United MileagePlus Makes It Harder To Earn Elite Status On Partner Airlines

By: Ben Schlappig

Updated: August 26, 2022
Published: April 28, 2020

44 comments

United MileagePlus has just made it harder to earn status if you’re traveling on partner airlines. I’m not sure what’s stranger — that they’re making this change while global travel is non-existent, or that they’re making this change just months after having introduced this system for earning status.

In this post:

United’s new system for earning status

As of 2020, United has made major changes to how you earn MileagePlus elite status:

Prior to 2020 you earned status based on a combination of how many Premier Qualifying Miles (PQMs) or Premier Qualifying Segments (PQSs) you earned, plus how many Premier Qualifying Dollars (PQDs) you earned
As of 2020 you earn status based on a combination of how many Premier Qualifying Points (PQPs) and Premier Qualifying Flights (PQFs) you earn

For travel on United:

You earn one PQP for every dollar you spend
You earn one PQF for every flight you take

Here’s the chart showing how status is earned based on the above:

If you’re traveling on a partner airline on a ticket not issued by United, you earn PQPs as follows:

Your PQPs will be equal to award miles earned divided by five if traveling on a preferred partner
Your PQPs will be equal to award miles earned divided by six if traveling on another partner

United’s new limit for partner PQP earning

United MileagePlus is putting a cap on how many PQPs you can earn for travel on partner airlines, as follows:

Note that:

This applies for tickets issued by airlines other than United
This applies for flights as of July 1, 2020
The limits are per segment, not per ticket
MileagePlus members who purchased tickets prior to April 29, 2020, can still earn PQPs beyond the cap by emailing [email protected] with the subject line “OA PQP Review”

The above potentially greatly limits how many PQPs you can earn for travel on partner airlines. To give a couple of examples…

If you fly roundtrip from Newark to Singapore on Singapore Airlines in premium economy:

You’d ordinarily earn 19,068 redeemable miles (100% of the distance flown)
You’d ordinarily earn 3,178 PQPs (the award miles earned divided by six)
With the new cap you’d earn just 1,000 PQPs, which is about a 70% reduction in PQP earning

To give a less extreme example, if you fly roundtrip from New York to Frankfurt on Lufthansa in first class:

You’d ordinarily earn 15,376 redeemable miles (200% of the distance flown)
You’d ordinarily earn 3,075 PQPs (the award miles earned divided by five)
With the new cap you’d earn 3,000 PQPs, which is only a very mild reduction in PQP earning

Bottom line

United MileagePlus is making it significantly harder to earn status based on partner airline travel as of July 1, 2020. Not only is the timing of this strange (given the state of the global airline industry — it’s not even the only negative change they’re making), but I also am surprised by the fact that MileagePlus didn’t consider this when introducing the program a few months ago.

It’s not like they’re changing the rules on a program years after it was introduced, but rather this change comes just months after the new mileage earning style was introduced.

Arbitrage opportunities when crediting partner flights to a complicated program have long existed, so how did United not account for this when introducing the program in the first place?

Will you be impacted by these MileagePlus rule changes?

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DCS Diamond

April 30, 2020, 4:06 am

@Eskimo -- Believe it or not, I agree with what you just stated above. Stick to the facts, avoid psychobabble and you just might be an interesting commenter ;-)

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Eskimo Guest

April 29, 2020, 8:58 pm

@Jeff The new problem for UA is the cost of maintaining status from now on. Since you never pay for business or first, the partner earning doesn't affect much as most other partners typically will give fewer miles in coach. If you paid for partner premium cabins you still can get decent multipliers when you credit back to UA. The example is this post illustrate how you get penalized. If you compare to the older 'PQM' method you will see a huge difference. Imagine you get 200% PQM on 'partner' miles flown on EWR-NRT-DPS return. That's 40k PQM or almost Gold on the old system. Under this new system you get less than 4000 PQP or not even Silver. Now back to your case, your annual 200k miles might not get you 1K anymore if you didn't spend $24,000 for the PQP. For people who are not hub captive, or don't mind some transit, it might save you thousands and still maintain top tier status on other airlines. With 6 ANC trips annually you might want to consider AA or AS (soon Oneworld). Just to let you know you do have an alternative. Luckily for you, your 1K got extended and you can use this opportunity to try out other airlines through status match. Hey, UA might still be your best fit.

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Jeff New Member

April 29, 2020, 12:21 pm

@Eskimo - Thanks Eskimo (don't know if your name is due to being Alaska). I fly to ANC about 6 times a year. I have no problem paying extra (even a few hundred extra) for my tickets to be fully ticketed at 016. I NEVER purchase business or first class. The reason I do it the way I do is to keep my 1K status each year so I can get the upgrades. I don't know about everyone else, but it's rare when I'm not upgraded whether it be on Domestic or International flights.

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Jeff New Member

April 29, 2020, 12:16 pm

Thanks DCS! That's what I thought. Well, in that case I would never have to worry. I fly about 200,000 miles a year almost exclusively on United and with partner airlines with their codeshare. As a 1K Million Miler this is the way I do ALL my ticketing with United. Why would I do it any other way? In spite of all the negatives from many people, I am one of those who LOVE United and have almost always been treated well. Sure, once in a while I get an UA employee who should look for employment elsewhere, but I don't blame the entire UA workforce for the few who screw up. I love flying on the partner airlines too, but I am totally committed to United. Thanks again and stay healthy and safe!

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Eskimo Guest

April 29, 2020, 12:08 pm

@Jeff You bought it from UA (016- ticket) so nothing changes for you. Depending on your fare, you would be penalized if you bought it from other airlines. If someday your ticket is cheaper on AC, NH, OZ you might have to consider the miles you get. The worse offenders are the more expensive tickets like business class.

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