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United Mileage Plus (Edit)

Overall Mileage Plus does a good job of meeting expectations. Travelers will tend to get better results if they live near a United hub (Dulles, SFO, Denver, Los Angeles, Chicago), as those areas tend to have better trained agents who most likely deal with more customer service issues than other airports.

Features

At a modest level of travel one qualifies for Premier status. At this level the traveler is able to pre-board the plane, which is probably the most important travel benefit. They can also select Economy Plus seats, which provide more space than standard coach seats. The traveler also receives a 25% mileage bonus for all travel.

The second level of status, which is also reasonable to obtain, is Premiere Executive. At this level the traveler is able to pre-board and earns 100% bonus miles for travel. They are also able to obtain upgrade seats in advance of the flight.

The top level of status is the 1K. At this level the traveler can pre-board, earns the 100% mileage bonus, receives more upgrades, gains access to a special reservation/help phone number and other privileges.

Pros

At each level of status, the traveler receives access to a phone line that is dedicated to their travel needs. United also looks after its travelers who are not frequent flyers by having targeted promotions from various cities. Even a casual traveler can find ways to increase their mileage balance.

Cons

While there are not too many down sides with United, when the traveler faces one of them, it is usually at a time when the traveler is already in a stressful situation. Among the down sides are 1) lack of space on flights to use miles for award tickets; 2) customer service representatives on the dedicated lines who do not know the rules of upgrades/fares; 3) United's recent decision to take away some of the "customer satisfaction" ability they used to allow their representatives to provide; and 4) new rules for using upgrades that are covered by vague language. There is also a serious problem with inconsistency between agents. If you do not like the answer given, politely end the conversation and call back -- the next agent will probably have a different (read as better) answer/solution to your problem.