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Thursday, August 15, 2013

Will I make it to 1K?

I'm having a second half of the year conundrum.  Starting next year United will be partially basing its Elite Levels on spend, which means that in order to reach the top tier, you need to fly a certain amount and spend a certain amount.  Not only that, but you need to do it only on United ticketed flights - Star Alliance flights will not count.

What's good is that if you reach 1K this year (before December 31), you will have it automatically for all of next year (and the first year of this whole spending business).  I don't really see myself meeting the spending requirement each year, so this is probably my last chance to be a 1K for a very long time (if ever). 

So my conundrum is this: based on the miles I've flown so far this year, I'm short in what I need to make it for next.  Do I try to mileage run to get to 1K?

There's a part of me that says yes - do it.  With the amount of flying I end up doing for family related things and also professional activities (research, consulting, etc), it would make sense for me to keep the top status another year.  The other part of me says that it's going to cost me (obviously) to do it, and can I really afford to do that while I pay other things off?  If I budget things right, I could probably swing it.

Taking into account what I've already got booked through December, I'm looking at trying to fly about 36,000 miles.  I don't have Christmas booked yet, nor a few other staging flights that I need to do, so that will help.  That's about 7 cross-country roundtrips in the US...or...three roundtrips to Hong Kong. 

What to do....

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