Chase United MileagePlus Visa (no annual fee)

[UpperNwGuy]

Ten days ago I downgraded my $95 Chase United Explorer Visa to the no-fee Chase United MileagePlus Visa.  The new card just arrived in the mail.  I opened the envelope and read the two brochures to learn about the card's benefits.  I was specifically looking for confirmation that I still had access to "additional award seat availability" but did not find a single mention in any of the documentation.  So I logged on to the United Airlines website and did some searches for award travel, and sure enough, a number of flights were listed with the notation that they were only available to me because I was a United credit card holder.

Is this some kind of unadvertised secret benefit of the no-fee card?  Chase and United aren't shy about promoting this benefit as it applies to the Club and Explorer cards, but they never mention it for this card. Yet it appears to be there.  Does anyone know the back story?

[wasCB14]

I don't know, but an alternative explanation is that United's system simply hasn't "demoted" you yet.

When I PCed my Citi AA Platinum Select to a Costco Visa, AA still gave me free checked bags for a few more months. I was not an AA elite.

[UpperNwGuy]

I wondered about that.  Perhaps I will be demoted later.  I'll keep checking United's website to see.  However, when I downgraded from the Club to the Explorer four years ago, I was demoted extremely fast and my United Club membership card was deactivated immediately.

[blindambition]

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

Ten days ago I downgraded my $95 Chase United Explorer Visa to the no-fee Chase United MileagePlus Visa.  The new card just arrived in the mail.  I opened the envelope and read the two brochures to learn about the card's benefits.  I was specifically looking for confirmation that I still had access to "additional award seat availability" but did not find a single mention in any of the documentation.  So I logged on to the United Airlines website and did some searches for award travel, and sure enough, a number of flights were listed with the notation that they were only available to me because I was a United credit card holder.

Is this some kind of unadvertised secret benefit of the no-fee card?  Chase and United aren't shy about promoting this benefit as it applies to the Club and Explorer cards, but they never mention it for this card. Yet it appears to be there.  Does anyone know the back story?

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Its possible that they don't advertise that perk on card in order to upsell higher fee cards.

[iced]

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

Ten days ago I downgraded my $95 Chase United Explorer Visa to the no-fee Chase United MileagePlus Visa.  The new card just arrived in the mail.  I opened the envelope and read the two brochures to learn about the card's benefits.  I was specifically looking for confirmation that I still had access to "additional award seat availability" but did not find a single mention in any of the documentation.  So I logged on to the United Airlines website and did some searches for award travel, and sure enough, a number of flights were listed with the notation that they were only available to me because I was a United credit card holder.

Is this some kind of unadvertised secret benefit of the no-fee card?  Chase and United aren't shy about promoting this benefit as it applies to the Club and Explorer cards, but they never mention it for this card. Yet it appears to be there.  Does anyone know the back story?

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If you have Premier status, they're not seeing anything you're not, so it's possible in that case that their system did the 'does this user have Premier/Chase access' and 'does this user have a Chase card' and came to the erroneous conclusion that the reason you saw those items was because of your credit card.

FWIW, I also see the same thing with the same no-AF version of the United card, but I'm also Premier so I wrote it off to that.

[UpperNwGuy]

Actually, I no longer have Premier status.  Back in my road warrior days before retirement I was either a Premier Exec or a 1K every year, but since retiring my travel isn't enough for any kind of elite status.

[iced]

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

Actually, I no longer have Premier status.  Back in my road warrior days before retirement I was either a Premier Exec or a 1K every year, but since retiring my travel isn't enough for any kind of elite status.

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Ah. I would have thought you'd have been a million miler after all that and had some sort of lifetime status.

[UpperNwGuy]

I'm just under 400,000 lifetime miles with United, and a similar amount with American.

[coldfusion]

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@iced wrote:

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

Actually, I no longer have Premier status.  Back in my road warrior days before retirement I was either a Premier Exec or a 1K every year, but since retiring my travel isn't enough for any kind of elite status.

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Ah. I would have thought you'd have been a million miler after all that and had some sort of lifetime status.

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Yes, at 1 million Butt In Seat miles you're supposed to be granted lifetime Premier Gold status (new term for Premier Exec level).