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Mileage runs are last-minute dashes for airline status
- ec109685 7y agoThis version works without a paywall: https://m.sfgate.com/news/article/Mileage-runs-are-last-minute-dashes-for-airline-14932647.php https://m.sfgate.com/news/article/Mileage-runs-are-last-minu...
- Namrog84 7y agoThank you! I feel like I've been seeing more and more paywall reaching top links lately and its mildly annoying do most people have subscriptions or something?
- inferiorhuman 7y agoI've got uBlock Origin set to block javascript on washingtonpost.com and as a result I've not seen their paywall nonsense in ages.
- Namrog84 7y agoThanks. I use unlock origin but hadn't tried that. I'll do that now. Thanks!
- sandworm101 7y agoI knew some attorneys who used to do this. Once upon a time you could just buy the ticket and get the miles, not actually setting foot on the flight. But post-911 that is no longer an option. There are really interesting benefits from some of these plans. I knew one guy who's premium membership, because of a package deal between airlines and hotels, would get free minibar in the hotel. That was a game changer.
- chrisseaton 7y ago> would get free minibar in the hotel. That was a game changer. Free chocolate bars and half-bottles of mediocre Champagne is a game changer? Seems like a very low bar to set! Could replicate that experience for $50 in a nearby gas station if you really wanted to eat that many peanuts and average beer.
- sandworm101 7y agoYou could, but that means leaving the hotel. For a jetlagged business traveler with a flight in a few hours, free minibar is a real timesaver.
- txcwpalpha 7y agoHell, free beer/wine/sometimes liquor, as well as free appetizers, snacks, cookies, dessert and more is a pretty common perk available in the concierge lounge at most large hotels...
- myrandomcomment 7y agoEh, real status is an exec lounge with a happy hour 5-8pm with top shelf booze and decent food. SPG was the best, but has gone down hill a bit since Marriott took over. Westin Ebisu Tokyo even has special drink nights where they bring a set of different liquors in a theme. Best hotel staff anywhere.
- epylar 7y agoI thought the post-911 thing was just not being allowed to check baggage without flying on the flight. If you don't show up at all you're good, right?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ghaff 7y agoNope. I'm not sure it's a post-911 thing per se, but status miles are mostly "butt in seat" miles. Even if you've paid for the flight, forfeit the amount, and don't take the flight, you don't get the miles in most cases. (Business/First typically give you some multiplier.)
- code4tee 7y agoThis era is gradually coming to an end as the airlines now heavily weight status to how much $ you give them each year vs how many “miles” you fly. It’s freaking some people out but at some level it makes sense that the amount of free stuff they give you should be proportional to the amount of money you have given them. For example starting next year United doesn’t care at all how many miles you fly... it’s basically just how much you spend (with a slight discount if you fly a lot of individual flights, but length of flight doesn’t matter).
- nugget 7y agoIt’s cyclical. The stronger the economy is, the worse airlines and hotels treat their loyalty program members. When the next bad recession hits, they will open the “loopholes” back up and we’ll be adrift in a sea of unbelievable promos.
- Scoundreller 7y agoI miss FatWallet :)
- ghaff 7y agoI just looked through the United rules for next year. Not really a surprise as earned points had already moved to dollar-based. But it does look like it will be harder for me to gain the same status next year as I did this year. (Which was actually already a bit of a step down from the past few years.) It does make sense from the airline's point of view. They care about your money, not how many miles you fly with them. In fact, they probably would prefer you flew fewer miles (which cost them) and spent more money. Also, cynically speaking, it's often a lot easier for employees to spend more money on flights than it is to take more flights and thereby get more butt-in-seat miles. There have been qualifying dollars for a while but they weren't that hard to hit and ways to get waivers. Now there's a direct incentive to spend a bit more on a ticket if you're near an award level.
