{"id":13363,"date":"2009-01-12T07:54:56","date_gmt":"2009-01-12T14:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2009\/01\/12\/fly-the-friendly-skies-2.html"},"modified":"2009-01-12T07:54:56","modified_gmt":"2009-01-12T14:54:56","slug":"fly_the_friendly_skies_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/12\/fly_the_friendly_skies_2.html","title":{"rendered":"Fly the friendly skies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Isn&#8217;t that nice? United informs me, helpfully, that for <em>only <strong>$1675<\/strong><\/em>, I can buy enough &#8220;Elite Qualifying Miles&#8221; (a bit under 12K) to qualify for United Premier Status, which will get me (I am told):<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<li> No baggage fees<\/li>\n<li> Access to Economy Plus\u00ae seating<\/li>\n<li> Priority check-in and boarding<\/li>\n<li> 25% redeemable mileage bonuses<\/li>\n<li> And so much more<\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;So much more&#8221;?! Wow! How can I pass up that offer?<\/p>\n<p>Um &#8230; pretty easily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Isn&#8217;t that nice? United informs me, helpfully, that for only $1675, I can buy enough &#8220;Elite Qualifying Miles&#8221; (a bit under 12K) to qualify for United Premier Status, which will&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11774,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/02\/05\/flying_light.html","url_meta":{"origin":13363,"position":0},"title":"Flying light","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Feb-08 8:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"Just ... swell ...\u00a0 United Airlines will begin charging some passengers $50 to check a second piece of luggage on domestic round-trip flights, becoming the first big carrier to impose...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11210,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/03\/16\/where_the_elite_meet_to_e.html","url_meta":{"origin":13363,"position":1},"title":"Where the Elite Meet to Eat Little Pretzel Treats!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 16-Mar-07 1:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Just got (a week or two late) my updated United Mileage Plus \"Premier\" card. Which is both appalling that I travel that much, and kinda cool that I'm One of...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12615,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/10\/buying_privileges.html","url_meta":{"origin":13363,"position":2},"title":"Buying privileges","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 10-Mar-08 8:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So once upon a time, United had frequent flier awards. If you flew X miles with them, you could trade in those miles for flights, but, more important, as you...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11006,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/04\/26\/rolling_out_the_short_red.html","url_meta":{"origin":13363,"position":3},"title":"Rolling out the (short) red carpet","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Apr-07 1:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Something new with United Airlines this trip: the Mini-Red Carpet.\u00a0 United's top-tier frequent fliers, plus First Class, and Business Class passengers, get their own separate queue for boarding, so...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/ual-redcarpet.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5625,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/09\/travel_notes_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":13363,"position":4},"title":"Travel Notes","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Feb-04 8:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"On the journey home from Sacramento last week ... United's check-in kiosks rock, especially since they are now combining them with baggage service. Only drawback -- you need customer service...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8545,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/10\/16\/hoity_and_occas.html","url_meta":{"origin":13363,"position":5},"title":"Hoity, and, occasionally, toity","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 16-Oct-05 12:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As a symbol of all my business travel over the last year, I am now (or once again) a United Airlines Premier Mileage Plus member, complete with silver MP card...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}