United has provided details today about changes that will be taking effect for its MileagePlus loyalty program from January 1, 2023. There are a couple of improvements being made, but the most notable change for many people who fly United will be that it’ll become harder to earn status due to significantly higher earning requirements. Premier 1K members will also be disappointed with how many extra PQP they’ll need to rack up in order to earn additional PQP.
You can find the full announcement here, but here’s a summary of the changes.
Premier Elite Status Qualification Requirements
We’ll start off with the bad news. Here are the current requirements for earning United Premier status by the end of 2022:
Compare that to the earning requirements that will come in to force in 2023:
For reference, PQF stands for Premier Qualifying Flights, while PQP refers to Premier Qualifying Points. As you can see, you’ll need to earn 50% more PQF next year and 33% more PQP for each of the status levels versus what was required in 2022. If you’d like to qualify via PQP only, Silver and Gold status will require 42.9% more PQP, Platinum will require 50% more while 1K will require a whopping 60% increase in PQP. Ouch.
PQP Boost
Anyone who already has status with United (apart from those with Trial status) will receive a boost in their PQP numbers at the start of 2023 as follows:
- Silver – 500 starting PQP
- Gold – 1,000 starting PQP
- Platinum – 1,500 starting PQP
- 1K – 2,500 starting PQP
Those starting PQP will go some way towards mitigating the increased PQP requirements in 2023 as it’ll halve the increase for most of the status levels, but this won’t help anyone who’s trying to earn United status from scratch.
This head start will be offered at the end of 2023 towards status in 2024 as well.
Award Flights Will Earn PQP & PQF
One of the bright spots from these changes is that award flights will earn both PQP and PQF from January 1, 2023.
On the PQP front, you’ll earn 1 PQP for every 100 miles redeemed, so a 50,000 mile award flight will earn you 500 PQP. 1K members will earn incremental PlusPoints via the PQP earned on award flights as well.
Award flights will also earn 1 PQF. That means you could – in theory – earn status solely via award flights whether qualifying via the PQP + PQF route or the PQP-only route. While that might sound exciting, in reality you’d need to be taking a significant number of award flights in order to do that. Having said that, this is definitely an enhancement seeing as award flights previously didn’t qualify toward elite status earning requirements at all.
Increased PQP Caps Via Credit Card Spending
From 2023, you’ll be able to earn up to 6,000 PQP through spend on the United Quest card (an increase from 3,000) and 8,000 PQP through spend on the United Club Infinite card (an increase from 4,000).
United is also increasing the total PQP you’re allowed to earn via credit card spend across multiple cards from 5,000 PQP to 15,000 PQP. You earn 500 PQP for every $12,000 of spend, so you’d need to spend $360,000 per year in order to earn the maximum 15,000 PQP via credit card spend.
Removal Of Award Redeposit Fees
Another positive aspect of these changes is that all redeposit fees when cancelling award flights will be eliminated.
More PQP Needed To Earn More PlusPoints
Almost three years ago United revamped their upgrade program and introduced PlusPoints that can be redeemed to upgrade flights. When earning Platinum status you’re awarded with 40 PlusPoints, with members earning an additional 280 PlusPoints once reaching 1K status. 1K members could then earn 20 PlusPoints for every 2,000 PQP earned once they’d reached that top status tier.
From January 1, 2023, 1K members will still be able to earn more PlusPoints, but you’ll have to earn 3,000 PQP for each set – an increase of 50% on the current 2,000 level. Curiously, United’s announcement doesn’t mention how many PlusPoints you’ll earn, instead only saying (my bolding):
Premier 1K members will earn incremental PlusPoints for every 3,000 PQP earned beyond 18,000 PQP.
That might simply be an accidental omission and that you’ll continue earning in increments of 20 PlusPoints, but given the specificity they’ve provided with all of the other updates, I suspect that they’re going to be both increasing how many PQP are required to earn more PlusPoints while simultaneously slashing the number of them you’ll earn for said 3,000 PQP.
Even if the number of bonus PlusPoints you earn remains the same at 20 per increment, both the increased status qualification requirements and increased earning requirements for bonus PlusPoints will combine to greatly reduce how many you earn in 2023.
For example, let’s say you earn 25,000 PQP in both 2022 and 2023. In 2022, here’s how many PlusPoints you’d earn:
- Platinum status = 40
- 1K status = 280
- Bonus PlusPoints per 2,000 PQP above 15,000 PQP = 100
- Total = 420 PlusPoints
Compare that to what your earnings would be in 2023:
- Platinum status = 40
- 1K status = 280
- Bonus PlusPoints per 3,000 PQP above 18,000 PQP = 40
- Total = 360 PlusPoints
That’s 60 fewer PlusPoints and that’s based on the best case scenario of them not reducing how many PlusPoints you earn for every 30 PQP.
