An update on the free Global Entry offer from United


As part of the changes to their MileagePlus program United Airlines announced that top-tier elites would receive compensation to cover the cost of the Global Entry enrollment fee. Alas, like many bits of the new program details the announcement was not followed by any details and, eventually, it was announced that the benefit would be delayed from the launch of the new program in March 2012 while the company continued to work on details. With a new target date of "Q2 2012" there was plenty of wiggle room on the delivery time for the benefit, but some grumbling was also apparent from the elites looking forward to what is a great service for travelers.

The benefit now has a target date of June 2012 ascribed to it. Specifically they intend to offer an enrollment code that can be used to pay the fee to the feds without and expense on the part of the customer. That’s both good (no cash) and bad (not until June) news on the benefit, but there is also an interim solution available for folks who have the status and don’t want to wait, so long as they also don’t mind fronting the cash and not getting reimbursed in cash.

The process is defined on the company website:

image

All in all, not so bad, really, and a pretty reasonable stop-gap to get the benefit out there while they’re still working on the other details.

Never miss another post: Sign up for email alerts and get only the content you want direct to your inbox.


Seth Miller

I'm Seth, also known as the Wandering Aramean. I was bit by the travel bug 30 years ago and there's no sign of a cure. I fly ~200,000 miles annually; these are my stories. You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

3 Comments

  1. What were the negative changes for 1Ks? As far as I can tell, relative to the other levels 1K got far better, and absolutely it just got better.

Comments are closed.