Triangle Trip

United has quickly follow through with its EQM offer (see original post) by applying my double and triple Elite Qualifying Miles to my Mileage Plus account in less than four weeks. See my statement from July 7, 2009:

United’s EQM offer ended June 15, 2009, and United stated at the start of the promotion that it will need 4 to 6 weeks to credit everyone’s account. I have seen promotions like this in the past where the airlines or hotels would take the maximum time to apply the bonus credits to you account.

I would have to praise UAL for their swift response to crediting my (hopefully others as well) Mileage Plus account. As a lowly Premier Exec, I guess now I will have to compete against 1,000,000 more 1K and Global Service members trying to board the plane and flight for overhead space.

I was extremely shocked to see the attached email from Delta on Monday morning, offering me 10,000 MQM (Medallion Qualifying Miles) toward my 2010 status.

I checked my online account statement and noticed it was there!

This is right after the Triple/Double MQM offer ended — which wasn’t really an offer (see previous post). I am guessing Delta is feeling guilty that it actually did not offer or gave anyone real MQM with their previous offer, and this is a way to proactively quiet the future complaints.

After speaking with a few of my associates, I found out this MQM offer was only given to a selected few and not everyone. Some folks only got 5,000 MQM while others got as much as 15,000. I guess it’s dependent on how much you have flown in 2009 — I racked up about 30,000 miles on Delta in 2009.

It is a good consolation prize for the bad MQM offer Delta had from March to June 2009. Kudos to them on this one.

Lured back from United’s EQM offer, I made Premier in May and finally received the Premier membership kit last week.  As part of EQM, almost everyone will have at least Premier status by early August (when United will calculate and give everyone double or triple Elite Qualifying Miles for their flights between March and June). EQM definitely came with a cost thought.

Unlike other airlines that will honor your previous year’s status until the end of February of the following year, UAL will only honor your status from the previous year until the end of January. Since I have flown 25,000 miles in 2009 (without EQM), I am qualified to be a Premier for 2010. Typically United will let me maintain my Premier status until the end of February 2011. However times have changed as you can see from the picture below:

For the Star Alliance fliers, this change may have some impact on your status if you are flying international. I am not a huge fan of US Air but The Coach has informed me that US Air still honors status until the end of February. If you’re an international flier and want a fast track to get Star Alliance Gold to access their lounges and save some money on bag checks, take a look at Statusmonger’s previous post to get Star Alliance Gold and Diamond for up to three years.