United unveils big Premier status, PlusPoints changes for 2025

If you’re a loyal United flyer, you might want to pay attention to this one.

The Chicago-based carrier just announced a slew of changes to its Premier elite status program, and they aren’t necessarily all good news.

The updates start with earning Premier status, which is getting harder next year with new increased qualifying thresholds. But once you earn status, the perks may be a little bit more exciting, especially for those who’ve struggled to use PlusPoints in the past.

Here’s everything you need to know about United’s big Premier program update.

Earning Premier status in 2025

Earning Premier status next year is going to be harder than ever before, as United is raising the thresholds required to attain elite perks.

To earn status in 2025 (valid through Jan. 31, 2027), you’ll need a bunch of Premier Qualifying Flights (PQFs) and Premier Qualifying Points (PQPs), as you can see in the chart below.

Note that there are two tracks to earning Premier status. The first combines PQPs and PQFs, and the second is a higher PQP-only goal. Each track requires at least four flights on United or United Express metal — i.e., not on partners.

On average, the thresholds are increasing by about 25% across the board. That’s pretty significant, especially since the airline’s existing thresholds weren’t exactly too generous. To put some (rough) dollars to these numbers, a traveler would need spend a whopping $28,000 on United flights to earn Premier 1K status via the PQP-only track.

Luc Bondar, chief operating officer of MileagePlus, told TPG in an interview that this change is about “wanting to reward the value we get with the value we give, and make sure those two things are in balance.”

It’s worth noting that United hasn’t raised the Premier qualifying requirements since it first introduced PQPs and PQFs in 2019. During the peak pandemic years (2020, 2021 and 2022), United temporarily reduced the status requirements due to low travel demand, but in 2023, it finally enacted the requirements it first unveiled back in 2019 but hadn’t actually implemented.

Now the airline is ready to raise the thresholds once again.

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Of course, this move will sting for anyone who thinks that United’s existing requirements are already a stretch. After all, higher requirements mean that you’ll need to spend and fly more to achieve status.

However, the elite ranks have likely swelled in recent years. While it may feel good to unlock elite status, it’s hard for airlines to deliver the elite benefits they promise when so many members are competing for the (often unavailable) first-class upgrade or extra-legroom exit row seat.

To that end, Bondar shared that “a lot of the benefits that play out through Premier program are capacity constrained … benefits like upgrades, like an early boarding experience … if everyone’s getting on the plane at the same time, no one’s got status.”

You’ll have to crunch the numbers to see if the new metrics work for your travel patterns. But the move reminds me of Delta Air Lines’ now famous quote, “When everyone’s an elite flyer, no one is.”

United adds new ways to redeem PlusPoints

While earning status will be harder than before, at least it should be much easier to actually redeem the best benefit of top-tier status: PlusPoints.

When Premier Platinum and 1K members earn status, they’re awarded 40 and 280 PlusPoints, respectively. (You also receive 20 PlusPoints for every 3,000 PQPs earned from flying beyond 22,000.)

Ever since their introduction, PlusPoints have been an upgrade currency, allowing top-tier elites to apply them to bump into higher cabins, pending availability.

And in the nearly five years since PlusPoints have been in circulation, it’s gotten harder than ever to actually confirm an upgrade. With premium demand so high, there are fewer business-class seats available for upgrades.

The good news is that instead of letting PlusPoints expire at the end of the year if you can’t confirm an upgrade, United will give you four new additional ways to redeem PlusPoints next year, including:

• A PQP or PQF deposit
• TravelBank cash
• Bonus miles
• Gifting Premier status to other MileagePlus members

The airline didn’t have much to share beyond this tease. It promised more details about these PlusPoints updates in mid-2025.

“We call the overall strategy ‘PlusPoints utility,'” Bondar said. He explained that customers have asked for years for more ways to use their PlusPoints, and now the airline is delivering on that with more utility for PlusPoints.

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United Premier head-start bonus

As it has done over the past few years, United will grant existing Premier members a starter pack of PQPs in the new year to give them a head start on requalifying.

Specifically, you’ll receive the following number of PQPs in early 2025 (at a yet-undisclosed date) based on the status you earned in 2024:

• Premier Silver: 300 PQPs
• Premier Gold: 600 PQPs
• Premier Platinum: 900 PQPs
• Premier 1K: 1,400 PQPs

Note that these amounts represent a roughly 20% increase compared to the bonus PQPs awarded last year.

Free PQPs certainly don’t hurt, but they alone won’t do much to help you requalify for status. You’ll still need to do a lot of flying (or swiping, more on that below) to help you cross the finish line.

This starter bonus effectively makes it a bit easier for someone to requalify. If you’re rising the ranks to Premier status for the first time, you’ll need to earn the full set of PQFs and/or PQPs, as outlined in the table above.

Earn Premier status from credit card spend

Of the three big U.S. airlines, United has been the stingiest about awarding status for spending on a cobranded credit card. The airline isn’t doing a 180 next year, but it will at least make it a bit easier to boost your status using your United credit card.

For one, United will improve the PQP earning rate across its credit card portfolio, with the best improvement coming to its top-of-the-line cards.

Note that while the earning rates are improving on the Club cards, all other cards will still earn at the same rate as before (it’s just the frequency of earning that will be higher). In the past, United has awarded 25 PQP for every $500 spent on these cards. Now, there won’t be a $500 minimum.

In addition to the changes to the earning rates, United will increase the maximum number of PQPs you can earn from certain cards.

• United Club℠ Infinite Card: 15,000 PQP (from 10,000 PQP)
• United Club℠ Business Card: 15.000 PQP (from 1,000 PQP)
• United Quest℠ Card: 9,000 PQP (from 6,000 PQP)

The information for the United Club Business Card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Bondar explained the rationale behind this move by saying that United has historically been among the weakest in offering status earning for cobranded spending.

But now that this segment is more important than ever to the bottom line, the airline is readjusting its strategy (but stopping short of letting flyers just spend their way to top-tier status, a la American).

“We’ve been very intentional and thoughtful about how we’ve integrated more earning opportunity on our credit cards. We have continued to increase both the rate of earning and the range of products on which that earning can apply from what was a relatively thin offering five or six years ago.”

Speaking about why United won’t simply let travelers spend their way to top-tier status, Bondar emphasized that “this is a program that reflects the relationship that customers have with United Airlines, and flying is the ultimate reward that all of our travelers are seeking. We see it in all the redemption activity. 97% of all redemption is for travel.”

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Bottom line

United is gearing up for what’s poised to be another busy year of travel with some major adjustments to its Premier program.

The changes are headlined by the introduction of higher requirements to earn status and upgrades to PlusPoints. Bondar said the higher requirements are designed in part to help rebalance elite tiers.

“These thresholds are very much a function of where the market sits today. They’re a function of fares. They’re a function of demand, they’re a function of the population that we see at each one of those Premier tiers. And we’re very confident that what these thresholds do is help us ensure that the Premier population doesn’t get bloated.”

Though the increased thresholds will sting for many, United is sweetening the deal for its best elites with more ways to use PlusPoints, such as gifting Premier status and converting them to miles. This should definitely help people use their PlusPoints (instead of letting them expire unused at the end of the year if upgrades don’t clear).

Of course, the news will benefit those who fly United and its partners a lot. But for casual travelers who might have ended up with Gold or Platinum status in previous years, you might want to enjoy those perks now before they get significantly harder to achieve.

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