Final Thoughts
Although there are a few positive developments with these changes like award flights counting towards status and the elimination of award redeposit fees, these updates are, on the balance of things, much worse than they are good.
The key negative points are that from January 1, 2023 it’ll be harder to earn elite status with United due to increased earning requirements, while 1K members will earn fewer PlusPoints.
It’ll be interesting to see if passengers who currently frequently fly with United will move their loyalty over to American Airlines now that their AAdvantage loyalty program has made it significantly easier to earn status through all kinds of Loyalty Points-earning methods.
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This is great. Pre-boarding is way too chaotic due to all the entitled 1Ks rushing the gate, many of whom haven’t flown much since 2019. They used to call 1Ks to board by name…
Btw, I’ve never been 1K and probably never will be, I just like orderly queues
I’ll never fly United again after our latest fiasco with United canceling our flight due to no co pilot and then doing their best to not supply us lodging, meals or transportation to a hotel. Very poor customer service in Palm Springs CA. We did have one great guy there Wayne but the rest were useless.
The only reason to chase status for me was for freely cancelable award bookings.
That often needed the boost to PQP from card spend to get to PP
This change actually means LESS spend on UA cards for me and more on the Unlimited @1.5x and transfer to UA as needed (win-win)
I calculated that for 240k spend alternate years I was losing 6k in lost cash + card fees = about 2k a yr minimum cost even after accounting for the miles – just so I could keep booking family trips back up plans – that cash can now be deployed elsewhere
As a million mile 1k, I welcome these changes! There are entirely too many elites with too many plus points to have any use for them. They have not cleared on any long haul flights the past two years, and sometimes forget to clear even on shorter flights. I’ve talked to platinum members that haven’t had a single CPU this year! I used to be upgraded as gold 12 years ago on a fairly regular basis.
I agree. I’m also a million miler and United has way too many elites.
100% agree. Also 1MM 1K and find half the planet is 1k now.
I wonder how bad having too many elites really is…. In some ways as an AA flyer I want more elites out of my home airport to drive demand and new routes. And how many upgrades am I actually losing each year… debatable. I think AA is winning right now. And as a long term AA EXP I’m fine with it.
That’s not actually an increase, it looks like the original chart from 2020 when PQPs were introduced. The chart for the past 2 years was reduced due to less flying.
That’s right. They reduced the chart due to coronavirus, but we knew these numbers were coming back.
Are the lifetime status rules still the same? i.e. 1 million miles = lifetime gold?
They haven’t announced any changes on that front, so those will seemingly remain unchanged.
Stephen-re. changes/improvements to PQP caps or earning opportunities via credit card spend, is there anything for cards not listed? Or is it just 500 PQP forever $12K? I have a legacy United Chase SELECT visa. Thanks.
The announcement states “Eligible United MileagePlus Chase Cardmembers will continue to earn 500 PQP per $12,000 spent”, so if your card currently earns PQP, that should continue to be the case.
Will they drop re-deposit fees on awards booked after Jan 1, or any award currently booked, if cancelled/changed after Jan 1?
This is the wording in the announcement:
All redeposit fees associated with canceling award travel have been removed, so you have more choice and control over managing plans. United is committed to meeting customer expectations by providing more flexibility throughout the travel experience.
That makes it sound like it’ll be for all awards no matter when they were booked.
That’s what i got from their website, looks like it’s been updated already. A few other sources seem to say it’s for any travel starting after Jan 1. Works for me either way 🙂
So, this is same as Southwest policy?
This is tough on United folks. I guess I would consider moving to American or even Delta at this point. But luckily I’m not a United FF. B
This is following a move already made by Delta making it harder to earn Delta status next year. The spend thresholds align fairly close.
You fail to mention these criteria would have been instituted if not for the pandemic. Why should airlines continue to subsidize people who don’t fly?
Why would I rush over to AA where if everyone is an elite, then no one is an elite. I like it that UA rewards actual flying.
After two years of worsening upgrade chances, we may actually see some good upgrade chances in 2024 and on.
My god…PQFs, PQPs, pluspoints?!? What is this, a new multi-level-marketing scheme?
They hired the Bonvoy team, and now they offer a plentiful plethora of premier point products.