - then cancel the ticket within 24 hours with no penalty. You keep the additional miles you paid for.