1,000,000 Miles on United

A few moments ago, I crossed the 1,000,000 mile threshold on United Airlines. There was nothing particularly special about this flight. (I’m en route from Denver to Birmingham for a talk tomorrow at the University of Alabama.) The flight attendant gave me a brief congratulation (shortly after I initially published the post.) It was just like any other flight. If my math is right, a million miles is roughly two round trips from the Earth to the moon.

I started accruing United miles around 2012 when I moved to Houston. United and Continental had just finished the merger. For the first eight years or so, I sought to earn as many miles, as that was the key to status. Longtime readers will recall that I took mileage runs to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney to make status at the end of the year. All of these tickets were purchased at low rates. The goal was to fly as far as possible while spending the least amount of money. By 2016, I had already accrued nearly 300,000 lifetime miles. But shortly before the pandemic, United switched the format. Now, to make status, you had to spend money, not fly miles. It made more sense to take a very expensive trip to San Francisco than to take a very cheap trip to Singapore. As a result, my pace of collecting miles dropped precipitously. I barely flew in 2020 through 2022. I ramped up in 2023. In 2024, I reached about 750,000 miles. And it took another two years to complete the goal.

Hitting the one million mile mark provides me with lifetime gold status. That status, alas, is basically meaningless. There are very few benefits with gold status that are not provided by the United Club credit card. In the past, United would let you gift your status to a companion–for me that is 1K–but United will only allow you to gift gold status.

Going forward, United had substantially increased the cost of making status. For 2026, I could earn 1K status with 60 segments and about 22,000 PQP. For 2027, segments no longer matter and I will need to hit 32,000 PQP. Unless something significant changes in my spending, I won’t be able to meet that threshold. I could become a free agent, and take flights on whichever airline provides the best deal, but living in Houston severely limits my options. So I will likely stay tied to United, albeit without 1K status.

At this point, even 1K status is less desirable than it once was. I rarely receive complimentary upgrades. And even when I use plus points, the upgrades are still rare on busy routes. I can’t remember the last time I was upgraded on a flight to DCA or EWR. (I was upgraded on the flight to Birmingham.) United, and the other airlines, would much rather sell an upgrade than provide it to a loyal flyer. The value proposition just isn’t what it used to be.

On the plus side, United now has Starlink on most of the flights, which makes the skies far more productive.

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