Elite strategy for 2025

As previously discussed, we're doing 3-player mode for 2024 (one of us United 1k, one is Plat, one Gold), but as I'm currently booking travel for July, I'm already thinking about status for 2025. 

Status match to Qantas?

Tim's work visa for the US is delayed (sigh), so he likely won't be moving to New York until mid-2025 at the absolute earliest, so there's still going to be lots of trans-Pacific flying happening. Qantas is supposed to launch their new nonstop New York – Sydney service in 2025, but that will likely be on an unpredictable time schedule much like Tim's work visa. I mention this because I thought that route might make it worth it for him to do the "secret" status match to Qantas (Oneworld) from United 1k. 

But even if all of the economics of that worked out, will that flight even be pleasant? With our current situation, I really don't mind the 14 hours between Sydney and the US West Coast, but having to then immediately get on that 6 hour, completely-full flight to get to NYC is just the absolute worst. (And even if you're 1k, your upgrade to Polaris never clears on that hub-to-hub flight). We've done the longest flight in the world twice now, but the JFK–SYD flight is going to be two hours longer than that. I have no idea how claustrophobic and bored I'll feel after 21 hours – even in Business Class.

methinks a 21 hour flight (w/regular Economy seats onboard!) needs more than a tiny yoga nook, Qantas! 

Forego status altogether?

This might be low-key burying the lede, but the existence of Seats.aero has made me think about potentially not bothering with status at all. The site launched in mid-2023 and it does what many sites have tried to do and failed: actively scrape award availability information from airline websites. In addition to finding saver reward seats, it also helps you find United PZ seats (ie, the ones where you can instantly confirm a PlusPoints upgrade). 

Prior to its launch, your only hope was to apply PlusPoints to an Economy or Premium Economy booking and then hope that you'd get upgraded before you take off (no, for real, I've had a gate agent move me to Business during the boarding process after I'd already sat down in my Economy seat!). There's a complex, status-based pecking order for whose PlusPoints request gets honored first, and all the while United is using its pricing algorithms to try and tempt everyone else on your flight to pay cash to snatch that seat for themselves when they check in. As I wrote nearly 10 years ago, This introduces heaps of stress to my travel plans – precisely the opposite of what I want as a frequent flyer. 

What we've been doing the past few months is just set up a Seats.aero alert for dates we'd like to fly, and we get an email letting us know when/if their scraper finds one of the magical seats with the green checkbox next to it, indicating that there's enough seats in the PZ fare bucket to confirm a PlusPoints request instantly and lock in the upgrade right at booking time (see pic below).

I was using this amazing tool to book Sydney Mardi Gras tickets today and something occurred to me – what would happen if I switched the popup on United.com from 'search for PlusPoints availability' to 'search for Mileage Upgrade Award availability'?

Hmm, what if I try MUA?

I didn't know you could even do that!

I must confess I didn't know that you could even get an instantly-confirmable mileage upgrade. Normally your chances of a Mileage Upgrade Award clearing are next-to-zero so I've never bothered. I checked this very same flight on all of our accounts (even Kelly's Silver status account) and the price was the same: 30,000 miles + $550. Also, you should be able to do this even if you have no status at all. Given that United is currently selling this flight for $8500, that's a huge savings and a points value of 22 cents each! For comparison, you can buy United points on sale for 2 cents each. 

It's no secret that airlines don't want their customers to be able to easily find high-value rewards like this. They'd vastly prefer you buy cocktails or wi-fi with your points for ½ cent each. Air Canada is currently suing Seats.aero (update 15 Mar 24) and I'm guessing if Air Canada wins, the rest of the airlines whose websites Seats.aero scrapes will quickly follow suit. Until then, I'm absolutely loving this era of easy searching. But it does seem foolhardy to base a multi-year strategy on something that's very likely too good to last 🤷‍♀️