Despite cutbacks and lawsuits, United has the most generous Million Miler lifetime status program.
At 1 million lifetime flight miles you earn lifetime Gold, 2 million earns lifetime Platinum, 3 million earns lifetime 1K, and 4 million earns lifetime Global Services.
As a perk that was carried over from Continental, United Million Milers can also nominate a companion to share their status.
Compare that to American, which caps out at lifetime Platinum status, which is equivalent to Gold at Delta or United. That’s because American used to count all miles toward lifetime status, which is how my wife and I have lifetime American Platinum status.
Or Delta, which only awards top-tier Delta 360 at 5 million miles, and doesn’t have a companion benefit.
While elite qualifying miles before the Continental merger counted towards lifetime status, only actual flight miles count after the merger.
One popular method that has long been abused is daisy chaining, though that’s something that was discussed more at seminars than on blogs. If a Million Miler with Global Services status nominated a companion with Million Miler status, who in turn nominated another companion with Million Miler status, everyone in the chain would get Global Services status, with no potential limit.
Effective for the 2025 status year, Million Milers will need to choose between being a donor of status or recipient of status. That will effectively kill the daisy chain loophole.
If you are nominated for status, you will get an email and you can decline it within 14 days if you want to be a donor of status.
The only surprise is that the loophole has existed for so long before it was closed. United ended the legacy Continental perk of inherited status on awards way back in 2015.
United’s most frequent flyer? In 1990, Tom Stuker bought a lifetime unlimited use United first class travel pass for him and a companion for $510,000. That’s about $1.24M in 2024 dollars. Thanks to that pass, he has racked up some 24 million actual flight miles. I enjoyed chatting with him on United’s final 747 flight:
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Do you have any Million Miler status? Did you take advantage of daisy chaining for a higher status?
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22 Comments On "United Finally Cracks Down On The Million Miler Daisy Chain"
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I work for United and was actually at (just a couple) of the meetings that discussed closing this. AMA
Approx. how many legacy (continental) lifetime global service members are there?
What made them decide to close this now? After all, it seems that this only worked if everyone was a Million Miler in the first place. Surely that limited abuse of things like this?
Does United actively monitor blogs such as this one to potentially discover and close loopholes?
Hi, welcome aboard, nice to meet someone working for United here, and obviously for Mileage plus. That’s cool.
Maybe you can explain, what’s happening?
Companions is over?
Only 1 person will be able to enjoy the status?
Or the actual Elite or their shared companion?
Was I the only one who thought that Daisy Chain was a person?
Perhaps related to the person named “UPS Method”
Will be interesting to know how many loops the longest daisy chain has!
Not so familiar with this conversation but I was on a flight this week in Chicago and the preboardong line for 1k,global and above had more than 50 people on that line which was more than the boarding line 1&2. Seems like status easier to get now with credit card usage.
The credit card only helps to Platinum status. Higher than that requires real flights.
This was changed this year that the PQP earned on ua cards count towards 1k.
Most were probably 1k
so you cant get both statues and the ability to gift it its one or the other correct?
when you nominated someone to share your status did they get it for 1 year or also for lifetime?
1 year
From the FAQs:
“Companion eligibility:
1. A companion must be a spouse, significant other or person who resides at same home address, based on MileagePlus profile information.”
I am not sure if this language was just added, but if this was the case until now, that would mean that most Daisy Chaining was technically against the rules, only not enforced.
What leads me to think that this is not new is because other bullets in this eligibility list state specifically “on or after September 18…” while this point does not.
Was always there
this is chinese for me
I’m only a 1mm. I gave my hubby my extra status because it had to be someone in my household. It was like 5 years ago and his companion status still showed up. I’m confused by the Daisy Chain. Is that just for Global Services level? Is United cancelling the companion status?
@dan
Is there any way to change a United reward flight to a day that wasn’t bookable with miles? Trying to fly dom to ewr on Feb 4th and flights are unavailable so for now I booked for the 6th but want to change it to the 4th.
About time they fixed this. Abuse has been going on a long time. Interesting it took multiple meetings and so long to change.
When my husband reached 1 million lifetime miles back in 2011 he received a letter stating that he had lifetime 1K status and also companion status for me. He later reached 2 million miles and received another letter with a small plaque and details about the lifetime 1K status. We recently went on a trip and happened to notice that it now showed us as Platinum status and no longer 1K. They seem to have changed their program and have booted us from 1K status. It does not seem to be right to rescind what was previously promised just because they changed their program since we were told it was lifetime 1K status.