Following on my recent post about hotel elite status, I wanted to take a look at how things stand with airline elite status for next year.  Currently, I have some level of elite status in the 3 major airline alliances.  As useful as that sounds, I arrived at the point of holding status with the 3 alliances quite by accident.  With American, I hold lifetime AAdvantage Gold (after falling from earned Platinum), at Delta, I’m Gold Medallion, and with United, I’m Premier Executive.  While my flying is picking up as it usually does in late spring, I’m not likely to be able to hold mid-tier elite on both Delta and United.  I certainly fly American when they’re the best choice, but today’s post will center on Delta and United.

I tend to fly United for my personal and some work flying, but Delta is almost exclusively work-related flying by virtue of Atlanta being the city I fly to most for work purposes.  I will likely fly Delta enough to maintain Silver Medallion this year based on work travel alone.  If I were to dedicate my personal trips to Delta, I would easily maintain Gold Medallion, perhaps even Platinum.  But SkyMiles just doesn’t hold a candle to Mileage Plus or AAdvantage, and for now, the frequency program is enough to sway me from dedicating additional flying beyond what’s required by my work travel to Delta.  (One roundtrip to Miami to catch a cruise, and one First Class award to Seattle in June excepted.  80,000 miles for that Seattle trip.  UGH!)

Then there’s United where I’m Premier Executive.  While I’m not very far along in maintaining that status for 2012, things will pick up for the remainder of the year, and I’ll certainly make the Premier cut….and with a little judicious mileage running, Premier Executive.  Living in Washington, DC, United is a great option for long-haul nonstop from Dulles.  Better yet, as long as US Airways remains in the Star Alliance, I can fly them for short-haul domestics in/out of DCA which happens to be a 15 to 20 minute cab ride from my home.  United, Mileage Plus, and the Star Alliance work great for me living in DC, and I plan to focus as much flying as possible with them for the rest of the year to maintain my elite status.  I won’t hesitate to do a series of mileage runs after Labor Day when fares typically fall off a bit to maintain my status.  And next year, I’m going to do a better job of taking advantage of some decent fares in the late January/February timeframe that sometimes appear.

I should’ve done a better job with planning for next year’s elite status on United earlier in the year.  You need to be really plugged in to how you are doing with ensuring you hit your status goal for the following year from the very beginning of the year, and I didn’t do it.  Not cool, but a mistake that can still be easily repaired at this point.  How do you plan for your elite status goals each year?

Reader Rob kindly commented to the Delta post that United is now out with a similar offer for dining miles.  This one, unlike the Delta version appears to have no limit.  1,000 miles for every $100 dollars spent through June 30.

Click here.

This is old news by now, but I did not want to let the opportunity to blog about it pass me by. United Mileage Plus has announced a return of certain award fees which aligns the program with Continental OnePass effective June 15th. United is reinstating a fee for booking award travel within 21 days of departure. However, the fee is being reintroduced with a tiered structure starting at $75 dollars for general members and then dropping by $25 dollars for each level of Mileage Plus elite status. The fee is $50 dollars for Premiers, $25 dollars for Premier Executives, and is waived for 1K and Global Services customers. While this particular fee is among the most annoying to me, I suppose it could have been worse. Although American AAdvantage notably now waives the close-in award fee for all elite customers.

Some fees are actually going down. For example, the fee for changing your origin or destination on award tickets will be dropping immediately to $75 dollars for all Mileage Plus members below 1K and Global Services status who are exempt. For tickets issued on or after June 15, 2011, the fee evolves into a tiered pricing structure with General Members continuing to pay $75 dollars while Premiers and Premier executives will be out $50 and $75 dollars respectively. There are other changes which United details here.

All in all, these changes aren’t that bad, and for elite members, they’re mostly beneficial. That said, I am not a fan of paying any extra surcharge for booking your trip less than 21 days before departure. That fee is, and always has been, a pure money grab and I do not care for it. Frankly, I don’t even think non-elites should be charged this fee. Let’s face it, if you’re down to booking a trip less than 3 weeks in advance, you’re more likely to have to use “double miles” awards anyway. Isn’t that indignity enough?

Why is United doing this now? I think they really are just aligning with Continental. But with oil prices headed north, I think the fee structure that they thought might be slightly more revenue positive is the one they went with. I’m betting a lot more non-elites than we think actually use their miles for simpleton trips, and wind up booking closer to departure than they might like, especially with fares are high as they are in many markets. Just a thought…that I can’t back up with hard data. In any event, I can’t help but think that some other airlines may be looking at tweaking the fee structure on their award programs to boost revenue. Personally, I hope American’s fee waiver for elites on close-in bookings is the model that wins the day. Will I get my wish? Doubt it. Though it is gratifying to see that all award fees for United’s top elite 1K and Global Services customers continue to be waived. Perhaps I need a 1K card?

I recently posted about United and Continental allowing you to move miles between your OnePass and Mileage Plus accounts.  In a nifty move as they work towards merging into one program, if you have elite status in either program, they’ll match it in the other.  So if you are a United Premier Exec like myself, Continental will grant you OnePass Gold, and vice versa.  Credit the miles to the operating carrier’s program, and maximize elite benefits.  Pretty cool if you ask me.  They’ll combine your United and Continental flights for this year in determining next year’s elite status in what is supposed to be a new combined program.

