United offering targeted 50% bonus PQMs


Check you email inbox (or just plug in your MileagePlus number here): United Airlines is offering a 50% bonus on elite qualification earning for some members. I’m not qualified and neither is my wife but a few folks are reporting that the promo is valid for them. And while it is only valid for new ticket purchases (not too surprising) and through December 7, 2012, it is also valid for all revenue fare buckets, not just the most expensive ones. It actually looks like the promo text was originally only for the higher fares and the lower ones were added as an afterthought. But they’re there which is good for those targeted.

Among the fine print:

    1. Offer valid for members originally targeted, including original recipients of the email invitation.
    2. To qualify for the offer, register on united.com, then purchase and complete paid qualifying trips anywhere United flies.
    3. Offer valid for tickets purchased between September 13, 2012 and December 7, 2012 for travel completed between September 13, 2012 and December 7, 2012.
    4. On paid qualifying flights members can earn 50% additional bonus PQM for tickets purchased in United Global First, United First, United BusinessFirst, United Business and full-fare United Economy (F, A, J, C, D, Z, P, Y and B booking classes), and 50% bonus PQM for tickets purchased in discounted United Economy (M, E, U, H, Q, V, W, S, T, L, G, N and K booking classes).
    5. This offer does not apply to Premier qualifying segments, class-of-service bonus miles, class-of-service PQM, Premier bonus miles, redeemable bonus miles or other promotional PQM.
    6. PQM cannot be redeemed for award travel.
    7. Offer is not valid on United-marketed code-share flights operated by other carriers.
    8. Offer is not valid on government fares.
    9. Offer is not combinable and can be earned an unlimited number of times.
    10. Bonus will be posted to the member’s MileagePlus account at the end of the promotion period, and by December 31, 2012.

Check it out; maybe you got lucky.

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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.

16 Comments

  1. Dang it, I’m not one of the lucky ones.

    Need to book 12.8K more miles for 1K this year. Preferably cheaply…this would have helped. 🙁

  2. I wasn’t invited but it says this when I register:

    Registration Successful
    MileagePlus account HE3xxxxx is now registered for this offer (TB4M54).
    Registration Date: Fri., Sep. 14, 2012

    I guess that means I’m in?

  3. @Nat- if I got a message that said “Registration Successful”, I would assume the registration was successful. Make sure you print out the message.

  4. I wouldnt count on a Registration Successful message sticking, I recall back to the some of the DEQM promotions a few years back, that were targetted-eg by address etc, not working for people, tho they had the Registration Successful message.Just saying.

    1. You might not be happy with not being targeted, LufthansaFlyer, but that means the IT is actually working, not broken. If it was broken everyone would be able to register even if not targeted. There are plenty of IT problems in the organization; this isn’t one of them IMO.

  5. Interesting. Well, I did take a screenshot and put it safely in my dropbox. I guess I’ll see what happens.

  6. What this does confirm along with PRASM results is that United is hurting to at least some degree from loss of elites, a direct consequence of their elite unfriendly changes.

    I suspect that we will see a full fledged AA double qualifying miles by the end of September. The question is then will UA match and will those who got this promo earn 250% qualifying miles.

  7. @Noelene – that was, as you say, a few years ago. More recently, the system will actually tell you if you are eligible or not. Most of us are getting the “AB123456 is not eligible for this promotion” messages. I’d say it’s a very safe bet that the “Registration successful” message means just that.

  8. To those of you who say “it didn’t work”, do you mean you were not targeted (did not receive the e-mail) and when trying to register on the page, it gives you an error?

    I did not get the e-mail and when I register on the page it says “now registered”, the same way as Nat Arem mentioned.

Comments are closed.