- Aloha 7y agoI've got Ambassador at Marriott, so I get UA Silver free (an hertz 5-star diamond presidents circle elite or something similarly foolishly named), its not a bad combo, it gets me in the front of the airplane, and saves me a baggages fee.
- whizzkid 7y agoThis whole setup doesnt make sense for me. Flying as a whole is not that comfy even if you are flying first class. Pack + taxi + controls + wait in lounge + wait boarding and etc. I believe not needing to fly is more luxurious life than flying. If your job requires you to fly, than business class is there just for that purpose :) (company pays)
- eganist 7y ago¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just finished a mileage run. It made sense for me because I already had the status this year (not from a prior mileage run), which meant I ended up being upgraded on every flight and e.g. flying overnight and showering in airport lounges rather than burning time in hotels. I used it as an opportunity to catch up with old friends in far away places. Worked out pretty well.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoI think it's one of those things that you have to be "in the know" to understand and experience the benefits, and why a mileage run or other status qualifying event is worth the time and effort. Same reason some folks have no value getting Global Entry, but for a frequent traveler, being saved from one missed flight due to border control time deltas (looking at your YYZ!) makes the $100 fee and the interview worth it.
- eganist 7y agoI think you're largely right. I derive pretty good value from the programs I'm enrolled in, so a mileage run makes sense to keep doing the things I'd like to do next year at a relative discount.
- yibg 7y agoNexus is probably one of the best investments I’ve ever made. The amount of time saved from that one little card has been incredible.
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- ceocoder 7y agoI made status this year on United, fortunately I didn’t have to do any sort of mileage run. I do enjoy benefits of status - ability to pick better legroom seats for the whole family, upgrades except for SFO LHR route because half the plane is Global Service for that route. However next year the same status will require $24k in spend, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to get to that. It was fun while it lasted though.
- chrisseaton 7y agoWho is achieving Global Services while not already booking in Polaris? I thought Global Services was like private invitation to senior executives? Those people aren’t likely booking in Economy and hoping for an upgrade. Or is it low-level consultants flying transatlantic twice a week every week who have astronomic mileage but aren’t actually senior in their companies?
- code4tee 7y agoIt’s usually either those that spend a lot of total dollars with United or in some cases “influencers” in a company like the head of travel that control a lot of spend.
- asciimike 7y agoNobody. GS is nominally the top 1-2% in UA metal revenue of each station (e.g. I had a coworker based out of PIT who was able to routinely get it with 50k annual spend, while I met a number of SFO folks who had to spend 80-90k). Anecdotally, companies with large business relationships with United (Apple, Google, etc.) will get a certain number of GS slots as well (they could get allocated to senior execs--there was a rumor that it was a director perk, though I asked my directors and they didn't seem to have access, so maybe it was VPs only?).
- asciimike 7y ago1k has gotten insane lately, so it only makes sense they're raising the spend limit. Switching to pre-board 1k's makes sense on non-mainline routes, but on any mainline flight, there's a huge gaggle of GS/1k wandering aimlessly around the gate waiting for the flight to board, and it's a total mess. This should restore some order. But as someone who spent 25k w/UA this year, I won't be doing it again next year. As for the benefits: - Econ+ is nice (mostly for being at the front of the plane), and let's call it $100/flight (what you'd otherwise pay for it) - Free drink + snack is $20 a flight - 3x 75lb checked bags is non-trivial, though I don't know a business traveler who checks bags - Lounge access on INTL flights, let's call this $50/flight - Waived change fees within 24 hours is $200 a flight, and TBH this is a game changer for my travel habits (and the thing I will miss the most come Feb 2021 when I no longer have 1k) - Upgrades: well, the plane was already flying there, so it's a loss of revenue rather than a cost per se, but honestly this is probably the biggest "cost" to the airline for having status
- gumby 7y ago> Some companies even allow employees to expense their trip to nowhere because of the expected returns the following year. Reminds me of a time 35 years ago when my company asked me to upgrade to the then $1000/year platinum amex card because they'd save more than that on rental car insurance. I've never forgotten that they reimbursed me $975 because "You're paying $25 for your regular card already". Nowadays with corporate cards, expensify etc this doesn't generally make sense.
