Half of the major US airlines (Big Four) have extended status for the second consecutive year due to COVID, even if just for a few months – but not United Airlines and Southwest Airlines. Why?
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American Airlines, Delta Air Lines Have Extended Status
Nearly every airline in the United States has extended status. Delta Air Lines extended status for its elites months ago (more on that shortly.) American Airlines has extended status despite an earning-to-retain challenge as part of its rollout for the new Loyalty Points program replacing its Advantage loyalty program.
Hotel Extensions Abound Too
Intercontinental Hotels Group, for the sadists that seek elite status with that abomination of a program, will be happy to know that their status will be extended another year. There’s no reason to issue a “status lite” because there are no benefits worth denying. More on that in my Kimpton post last week.
Hilton has uniformly extended status around the same time Delta did so. Then they enhanced their program without using “enhancements” to devalue it – they added upgrades confirmed based on availability in advance of the guest’s stay and confirmable connecting rooms. Why can’t they all be like Hilton?
Status “Lite”
Delta Air Lines has indicated that they will offer an “elite status lite” (my words, not theirs) that will prioritize frequent flyers that earned status outright during the calendar year over those getting an extension but failing to meet the normal qualification requirements.
“Diamond and Platinum Medallion Members who earn Status during the 2021 Medallion Year through the published requirements will be able to select 2022 Choice Benefits upon earning Status. Members who earn Diamond Medallion Status will be able to select a total of three (3) Choice Benefits and Members who earn Platinum Medallion Status will be able to select one (1) Choice Benefit. Members who receive the extended Status and do not earn it on their own will not be eligible to select new Choice Benefits for 2022.
Additionally, all earned Medallion Members will now enjoy higher upgrade priority than those with extended Status within the same Tier. For example, a Platinum Medallion Member who earned Status on their own will clear before a Platinum Medallion Member who was given extended Status.” – Delta Air Lines
Marriott Bonvoy extended with the status lite waivers for its elite members. Hyatt extended with a Milestone approach to status and benefits that are based on its normal elite status qualification structure.
Hyatt offered reduced qualifications but those who fail to meet the traditional milestones will be without some of the benefits associated with status. However, status earned in 2021 is good through February of 2023.
Marriott also offered a status lite option:
“While Marriott is extending everyone’s status by 12 months, you’ll still have to pass 50 elite nights or 75 elite nights to be able to select Choice Benefits. That’s because those are tied to elite nights, rather than to status as such.” – One Mile At A Time
Could status lite be something we see for United and Southwest?
United Airlines and Southwest Airlines Have Not Extended Status
Southwest Airlines ran a similar promotion to what American and United offered by allowing A-List members to fly four flights and extend their status through December 2022. It would be a shame if those emails went to the SPAM folder or weren’t opened (I’m looking at all of those readers who have thousands of unread emails in their inbox.) The carrier has not extended A-List outside of this challenge.
United Airlines, which also favored an “earning-to-retain” model has declined to extend to this point. United required more of its elites in its Flying to the Finish promotion than American did ($2,000 for all American elites to retain status, $3,000 for United 1Ks to hold onto the status.)
Both carriers have a lot to lose from corporate flyers who were not able to keep up pace with closed offices in 2021.
Will They or Won’t They Extend Status?
Southwest Airlines should extend A-List because of the limited amount of benefits and their cost. A-List is basically just early boarding, same day standby, and free WiFi, I mean, why not?
American has this worthwhile excuse that it’s in a program transition to just not acknowledge their $2000 flying promotion to maintain status, extending status for three months and then forcing everyone into the new system.
Let’s pretend for a moment that some of these programs don’t extend status. If United, JetBlue, and Southwest do nothing, elites that fly from competitive gateways will have the option to move. Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York could all be battlegrounds where elites from these cities find themselves at zero due to no fault of their own. Are these airlines really in a position to face this reality?
JetBlue isn’t part of the Big Four, but competes for the New York, Boston, and South Florida markets and has plenty to lose.
Assuming that 2022 is a normal travel year again or at least more normal than 2021 has been, United is rolling the dice that their elites won’t jump ship. I personally know one 1K that has an expiry of his Plus Points now at the end of July, but mine still show the end of January 2022. For comparison, I have earned more PQPs than he has to-date this year so this is either an oddity, or (hopefully) a sign that there will be some sort of an extension coming. How could they not?
