United Airlines has been making a strong push to reclaim some of the frequent flyers — especially its top tier elite travelers — who were lost to competing programs in recent years. I already wrote in November about an elite status match that was coupled with an offer for 50,000 bonus miles. In fact, when I took up the offer I was provided with Premier 1K despite a suggestion that Premier Platinum was the upper limit.
Now, outlets such as The Points Guy and FlyerTalk (first shared by CAPT Tee) are reporting that United is offering between 30,000 and 180,000 bonus miles for meeting various spending thresholds.
At the minimum it appears you’d need to earn $5,000 Premier Qualifying Dollars ($5,000 of qualifying purchases, excluding certain taxes and fees) just to maximize the lowest offer. Since United requires $12,000 PQD as a partial requirement of earning Premier 1K status, this is a not-insignificant threshold. Average flyers would have difficulty meeting it even if they were targeted.
All the offers I’ve seen have three milestones. As an example of the lowest offer:
- 10,000 miles upon reaching $1,000 PQD
- 10,000 additional miles upon reaching $1,500 PQD
- 10,000 additional miles upon reaching $2,000 PQD
And here’s an example of one of the highest offers:
- 45,000 miles upon reaching $8,000 PQD
- 60,000 additional miles upon reaching $12,500 PQD
- 75,000 additional miles upon reaching $17,000 PQD
In all cases you must register by July 4 for travel by September 4.
I can tell you already that I’m not targeted, perhaps because I already accepted a status match. But there are reports on FlyerTalk of people with Premier 1K status who are getting offers and some who aren’t. The exact criteria aren’t clear. So your best bet is to visit the registration page and see if you get an offer.
