Craziest sane thing I've done recently

Update 27 Sept '23 (six weeks after initial post): my favorite email just arrived!



The PlusPoints upgrade we requested for my early November flight from SFO to Sydney cleared! The current price difference between Polaris Business and what I paid for Premium Plus is $4470.

So we have an upcoming heap of travel for my friends' wedding in Palm Springs, including legs to and from Australia (where the three of us will spend the end-of-year holidays again). I'm looking at our 2024 travel plans, our elite status, and the results of what that elite status got us in 2021-2023. Long story short, I think we're going to voluntarily pay $13,000 for a round-trip Business Class flight to Sydney to get one of us over the finish line for United 1k status. 

It's hard for me to even type that. Yes, one of us has had 1k status since the pandemic, but spending $10k to get through Australia's harsh Covid restrictions was our only option back then. Now that it's voluntary, I wanted to make sure it was worth it. 

• When I look just at the PlusPoints upgrades we've gotten vis-a-vis the cost of paying for those trips, it's yielded $41,800 in 2022. (PlusPoints replaced upgrade certificates a few years ago, they're different from United miles)

Of course I made a chart

• 1k status has given us access to a bunch of discounted award flights we wouldn't have had at lower status levels. For example, I flew NYC to Sydney and back for half price on one of these rewards, saving us 340,000 miles (and thereby significantly changing the cents per point math on our overall award redemptions)

1k gets you occasional discounted award access

• Buying this flight will also net us 65,000 Amex points and 70,000 United miles – enough for 1 award leg in discounted Business Class. (about 60,000 more points than we'd make on the cheaper flight)
• 1k has an 11x fare multiplier for mileage earning (versus 8x for Gold) so that's another 75,000 miles over the course of a year's flying
• Tim also got a free, unexpected upgrade from Premium Economy to Business on United partner ANA due to his status
• There's a whole breakdown of the benefits of the various United statuses, but most of them are kinda useless to us. Boarding first isn't really worth anything, for example. 
• The fact that we'd be buying him a $4500 PremiumPlus ticket if we weren't doing this means we're spending $8500 extra to get 1k
• Keep in mind we're doing "3 player mode" – one person gets 1k status and we use the resulting miles for all of us. We also use the 1k member's PlusPoints to upgrade any/all of us whenever we fly. (PlusPoints upgrades occasionally don't clear, so it can be very difficult to use all of those PlusPoints when it's just one person)