Southwest and United would also miss an opportunity to steal disenfranchised American Airlines flyers who don’t intend to earn elite status with the airline’s new Loyalty Points program. If they don’t American’s newest partner airline, Alaska Airlines should be more than happy to offer MVP Gold status (75k) to Aadvantage Executive Platinums – they will do better with Mileage Plan to earning miles and bonus miles with that program anyway.
Conclusion
It would be an awfully risky move for United or Southwest to cede their customers to the competition, especially when American has gone out of its way to make it an easy decision. United has a promotion running through the middle of November so we may have to wait longer to find out, but the closer we progress to the end of the year, the more likely travelers are to begin making new plans for the year. Will they move to (generous) Delta especially out of the New York and Los Angeles markets? Will Southwest and United roll the dice in Chicago? I guess we will have to wait a little longer to find out.
What do you think? Are “status lite” extensions a good option? Will United and Southwest skip extensions this year?
IHG spire is good for points. That’s it. But it does work. You get 20 points per dollar. 40 right now with the triple points. It is a joke otherwise but I’ll take it.
“Why can’t they all be like Hilton?”
No suite upgrades, no late checkout, points worth nothing, no daily housekeeping, and $12 for breakfast. Yes please, everyone copy Hilton’s great program.
Yes wonder out loud about United extending status the same time its elites are seeing AA have another meltdown. And most elites choose their airline out of necessity and convenience.So yes I think United will do just fine not extending status.
At some point the airline freebies will have to end and we will have to earn status the hard way.
United has soft-extended status by reducing requirements and offering so many easy PQPs for members who started the year elite. A minimally engaged elite could be retain status by maximising the promos, or could have at least gotten a soft landing down one status tier if they missed some quarters of flying. The only question is what levels UA will require for 2022 flying
Also, I see status extensions as a tactic deployed from a position of weakness. AA is a total mess and needs to offer any inducement it can to bring back old flyers. Mindless status extensions make elites less likely to respond to future promos. In contrast, UA is flying full planes and earning good revenue premiums… their only obstacle is uncertainty around border restrictions
United.com shows my 500 PlusPoints expiring 07/30/2022.
Kyle, you really are doing the readership a disservice not mentioning that UA has given away over 10K PQP to many flyers w/just a tiny bit of flying. Tiny bit of homework goes a long way.
I certainly didn’t receive 10k PQP and haven’t seen that anywhere, given the initial gift (3k) and reduced requirements – that would be a huge boost. If you’re including that initial gift and the lowered requirements as the 10k PQP, the math doesn’t add up.
I’d appreciate a link to the source on that and would be happy to update the post with this news, but given that my own account doesn’t have that many points in it and I did at least “Gold” level flying this year, that’s a surprise.
Agree – would love to see link. I am super close to retaining status but sure could use a few more PQP. Am doing the “fly to the finish” promo and would be happy to know of others
there was a promotion in the summer 2021 that gave you up to 10K pqp based on your existing status as well as how many times you flew between June 1 and the end of July. Something like that. You were sent an email in April or May and were given three choices for how you wanted to be rewarded for your activity for that time period. Either all miles, or some combination of pqp and miles. I think I chose the all pqp option and got upwards of 7,500 pqp I think through that program. This program was covered pretty extensively in all the normal channels, so if you missed it that’s your fault. I, for one, really benefitted from this program, even though I didnt get all the PQP as I simply didnt have trips planned. This was absolutely one of their ways to iensure that people retained status, and it certainly helped me and many I know.
And how did that promotion help those of us who earned their 1K status (and the bulk of my 1.6 million BIS miles) from international flying, largely to Asia? I’ve stepped on board an aircraft twice since February 2020 when I disembarked from my full-fare J ticket from Sydney.
I obviously don’t know, but I strongly suspect that UA doesn’t want to lose my $30-40K a year. Out of SFO I can fly whomever the hell I want nonstop to pretty much anyplace. There are a lot of people like me in the SF Bay Area and other hub cities. They really don’t want people going free agent.
It’s not through “no fault of their own.” If these top tier elites wanted to earn status, they could pay for it like the rest of us! No one’s stopping them!
