Status Matters For Some, But Most Of Us Should Ignore It

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When it comes to frequent flyer programs, it’s important to understand their two main functions.

The first is earning points by flying with the airline, using a co-branded credit card, transferring miles from a partner, or shopping/dining through specific portals. These points can be redeemed for a variety of rewards, including free flights, merchandise, upgrades, and lounge memberships. Airlines have made it more challenging to earn points through flying but offer significant bonuses for credit card sign-ups.

The second function is the possibility of earning status with the airline. The more you fly with one airline (or one of their alliance partners), the higher your status becomes. With higher status, you can enjoy perks such as free checked bags, upgrades, lounge access, and a dedicated service line. Additionally, the higher your status, the more points you’ll earn when you fly, making the two parts of the program interrelated.

While paying attention to the points-earning side of frequent flyer programs is important, getting status with an airline doesn’t make sense for most people.

I’ll see people wondering if they should make a mileage run to achieve status with an airline. A mileage run is a trip taken for the sole purpose of earning credits to reach the next level of status. Often, these trips are spent entirely on airplanes and in airports.

I understand when people ask why someone would do a trip like this. Is it worth paying for a flight to nowhere to earn status? But even more, does it even matter to try to earn status in the first place? Here’s why it doesn’t make sense for most travelers to worry about status and the rarer instances where they should bother chasing status.

Earning Status

The requirements to earn status vary with each airline. While the requirements used to depend on how many miles you flew with the airline, programs have now also added requirements of spending a certain amount of money for those flights for each category. Programs used to waive those spending requirements if you charged enough money on their co-brand credit cards, but even those workarounds have been severely reduced or even eliminated.

In other words, airlines want to reserve status for those who spend the most money. United took this a step further when it announced that in 2020, to earn status for 2021, the number of miles flown will no longer matter; instead, they’ll use the number of flight segments.

Here are the requirements and benefits for United MileagePlus for 2025:

To help decipher the jargon:

• PQF – Premier Qualifying Flights – Based on the number of flight segments flown, four of which need to be flown on United or United Express
• PQP – Premier Qualifying Points – Based on the base fare and carrier-imposed surcharge of flight purchases, along with seating purchases and paid upgrades

Status Benefits

The complete list of benefits is on the United website.

Having status does have its advantages, particularly at the higher Platinum and Premier 1K levels. Besides getting early access to upgrades, you also get Plus Points, which can be used to confirm upgrades, even to the Polaris class.

Getting to Platinum takes 36 flight segments and 12,000 Premier Qualifying Points or 15,000 PQP. That’s spending $12,000 or $15,000 on United tickets and fees for the year.

Silver status is more accessible to the regular traveler, as it only takes 12 segments (6 round-trip flights) and 4,000 PQP. However, you don’t get much more for that status than for having the United MileagePlus credit card. Access to Economy Plus seats at check-in is nice and worth something, but if you need to spend an extra $600 to reach status, does it make more sense to spend that on a flight you don’t need to take to get status or to use that $600 to pay for the upgraded seats as you need them.

If you’re wondering how often you’ll get upgraded as a Silver member, ask a Platinum member how frequently their upgrades clear. You’ll be two levels below them on the list.

Disadvantages of chasing status

What do you give up when trying to achieve a level of status with an airline? Flexibility, for starters. If you’re trying to get status with United, you’re not pursuing options from other airlines. You could end up paying more for tickets to reach the necessary number of segments. You could also be flying at worse times, suffering through added connections and flying to less convenient airports.

Of course, I’m just using United as an example, but the same could be said for any of the other airlines. American Airlines changed its AAdvantage program to one in which status is based on Loyalty Points. Instead of status being based on flight segments or the amount spent alone, American now counts points earned with a co-brand credit card, their dining program and shopping portal, and money spent on airfare toward earning status.

Since we don’t fly super often (obviously, it’s all relative. But figure one R/T flight every month or two) and have plenty of airline choices from Orlando, it’s pretty easy for us to not worry about status and just book the most convenient flight at a reasonable price. It’s an advantage of being disloyal.

I realize that everyone’s situation is different, and for some people, chasing status makes sense.

Who should pay attention to status?

The only people who should look to achieve status are frequent flyers who tend to fly a single airline at their home airport. This could be because you’re a hub captive passenger and have no choice as to which airline is the best for you.

For example, if you live near Atlanta, you will likely depend on Delta for much of your flying. The same goes for Denver residents with United, and those who live in Charlotte being tied to American. Going for status may make sense if you’re a frequent flyer from those cities. After all, there are a whole bunch of people at your home airport in the same position as you are being tied to a single airline and getting a higher level of status will give you a better chance of scoring an upgrade. If not, at least you can secure a better seat when you reserve your ticket instead of waiting until check-in. If I had no alternatives and had to fly 20 times a year with an airline, I’d want to try and make sure my trips with them are as comfortable as possible. Paying $600 for a flight to reach a status level would make sense because I’d save almost $1000 alone on fees for seat upgrades.

Another reason is if there’s a flight you take often that’s not tied to the main airline at the airport. If you live in Charlotte but need to fly to Newark, you could take American Airlines, but you’d be fighting against all of the other people with American status. It might be better to focus on United instead because there’d be fewer people with United status in Charlotte.

If you’re a frequent flyer but not a hub captive, I’d question whether sticking with only one airline to chase status is worthwhile. Having the flexibility to choose the best schedule and fare without being tied to a single airline is worth a great deal in my book. For me, that’s better than getting an occasional upgrade to first class and a free checked bag.

Final Thoughts

For someone like me who travels only occasionally, airline status holds little value. Nowadays, airlines have made it increasingly difficult for anyone other than their highest revenue customers to reach the top tiers of a program. Even for those with status, securing upgrades on popular routes can still be a challenge.

To be frank, if you’re not flying with an airline frequently enough to achieve status, then is it worth it? For those aspiring to be a Platinum Diamond Executive member, it’s important to realize that it may not be all it’s hyped up to be. Unless you’re constantly traveling, it may be more practical to purchase the most suitable ticket and occasionally splurge on an upgrade for a little bit of luxury. This approach is undoubtedly more cost-effective than spending $1,500 on a ticket to Singapore and back just to accumulate a few extra miles and reach the next level of a program.

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