Keep Your Preferred Carrier from Running Your Upgrade Life, by Earning & Spending Miles More Wisely
It is getting harder for me to earn United miles without flying that carrier or using its credit card. The one side door— transferring points from AmEx Membership Rewards to Continental, and then to United—will disappear as of October 1. Continental, which United is currently absorbing, will no longer be an AmEx rewards transfer partner. In short, United has me in a headlock and I don’t like it. Many of you are probably in the same position with your preferred carrier. The problem we face is how to break free without breaking up— maintain elite status while retaining flexibility.
The answer: Diversify “within my alliance.”
To do that you have to follow Socrates dictum: Know thyself. Let’s look at the ways we locked-in elites go about earning and spending miles, and upgrading.
Earning: Award Miles and Elite Qualifying Miles (EQMs)
Most elites earn the majority of their award miles and EQMs by flying their primary airline, with the remaining miles coming from flights on alliance and other airline partners.
Earning: Credit Card Miles
The Bad Card (Single Airline Credit Cards) Using an airline’s credit card (SAC) usually earns you one mile for every dollar spent. These cards are bad from a milage earning perspective because they only earn miles in one airline program, which tightens your carrier’s headlock. The only good thing about some of these cards is that they let you earn EQMs. Just remember to put the card away once you have all the EQMs needed.
The Good Card (Multiple Airline Credit Cards) These credit cards (MAC) enables you to redeem points for miles in many airline programs. The two most common are those tied to AmEx Membership Rewards and the Starwood Preferred Guest card because they offer the most airline partners.
How I Spend Miles
I use my miles primarily for upgrades rather than free award tickets (when I care about elite status earning, which is maybe half the time). Why? Because free award tickets do not earn EQMs (Elite Qualifying Miles), and as we all know, EQMs are hard to come by. I also use my United miles mostly for long-haul domestic upgrades rather, than international upgrades. For international upgrades, I use MAC points, transferring them to a Star Alliance or United partner airline to upgrade so I can still earn United miles and EQMs without costing me hard-to-get United miles.
Here are two examples, one domestic and one international, of how I diversify while still keeping my elite status up on United.
Flying Domestically
I frequently fly Monterey, CA to JFK via San Francisco, a route that takes roughly the same amount of time as a flight from the East Coast to Europe. I almost never go for an award seat and I don’t pay the Business Class fare when it’s as high as it is these days ($3,200+). When the fare gets this high, I often pay $350 for an economy class seat and 40,000 miles for an upgrade to Business Class (as a United elite, I’m exempt from upgrade surcharges on domestic travel). This also nets me 5,302 EQMs. (As a Premier Executive with UA, being any higher requires sacrifice-beyond-value, for me, I also earn about 12,000 award miles, which makes my upgrade really only have a net cost of 28,000 miles.
Flying Internationally: Economy to Business Class Upgrade
This is where it gets interesting: For international travel, I try to use MAC points to upgrade to Business Class on United partner (i.e., Star Alliance) airlines, because it still yields miles and EQMs on United. I do this because United miles are harder to come by—whereas partner MAC points are not.
The Three Strategic Goals: Earn United EQMs; don’t use United Miles, and fly Business Class for 66% off. Here is an example of the Goal Strategic Process: New York-Frankfurt, Business Class.
Step 1: Find out which airlines have a routing that meets your requirements by visiting the Star Alliance website. In this case, Lufthansa and Singapore offer the best routing (nonstop) for my preferred itinerary
Step 2: Check the round-trip upgrade redemption cost for airlines with ideal routing: In this case, 50,000 for Singapore and 100,000 for Lufthansa. (The only time I would redeem Lufthansa miles is when it runs a 60,000 miles promo special. So here, I zero in on one airline: Singapore.)
EQM Partner Miles Upgrade: New York–Frankfurt, Economy to Business Class
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Step 3: Have banked miles ready (or near-ready) in a number of Star Alliance airlines, via MAC point transfers, so they’re available when needed. This is much easier than using United miles because with them you’re flying blind: You must book the economy ticket with United, and then United “sends a message” to Singapore requesting the upgrade. With miles in Singapore’s program, you can make sure the upgrade is available before buying the economy ticket. After confirming the upgrade with Singapore, give the agent your United Mileage Plus number so you earn 100% on both award and EQM miles on United.
EQM Partner Miles Upgrade: Business to First Class
As the chart below shows, the deal in First Class is even greater—and only requires the transfer of 50,000 Starpoints to Singapore—plus you earn 25% more award miles than you would with a United flight!
EQM Partner Miles Upgrade: New York–Frankfurt, Business to First Class
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