I'm ~650 PQP short for silver for next year. I've taken 30 flights on united, but they're all BIL/DEN/ICT...so low value, short flights. Anyway.

I've got one more RT this year...even paid for a 1Class seat to earn extra PQP...still going to be short.

Does anyone know when United Explorer card spend PQPs get credited to your MileagePlus account? If I spend $1000 today (50 PQP), will those get to credited towards this year?

El Chupacabra said:

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I'm ~650 PQP short for silver for next year. I've taken 30 flights on united, but they're all BIL/DEN/ICT...so low value, short flights. Anyway.

I've got one more RT this year...even paid for a 1Class seat to earn extra PQP...still going to be short.

Does anyone know when United Explorer card spend PQPs get credited to your MileagePlus account? If I spend $1000 today (50 PQP), will those get to credited towards this year?

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I get mine weekly with the club card.

Does your ticket offer the award accelerator? I've seen that option on most of my tickets.

I thought you got automatic silver status with the card.

rebelag62 said:

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I thought you got automatic silver status with the card.

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no chase visa united cards give you automatic status. Only pqp with your spend. Explorer is up to 1000, quest is like 18k and club is 28k. (That's spending $400k on that card in a year)

So basically you can get to different status levels by spending a lot. Since silver is 6k on pure spend you wouldn't be able to get it using explorer card alone. You'd have to fly to get more pqfs.

But quest and club give enough on spend to hit platinum and 1k respectively.

Edited for accuracy.

I believe you need 4 PQF's on United flights to reach any of the United Premier levels.

Diggity said:

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I believe you need 4 PQF's on United flights to reach any of the United Premier levels.

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oh you're right, I forgot about that min requirement. It's not listed specially on each level, I missed that.
But otherwise it's a combination of pqp and pqf or just a higher pqp.

For Silver its 15 PQF + 5k PQP
or just 6000 PQP

Im at 5757 so hoping I can hit by year end. My understanding is the purchase just needs to be made before the calendar year end to earn.

62strat said:

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El Chupacabra said:

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I'm ~650 PQP short for silver for next year. I've taken 30 flights on united, but they're all BIL/DEN/ICT...so low value, short flights. Anyway.

I've got one more RT this year...even paid for a 1Class seat to earn extra PQP...still going to be short.

Does anyone know when United Explorer card spend PQPs get credited to your MileagePlus account? If I spend $1000 today (50 PQP), will those get to credited towards this year?

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I get mine weekly with the club card.

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Same...I can't match up my PQP deposit to my card swipes, so curious as to when the timing of swipe ->pqp deposit is.

lazuras_dc said:

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For Silver its 15 PQF + 5k PQP
or just 6000 PQP

Im at 5757 so hoping I can hit by year end. My understanding is the purchase just needs to be made before the calendar year end to earn.

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If that's the case, then I'll be fine...especially with Christmas coming.

Someone earlier mentioned award accelerator. Good option that you can use cash or miles to earn additional PQP. Or upgrade existing flights to premium cabin with miles or cash for PQP.

Anybody have an easy tool to figure out the cheapest flights from a given airport within the month of December? I have 5500 PQP and 12 segments. Will likely be easier to take a quick flight somewhere to meet the 3 segments than to get the spend up to 6k. I am in Austin, so pretty much anywhere I go will be connecting through IAH or somewhere else, so I will likely get 4 segments with 1 trip.

I always just looked at the map on the app. Putting dates and it gives you places. Other option is Google flights, and just choose star alliance.

Agreed. Would prob just buy the economy plus pass before doing that. At least you're guaranteed a better seat that way.

Diggity said:

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Agreed. Would prob just buy the economy plus pass before doing that. At least you're guaranteed a better seat that way.

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What does the economy plus pass cost and what does it get you? Main reason I was wanting to hang onto silver was access to better seats for free 24 hrs before the flight.

ETA: Just looked it up and it is min. $599 and wouldn't include my wife if she were travelling with me unless I paid extra. If I can spend a few thousand miles and ~$180 for a quick weekend trip, it would accomplish essentially the same thing for a lot less.

You can't though.

Silver just gets you the economy plus option at check in, which means there's not always seats available (or middle seats only).

If you need it for your wife as well, I would agree that pass doesn't make sense, but it is better than Silver from a seating standpoint.

Diggity said:

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You can't though.

Silver just gets you the economy plus option at check in, which means there's not always seats available (or middle seats only).

If you need it for your wife as well, I would agree that pass doesn't make sense, but it is better than Silver from a seating standpoint.

