Thanks to United Airlines, we can all stop chasing loyalty points
I've now got about 10 flights on United since their new 2020 Mileage Plus program. Eight of those have been purchased business class tickets.
Here's the shock--under the new scoring system, I'm less than a tenth of the way toward 1K status (I've been 1K or Platinum for the last eight years. I'm might not make gold this year).
There are about a million posts complaining about the new system which rewards nothing except dollars spent. Google to experience the anger. You'll also see a lot of "winners vs losers" analyses which try to game whether you should add a connection to a Singapore flight on a partner airline. United has now added an hour to your flight booking time...for each leg. For a 1K traveler, that's 54 hours of your life, every year, sucked away from you. Please be careful. Mileage Plus may cost you a spouse or a friend or the ability to have conversations with other humans while you click away on your calculator.
Here's the only way to be a winner with frequent flyer programs which offer increasing rules and decreasing benefits (since I always purchase business class seats, I've never once earned an upgrade on a United flight--and I have 1.4 million miles flown. Zero. Nada. Never once.)
How do you win? NEVER spend a dollar more based on loyalty programs. Take the cheapest, shortest ticket in the fair class you can stand (I'm not suggesting RyanAir here...you don't want to slit your wrists on the way to Dublin. I have standards!).
To repeat: NEVER spend for loyalty.
And, you might want to join me in excluding United, just for the extra abuse they've heaped on us. My rule: United has to be at least $50 cheaper on premium economy, or $100 cheaper on business class--and faster!--before I'll screw around with these idiots again.
Looks like I'll be on LaCompagnie, Norwegian Air, Condor, and the others even more than I thought. Wait--that's not a change. I haven't flown United to Europe in over a dozen years anyway. It's pedestrian and expensive.
Here's the shock--under the new scoring system, I'm less than a tenth of the way toward 1K status (I've been 1K or Platinum for the last eight years. I'm might not make gold this year).
There are about a million posts complaining about the new system which rewards nothing except dollars spent. Google to experience the anger. You'll also see a lot of "winners vs losers" analyses which try to game whether you should add a connection to a Singapore flight on a partner airline. United has now added an hour to your flight booking time...for each leg. For a 1K traveler, that's 54 hours of your life, every year, sucked away from you. Please be careful. Mileage Plus may cost you a spouse or a friend or the ability to have conversations with other humans while you click away on your calculator.
Here's the only way to be a winner with frequent flyer programs which offer increasing rules and decreasing benefits (since I always purchase business class seats, I've never once earned an upgrade on a United flight--and I have 1.4 million miles flown. Zero. Nada. Never once.)
How do you win? NEVER spend a dollar more based on loyalty programs. Take the cheapest, shortest ticket in the fair class you can stand (I'm not suggesting RyanAir here...you don't want to slit your wrists on the way to Dublin. I have standards!).
To repeat: NEVER spend for loyalty.
And, you might want to join me in excluding United, just for the extra abuse they've heaped on us. My rule: United has to be at least $50 cheaper on premium economy, or $100 cheaper on business class--and faster!--before I'll screw around with these idiots again.
Looks like I'll be on LaCompagnie, Norwegian Air, Condor, and the others even more than I thought. Wait--that's not a change. I haven't flown United to Europe in over a dozen years anyway. It's pedestrian and expensive.
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