- Aloha 7y agoI expense north of 40k a year, and still do it all on my personal cards. And actually, I do it split, hotel goes to the hotel chain co-brand, rental car to the airline one that offers free primary insurance, everything else, whatever card du jour I have right now.
- gumby 7y agoI do that too when I can -- most of the various card benefits (e.g points, free upgrades etc) then accrue to me. I couldn't get that free night's hotel stay on a vacation trip charged it to a company card! And by charging and paying off a lot I now have very large credit limits. But I can do that because indeed I have large limits and my expense reports are paid promptly. Some people can't afford to lend their company tens of thousands of dollars a month (as my XRs are paid promptly I don't pay interest for this -- in fact much of the time I am reimbursed before the bill is due). More significantly companies typically require that the company-issued card is used because the bill will arrive pre-sorted into categories that integrate with the company accounting system and travel policies. The systems back in the 80s (and 00s for that matter) were much less sophisticated and often paper based so processing an expense report was not much more work than managing a company card.
- Aloha 7y agoMy company is still basically doing paper expense reports.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
- mark-ruwt 7y agoAs a one-man, self-funded startup where every dollar counts, maintaining status is critical. It's much more than legroom and upgrades, it's also lower fees for some last-minute fares and the ability to sometimes change flights within 24 hours of departure for zero fee. In September I made it from the curb to the gate at Heathrow in 27 minutes--it wouldn't have been possible without the agent at the United Elite desk.
- chillydawg 7y ago27 minutes isn't that fast for heathrow. I assume it wasn't T5? In there, even in non-business I've made it from the entrance to the gate in about 15. Entirely depends on the state of the queues, though. Being able to do it in 27 minutes reliably would be a real asset, though. I'd never, ever bank on being able to get through that quickly as inevitably something goes wrong.
- asciimike 7y agoUA is T2 @ LHR. Dedicated luggage drop + "Gold Track" security means you should be able to do it pretty quickly. The problem is that the UA gates are at a satellite, so you've got a min 10 min walk to get to them.
- StillBored 7y agoThis is really the problem with all the airports. The check-in/security line is too variable, so showing up really early is the only safe bet.. Then you end up sitting around in the airport. Or alternatively showing up with the about right amount of time, and missing the flight once every dozen or so trips because the security line is wrapped around the building because of some random news tidbit that sends 50% of the precheck through the naked scanner/whatever.
- jonplackett 7y agooutline version: https://outline.com/nepZzS https://outline.com/nepZzS
- im3w1l 7y agoSounds bad for the climate.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- memn0nis 7y agoI was United 1K for a few years, now back down to United silver (I fly maybe 20-30 flights a year now, down from 100+ when I was 1K). I would certainly pay a couple hundred dollars to keep United silver to get economy plus seats, but would never pay for anything about that
- asciimike 7y agoWaived same day change fees is the biggest (way underappreciated IMO) perk of 1k. I now pick the first or last flight out and move around as needed (most of the time I can swap with no fare class change). Having a dedicated phone line to call and immediately get a helpful human to reroute me is also super worthwhile.
- memn0nis 7y agoI never had waived change fees when I was 1K. They must have added it recently, but agree that is nice!
- yummypaint 7y agoTalk about unnecessarily burning fossil fuels. I wonder how much carbon this practice puts into the atmosphere.
- o-__-o 7y agoHad a family trip this weekend, booked my flight fully refundable for max points and booked the rest of the family on econo tickets. It ended up being an amazing idea because i boarded like second and was able to hold an entire row on a flight full of families and kids. It was the last flight I needed, Now the wifey flies for free next year.. Was that worth a $1200 ticket? Yes.