And I think the Jan/July thing was built into the program…
It’s not as simple as that- a huge amount of countries still apply serious restrictions on who can get in and under what terms. My last long-haul flight was in December 2019 and my next one is hopefully going to be just before Christmas. Fortunately I was able to make use of reduced thresholds and renew my status with a small amount of short flights over summer, but not everyone will have had the opportunity.
The likes of Australia remain closed to foreign visitors, other places have cancelled visa exemptions, yet others won’t recognise a Sinovac vaccine etc. I suppose WN is a domestic airline, but the ones belonging to the global alliances are bound to have elites who [used to] qualify on the basis of long-haul trips, so it’s not just a case of ‘paying for’ flights which they may not even be allowed to board.
Then you really aren’t that valuable a current customer to them and aren’t paying their bills.
Anyone who hasn’t flown in 2 years deserves nothing.
Stop making excuses and asking for handouts. And anyone who stays living in Australia deserves the punishment their poor excuse for a government has them living under.
Consider returning to secondary school in order to revisit reading comprehension. I wasn’t even suggesting that they should extend status, let alone making a value judgment about who ‘deserves’ what.
If your status was earned through international business travel, you are paying the airline’s bills (paid leisure travel in business class is a small fraction of income for airlines in normal times). In most cases these people were not able or allowed to continue that overseas, in-person work- why wouldn’t airlines extend status for these people to keep them loyal right as things are starting to open up and paid international business travel will be gearing back up? It is strange. I guess maybe they are betting that in the future more leisure travelers will pay for business class internationally. United statement said they already have plenty of 1K status holders for the coming year, so they aren’t worried about this. Not sure how but there you go.
If UA doesn’t extend I will definitely switch as all 3 big US carriers plus AC fly out of YVR.
UA has made it really easy to extend status through next year though. 2K for Platinum by Nov 30 is all it takes. 2K is obviously not a small amount of money, but to extend Platinum that is usually like 10k? Easy. Just takes one trip if you price it right.
I could not even begin to tell you how all the special PQP offers on UA actually work, but I can confirm the posters that say the effect of it has been that it was very easy to retain pre-COVID status (in my case Plat) with only a half-dozen or so domestic personal trips. So while UA may not have done blanket extensions, they don’t require much more than showing a willingness to get on a plane a few times to get one. I can’t say that requiring people to show some indication they will fly again is a bad idea by UA. In fact, at this point, with a couple of more domestic trips before Christmas, I am on track to move up to 1K, (Pre-COVID, it took me several international RTs a year to get 1K, and I had dropped down to Plat because I had begun flying less international on UA for cost and quality reasons.)
With this latest FTTF promotion on UA (4th one of the year), that’s 11,000 bonus PQPs (not even counting CC PQPs).
I agree it would be smart to give extensions to some targeted APAC countries, but a blanket extension in the US? No way.
When it comes to frequent flyer status I am no egalitarian. I renewed my ‘22 1K status in June and am only looking forward to see what deals are offered for next year (if any…think United will return to 24k PQP??) Sorry to others who failed to take advantage of the bountiful offers UA ran this year, but you certainly don’t deserve your ‘19 status renewed again. Have fun with the status match to AA!
Haha IIRC AA won’t even match status, they only do challenges! I’m switching to AA anyway. Would be crazy not to now your can earn status without flying. (Yeah I know DL had the same deal but you had to spend 250k IIRC.)
Chasing status only makes sense if one is a frequent traveller. If you only do 1-2 trips a year, it’d be better both economically and relaxing (mind) to buy premium/First for those trips than to chase status. Check-in priority: Not much faster. Elite Upgrade: Planes are so full, plus there are so many 1K’s/GS’s so rarely happens. Priority Baggage: Everyone has the same “orange” tags inclunding the Star’s Gold from partners. 1-2 trips a year wouldn’t make you a MM. So economically choose what carrier offers the best premium fares for your 1-2 trips. It’s a guarantee of all of the above and at the end of the year, still have some cash left in the pocket. I am based in Asia and since UA changed its policy to require abroad members to do the same things as US members, it does not make sense to stay with UA. Everyone is in different situation so don’t get mad. This blog is only for discussion 🙂
Login to my United app today and noticed that United just extended my Premier 1K status to 1/2023 and PlusPoint expiration to 7/2022.
My main travel over the past years are mostly international business travel and I didn’t manage to qualify with any of their promotion this year.