Creative ways to get United EQM's without MR?

[Mikec171]

Looks like with the USAir/United split, I'm going to be about 2k EQM short of even getting silver on United for next year.

Any obvious avenues of getting that last 2k that I'm missing? I have the United Explorer card but it doesn't offer EQM for spend, looks like they aren't running any specials for purchasing EQMs. I've read about booking a fully refundable fare and purchasing the mileage accelerator and then cancelling but I'm not quite sure how that works and it seems like it'd be about 12c/mile which probably isn't worth it just to get Silver.

I'd love a manufactured spend way to get this.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Matt]

Looks like with the USAir/United split, I'm going to be about 2k EQM short of even getting silver on United for next year.

Any obvious avenues of getting that last 2k that I'm missing? I have the United Explorer card but it doesn't offer EQM for spend, looks like they aren't running any specials for purchasing EQMs. I've read about booking a fully refundable fare and purchasing the mileage accelerator and then cancelling but I'm not quite sure how that works and it seems like it'd be about 12c/mile which probably isn't worth it just to get Silver.

I'd love a manufactured spend way to get this.

Thanks,
Mike

FM posted on this today- doesn't seem like many of the options listed are practical though...

http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2014/10/16/how-to-manufacture-united-elite-status/

 

[Mikec171]

Thanks for the point Matt - what excellent timing. Hadn't gotten to my Feedly for the day yet (do I sound like TBB/George?). None really work for my use case but if the goal is to have silver next year, I may look into something along the Marriott lines in early next year to then have that status for two years as well. $75k MS is a lot of foregone cash back though. Will need to do some analysis.

-Mike