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Silver gets you and your travelling companion economy plus seats for free if they are available 24 hours before checkin, and they usually are.

That's what I just said.

The advantage of the pass would be essentially guaranteed plus seating, which you don't get with Silver.

I found that silver is nice bc you get early boarding , free bags with priority bag retrieval. The eco plus if I'm traveling alone is usually almost available even if it is just a middle seat but is usually more miss than hit if traveling with someone. Gold would be great to be be able to get it on booking but I feel like it's much harder to hit esp since I usually prioritize trying to hit platinum with AA.

I'm pretty sure you can earn pqp's with a mileage ticket, so if you have a large account of miles you could just book a reward ticket to earn the additional 400 or 500 pqp's that you need.

Oak Forest Ag said:

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I'm pretty sure you can earn pqp's with a mileage ticket, so if you have a large account of miles you could just book a reward ticket to earn the additional 400 or 500 pqp's that you need.

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That was my plan. I have 150k miles and two CC 10k mile awards I need to use before the end of the year. Just wanted to find the cheapest ticket to somewhere I wanted to go.

So today I have the Chase Explorer card. Don't charge much.

Now that I've hit Marriott Platinum for life, I don't really need the Marriott Chase any more.

If on average, I charge $3-$4k a month, is there a United card that would be more beneficial? I actually don't fly very much (maybe 3-4 times a year, sometimes more).

I also have a Chase Sapphire for my business that I'm gonna switch to the Amex I think.

I would try to get the RH Gold or a similar CB card.

3% cash back on that spend is worth more than free bags and club access (IMHO).

I use the Sapphire for restaurants/bars, amex blue for groceries/gas and the Robinhood for everything else.

I have the Amex Platinum as well but don't really use it for anything besides the perks and sign up bonus spend.

Hate to say it, but Silver status with United is worthless IMO. You get to upgrade to Econ. + on check-in, but those are usually middle seats. I'd save your additional spending for next year and shoot for Gold.

Somewhat related, just saw that the status level requirements are staying the same for next year. I'm coming down to the wire for one last work trip and trip home for Christmas should get me back to the same level for next year. Definitely had a harder time this year qualifying vs last year even though I had an additional 2 or 3 trips this year.

Gaeilge said:

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Hate to say it, but Silver status with United is worthless IMO. You get to upgrade to Econ. + on check-in, but those are usually middle seats. I'd save your additional spending for next year and shoot for Gold.

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90% of the time I sit in row 7...window or aisle. Nothing exciting...but getting off the plane before the hoards of other people is worth it to me.

lazuras_dc said:

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For Silver its 15 PQF + 5k PQP
or just 6000 PQP

Im at 5757 so hoping I can hit by year end. My understanding is the purchase just needs to be made before the calendar year end to earn.

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I talked (texted) with an AI bot and maybe a human...not sure...and they stated that any transaction that posts in 25 will be credited to 2025 PQP card earnings. Generally takes 2-3 days to post?? Guessing any card swipe on the 28th or earlier will make it.

Man I miss the days of year-end mileage runs for status, took some crazy trips but made some good memories along the way.

Like the United w***e I am, doing a quick Houston/Lima trip this weekend to maintain 1K. I'm crazy.

Last year I bought a good size HEB gift card to maintain silver status. Gonna spend those dollars for sure anyway

Ag CPA said:

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Man I miss the days of year-end mileage runs for status, took some crazy trips but made some good memories along the way.

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The last time I did one, it literally was a flight from IAH to DFW, sat around for an hour, then DFW to IAH.

I didn't realize how much nicer being 1k was until I lost it. I flew first class on a smaller plane the other day, and since there were so many pre-boarders, I had to go like 10 rows back to find a spot for my bags. Def. Worth a flight or two to keep it.

JMac03 said:

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Ag CPA said:

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Man I miss the days of year-end mileage runs for status, took some crazy trips but made some good memories along the way.

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The last time I did one, it literally was a flight from IAH to DFW, sat around for an hour, then DFW to IAH.

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I needed segments a few years ago, and did the Houston-Victoria (TX) r/t a few times. Cost was 5K points/miles each way. Very simple.

So if my PQP is 2816 of 6000, does that just mean I need to spend another $3200 on anything before 12/31 to get Silver? Or is it certain spend?

I have the Chase Explorer. I do have the 4 segment minimum. It says "Card Spend PQP 306".

It would be easy for me to put $3200 before 12/31, but not sure if that is for specific United things, or just total spend.