Elite Status "Status" Update

As we near the half way point of 2014, I wanted to provide an update on where things stand in terms of status qualification.  The last time I discussed status qualification was prior to 2014 in one of my first posts.  Being based in Denver, my main airline program is United.  In terms of hotels, Starwood is my program of choice although I have a lot of Hilton and Hyatt stays coming up in the next 6 months.

United:

After United gutted their award chart and the MileagePlus program earning structure, I feel much less included to go out of my way to re-qualify for Premier Gold (requiring 50,000 miles flown).  Half way through the year, I've flown. 18,491 qualifying miles.  I have another 8,000 or so miles booked already so will easily qualify for Premier Silver which essentially provides no value.  I really value Premier Gold for the ability to select Economy Plus seats at booking and change flights within 24 hours of departure for free but there's no way I am going to fly an incremental 23,000 miles  this year for those benefits.

I will likely fly more on award tickets next year anyway as we are sitting on about 300,000 United miles that need to be used.

Starwood:

Surprisingly, I haven't stayed that many nights in hotels this year.  The 6 stays and 14 nights YTD shown below is actually misleading as 4 of the stays and 10 of the nights were from my two Starwood American Express cards.  As much as I would like to re-qualify for Platinum, it's not going to happen this year.  I will qualify for Gold as I have another 4 stays and 9 nights booked for the balance of the year.

The 9 nights will also get me to 250 lifetime nights which should qualify me for lifetime Gold!  Starwood Gold is pretty worthless (free internet or a 250 free points upon check-in, perhaps an upgrade a few times a year, etc...) but still cool to get something for life.