In any event, my match came through in 10 days.  Well worth filling out the form if you’re an elite in one carrier or the other.

NOTE:  Reader mowogo reminds that Continental elites earn a 500 mile minimum on US Airways flights.  So credit those US flights to your Continental account!

I’m not a professional credit card flipper.  Don’t get me wrong, back in the day when Citi would give you bonus miles for the Citi AAdvantage card over and over again, I would open a new account and close it in a year or 2 routinely.  I estimate I’ve earned something in the vicinity of 250,000 AAdvantage miles doing so.  That would make me a wannabe bit player in the credit card mileage earning game.  I’ve had a few different United Mileage Plus Visa’s along the way as well.

Recently, I’ve been making a concerted effort to reduce the number of credit cards I carry.  Compared to what the papers report as the average number of cards a person carries, I guess I’m on the low end at 5 or so.  I really want to lower that number to 3 but I’m not quite sure how at this stage in life.  I carry the Amex Platinum for lounge access (Membership Rewards is an added bonus), the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex because it earns Starwood Points, the most valuable currency for frequent travelers (IMHO), a United Mileage Plus Visa for United miles and use at non-Amex accepting establishments, and I also picked up a no annual fee Fidelity Rewards Amex Card (more on that some other time).  I think that’s a pretty tidy card portfolio that seems to work for me.  Not to mention, I don’t have to work terribly hard at keeping up with more cards than I can count.

Then, I saw this 50,000 mile offer for the Continental OnePass Card.  Chase, the card’s issuer is pretty tight on multiple sign-up bonuses these days, so I won’t be repeating the bonus I received for my United Mileage Plus Visa (also issued by Chase) anytime soon.  This seemed like an excellent way to enhance my stockpile of Mileage Plus miles (since Continental and United are combining) with relative ease so I pulled the trigger on an application.  I applied last Sunday, and my card arrived on Friday.  I’m enjoying my first purchase at the local Starbucks.  If you’re looking for a mileage card right now, check this one out.

My Continental Airlines OnePass Plus MasterCard arrived in today’s mail.  I applied via this link, which offered 50,000 OnePass miles for the first purchase.  I activated the card tonight, and the CSR confirmed I’d applied for the 50,000 mile offer.  Don’t know if this has been blogged about before, so apologies to other bloggers if I’m missing a hat tip.  Now that you can transfer miles between your Continental and United accounts, it might be a great time to apply for this card.

Correction: A little judicious Googling shows that Gary and Rick have mentioned this before.

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/products/chase/continental.aspx?&offer=OPP50

Gary at View From the Wing reports that United Mileage Plus and Continental OnePass are now allowing you transfer mileage between the 2 programs as well as combine your elite qualifying activity.  You can transfer miles in 1,000 mile increments once per 24 hour period.  Nothing I can add to Gary’s always excellent analysis except that I just moved a few stray Continental miles over to my United account, and the transfer was instantaneous.  Here’s a link to the elite combination page.  And another link to the mileage transfer page.

I appreciate your tolerance of this quick random thought:

Seriously, am I the only person in the world that actually likes the new United (aka old Continental) livery?  For some reason, I’ve always kinda dug the globe on the blue tail.  Below is the shot of the 747-400 in the new livery.  Wonder when the Mileage Plus Visa will wear the new logo?

Photo: United-Continental Holdings

The news that the new United is keeping Economy Plus and expanding it to the former Continental fleet comes as a welcome relief to United fliers, including this one.  While one can never be certain what’s in the mind of an airline lately, for some reason, I felt that the new United would maintain Economy Plus all along.  It appears to me that United did a good job of monetizing the Economy Plus section of its aircraft, and I cannot fathom that E+ would’ve survived United’s multi-year bankruptcy if the accountants hadn’t bought into the idea that Economy Plus must be revenue (and profit) positive overall.  I’m a little surprised that the financials work on the regional jet platform, but I’m no finance guy.

Make no mistake, this is a real differentiator for the new United product.  As an elite, the ability to confirm a seat in Economy Plus is a big deal.  If your upgrade doesn’t clear, you’ve still got a seat with extra legroom, which can make all the difference in the world for inflight comfort.  As a non-elite, the ability to upgrade yourself to a more comfortable seat for a reasonable fee is attractive for many.  I know the couple of times I’ve flown Frontier, I’ve gladly paid extra for access to their “Stretch” seating.

I’m anxiously waiting to see what else the new United has in store for us.  It will be interesting to see if others in the industry respond in some way.

Planning on a cruise anytime soon?  Like to collect Mileage Plus miles?  May as well take a look at the new United Cruises.  You can earn up to 10,000 miles for booking a cruise, and up to 10,000 more bonus miles for booking a balcony or suite cabin through March 31, 2010.  Better yet, you can earn double miles if you book your cruise with your United Mileage Plus Visa card (registration required, MPF041 is the promotion code).

I’ve never booked a cruise through one of the various airline portals, so I can’t offer any insight on the experience.  Mrs MJonTravel and I have a great Virtuoso travel agent that we like, and we book our cruises with her, even the simple ones that we could easily handle ourselves.  If you have booked through United Cruises or any other airline mileage site that offers miles for booking cruises, comment and share your experience.  Thanks!