United introduced its current status structure in 2019 and $18,000 spend plus 54 flights for status was exceptionally high then. Now it’s less so, since we’ve seen 20% inflation since then.
They’re increasing the requirements to earn status 20% – 25% for the 2025 program year (which means earning status next year, which runs through January 2027).
| Current | New | Increased Points | |
| Silver | 12 flights and 4,000 points | 15 flights and 5,000 points | 25% |
| or 5,000 points | or 6,000 points | 20% | |
| Gold | 24 flights and 8,000 points | 30 flights and 10,000 points | 25% |
| or 10,000 points | or 12,000 points | 20% | |
| Platinum | 36 flights and 12,000 points | 45 flights and 15,000 points | 25% |
| or 15,000 points | or 18,000 points | 20% | |
| 1K | 54 flights and 18,000 points | 60 flights and 22,000 points | 22% |
| or 24,000 points | or 28,000 points | 17% |
As they’ve done in recent years, existing elites will start of the year with qualifying points:
- Silver: 300
- Gold: 600
- Platinum: 900
- 1K: 1,400
In addition, while United remains the program stingiest in rewarding status for credit card spend (I guess that won’t change until Chase again pays more, and their current deal runs through 2029), they’re improving the earn rate on their pre-cobrand that comes with lounge access and dropping the $500 threshold at which qualfiying points are earned.
- Cards earn 1 status point per $20 spent
- Except the premium consumer and business cards earn 1 status point per $15 spent
Additionally, the cap on earning status goes from 6,000 to 9,000 points on the Quest card on 10,000 to 15,000 on the premium cards.
Five years ago United replaced systemwide upgrades with PlusPoints. That allowed customers to make their upgrade certificates more divisible, so that they might be useful on shorter flights. And it let the airline introduce more than one level of point requirements for an upgrade, which hopefully meant more upgrade inventory and clearances.
- Platinum members receive 40 PlusPoints
- 1K members receive 280 PlusPoints
- Members receive an additional 20 PlusPoints for ever 3,000 qualifying points over 22,000 earned in a year.
Ultimately though just as it’s become near-impossible for many 1Ks to clear complimentary upgrades domestically, clearing upgrades using PlusPoints is harder than ever.
Currently unused PlusPoints simply expire. Next year United will allow members to convert them to qualifying points; convert them to travel credit; convert them to miles; or redeem them to gift elite status.
This is really about increasing what you need to give United to maintain existing perks, which – since upgrades are fewer and farther between than ever – is less than it used to be. Fares aren’t up by 20% – 25%, either.
While there’s some logic to adjusting requirements, and managing the size of the elite pool for upgrades, they aren’t committing that those become easier after the change. In fact, the opposite is true, there’s a recognition that upgrades even when using confirmed instruments remain much harder than they used to be so they’re working to shift elite expectations away from upgrades and to other benefits like travel credit and miles (for awards that also cost more than they used to).
So what does this mean for the value of status? First, it’s harder to stretch for status than it used to be and the status you earn is worth less than it once was. That’s why, in many ways, mid-tier status remains the sweet spot.
If you’re going to earn status anyway then by all means go for it. And if you’re earning status, higher status is better than lower status! But each member is going to have to consider whether the treadmill – and by extension spend on a co-brand card – continues to make sense.
