TRAVELI Chased Airline Elite Status for Years and Got Almost Nothing4 min read

The Year Status Slipped Away

I didn’t travel much in the first half of 2024. When my status quietly expired, I wasn’t surprised or heartbroken. I had a birthday trip planned for July — the kind of thing you hold onto through a slow spring. A global IT outage canceled it. The universe, apparently, had opinions.

The second half of the year I flew consistently, August through December. But I never once felt the pull to chase status. The gap between what elite tiers promised and what they actually delivered had been too wide, too many times. I was done running toward a finish line that kept moving.

The United Calculation

Once I let go of American, I started actually thinking about where my loyalty made geographic sense. I moved to Chicago in 2022, and O’Hare is a United hub. Over time, United became my default — not out of sentiment but out of scheduling logic and some genuine innovation I’d seen firsthand.

Earlier this year I tested United’s TSA PreCheck Touchless ID program at O’Hare: biometric check-in, no boarding pass, no driver’s license required. It worked. Getting through a TSA checkpoint without fumbling for documents is the kind of frictionless experience that leaves an impression. The United app is also genuinely good — live weather, a real-time flight countdown, features that actually help you make decisions rather than just sell you things.

I’d be lying if I said the personal relationships I’ve built covering United didn’t factor in. They do. But the larger problem is that United keeps raising MileagePlus thresholds, same as every other airline. Chicago friends who fly United constantly complain about it. The airlines aren’t making loyalty easier — they’re making it harder, more expensive, more opaque. Delta’s SkyMiles overhaul in fall 2023 triggered public outrage for exactly this reason.