United Airlines will not raise spending requirements to earn MileagePlus Premier elite status in 2024. In fact, it will still give a starter bonus, as it has the last two years.
No Change To United MileagePlus Premier Status Spending Requirements In 2024
While United has strongly hinted it would not significantly modify status requirements in 2024 (2025 program year), the news is now official: spending requirements will remain identical to current levels.
Next year, in order to earn elite you will need to spend (and potentially fly) at the following levels:
| Premier status | PQF + PQP | Or PQP only |
|---|---|---|
| Premier Silver | 12 PQF and 4,000 PQP | 5,000 PQP |
| Premier Gold | 24 PQF and 8,000 PQP | 10,000 PQP |
| Premier Platinum | 36 PQF and 12,000 PQP | 15,000 PQP |
| Premier 1K | 54 PQF and 18,000 PQP | 24,000 PQP |
Premier Qualifying Flights (PQF) represent segments and Premier Qualifying Points (PQP) represent dollars spent. You can offset the spending requirements by flying quite a bit on United Airlines or on a partner.
As always, a minimum of four segments on United Airlines are necessary to achieve elite status, except for those with MillionMiler status.
Earning on Star Alliance + Other Partners – Distance Matters
All Star Alliance and select partner tickets, even when not booked with United, can count toward meeting your PQP minimum.
United does not have access to your ticket prices, so will instead award PQPs based upon a fraction of the redeemable miles you will earn on the flight.
| Star Alliance partner | PQP total* |
|---|---|
| Preferred partner PQP | Award miles divided by 5 |
| MileagePlus partner PQP | Award miles divided by 6 |
*PQPs are capped at 1,500 PQPs per segment for business or first class or 750 PQPs per segment for economy or premium economy class on preferred partners or 1,000 PQPs / 500 PQPs (respectively) on other partners.
Preferred partners include:
- Air Canada
- Air China
- Air New Zealand
- All Nippon Airways
- Austrian Airlines
- Avianca
- Azul Brazilian Airlines
- Brussels Airlines
- Copa Airlines
- Eurowings
- Lufthansa
- SWISS International Airlines
It is a bit confusing, but perhaps an example will help.
Let’s say you are flying a J fare on a Lufthansa-issued ticket from LAX-FRA. Currently, J fares earn 200% of actual miles flown. That means the 5,806 mile journey earns 11,612 award miles.
United award PQPs based upon dividing that award mile amount by five for preferred partners and six for other partners. So since Lufthansa is a preferred partner, divide 11,612 by 5 and you get 2,322.40 PQP. However, PQPs on partner flights are capped at 1,000 in business or first so you would earn only 1,500 PQP.
Why No Major Changes To MileagePlus? Even Head Start PQPs Are Coming.
While Delta greatly increased requirements, scaled them back, but still ultimately substantial raised the requirements, particularly for top-tier Diamond status, United has is not even raising spending requirements to correlate with inflation.
United explained:
We’re staying loyal to MileagePlus members the same way they’ve remained loyal to us by keeping 2023 Premier status qualification requirements in place for 2024. That includes continuing to give members a head start with PQP deposits, which they’ll receive once again in early 2024 to use toward their status goals.
Those head start PQPs will deposited based upon year-end MileagePlus status and be half the amount that were deposited this year:
- Premier Silver: 250 PQPs (versus 500 PQPs this year)
- Premier Gold: 500 PQPs (versus 1,000 PQPs this year)
- Premier Platinum: 750 PQPs (versus 1,500 PQPs this year)
- Premier 1K: 1,250 PQPs (versus 2,500 PQPs this year)
CONCLUSION
United Airlines has officially unveiled its elite status program for next year and the changes are muted in terms of required spending. You will need to spend the same this year as last to achieve elite status and you will even receive a starter bonus in February once again.
But that’s not all the changes…
Shortly, I’ll discuss how United will make it easier to earn elite status with credit card spending in 2024.
image: United Airlines
It appears they’re still providing the jump start but cut it in half this time so only $1250 for 1K instead of the previous $2500.
Correct.
Any other airline who would raise -anything- after seeing the outrage DL would have received double the negative feedback.
That said, DL is still easier to cheese status on Silver/Gold/Platinum, versus the UA equivalent through MQD headstart and still better partner earnings. Diamond still seems to be a harsher climb (compared to 1k), and I think it’s stupid to hold 4 DL Amex cards to maximize headstarts.
Also, whether Silver/Gold/Platinum’s value is actually equivalent to UA’s first 3 tiers is very debatable.
I think the UA requirements are reasonable, the only massive blind spot is the lack of rollover PQPs. It creates a totally bizarre incentive not to spend once you’ve hit 24K. I’ve switched my transatlantic travel to VS for the remainder of the year because there’s no reason to go w UA (I use the pluspoints for family/friends)
Agree about the incentive to stop flying UA after hitting 1K.
I can personally attest…
Maybe something UA can reconsider next time it raises qualification thresholds.
You can earn additional Plus Points. Whether you can redeem them is another matter.
it’s 20k PP per 3K in spend – very little. I’d much rather they gave nothing but rolled the PQP over.
It’s amazing to me that you find United’s frequent flyer program and qualification requirements reasonable. After effectively leaving United I qualified for top tier status with all three alliances without stepping on a United flight or crediting a mile to their program.
Guess you could say that I along, with a few others, found their changes (more like a gutting of the program) over the years to be entirely unreasonable.
Is the preferred PQP caps $1500/$750 over? Which means on long-haul *A flights, not only you can’t “cheat” PQP but now UA will “cheat” you?
No, those caps still exist.
That’s good but not too good. With guaranteed E+ on UA (>=Gold) I’m not flying most partners unless in PE/J but the cap puts a damper. Flying LHLXOS from western US the cap is severe. I flew AC PE to TLV but was still slightly capped. I guess CM is the way to “cheat” now. (AV RDM rates aren’t so good.)
Unless it changed this morning, the PQP cap should be 750/1500 per segment for your example with Lufthansa since that’s a preferred partner.
Quite right – I should have made that clear.
@ Matthew — So, United has confirmed that it IS INCREASING requirements for renewals next year. Your headline is misleading. 1K renewal will now be $22,750, up from $21,500. Making up the difference would require $25k spending on a UA credit card, which is even worse than putting spending on a DL credit card. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter to us because we will spend the additional money flying premium UA rather than crappy DL.
Not giving the bonus is different to me than raising the published requirements. I don’t think We are entitled to a gift from UA each year.
The only one receiving anything here is United. They aren’t giving out any gifts unless the $5 MM piece of plastic I received counts.
Really? You need a gift from them to feel valuable. Child
@ david — The gift being referred to was the PQP that United is “gifting”. Maybe you should try reading yhe entire post and thread of comments before making rude comments. I don’t give a crap about any gifts, but I do care that the cost of qualifying for 1K is increasing.
Disappointing. Does anyone here not think the ranks of 1K need be thinned?
@ Matthew — I agree that we are not entitled to the head start bonus every year, but United already promised to give a bonus for 2024 a year ago. Cutting that bonus is the same as increasing requirements for those who are renewing.
@Matthew, the “inflation” adjustment for 2024 is hiddden in the reduced headstart. For 1K as low as 15500 PQPs were required in 2023 and now will require 16750 PQPs. So the inflation is over 8%.
(computed from 16750/15500)
I agree with @Gene about the headstart / bonus not being a gift. The 1K status is not being “gifted” but we are required to pay $16750-$24000 for it 🙂