Sorry that I haven’t been writing in the past few days but I took a quick last minute trip to Philadelphia to visit a friend.
If you’ve never been to Philadelphia, I would highly recommend it! It’s a gorgeous city with lots of history and fun things to do.
I have Marriott Platinum Status from all the hotel nights I had made during work trips in my previous job. When I made it to Platinum status, I was automatically upgraded to United Silver Status because Marriott and United have a quasi-partnership.
Interestingly, the baggage tag I was issued is hilariously small.
I never really thought this low-level status would ever benefit me but it did!
United Silver Benefits
United Silver gives you a lot of good benefits but the ones that really benefited me during this trip are the ones highlighted below.
Having access to Economy Plus seats at no fee is an excellent benefit. I have ALWAYS found that most people are not willing to pay for Economy Plus seats early on. They may splurge for the upgrade when they check in but usually not when they first book. What you typically find is that 24 hours before the flight, about 80-90% of the Economy Plus seats are available for purchase, which is great if you have United Silver.
What you typically find is that 24 hours before the flight, about 80-90% of the Economy Plus seats are available for purchase, which is great if you hold Silver Status or above with United.
I always recommend that you check-in 24 hours before your flight so you can be among the first to choose a seat if you don’t already have a great assigned seat. When you check in as a United Silver member, the Economy Plus seats can be chosen at no cost!
This is a benefit that will almost always be available to you, assuming you are checking in 24 hours prior to the flight.
Additional Benefit
The Complimentary Premier Upgrade in the chart above refers to Complimentary Business Class Upgrades. Typically, there are so many United Mileage Plus Statused fliers that you never get bumped into Business Class. Your spot on the Business Class Upgrade list is based on multiple factors but the largest of which is the status level you are at. As a Silver, you are outranked by everyone else but that’s typically not the case here in Canada.
In Canada, you don’t have a lot of United fliers so it’s usually not that common to have too many people ahead of you in the Business Class Upgrade Waitlist.
On my flight from Calgary to Chicago, I was upgraded to Business Class and enjoyed a decent breakfast and a lot of additional room.
I was originally scheduled to fly in the middle seat towards the back of the plane but I ended up in Business Class thanks to my United Silver Status.
It should be noted that this was an award redemption so these upgrades work for both paid travel and award travel.
Conclusion
You may scoff at these low-level statuses but at times they can come in very handy! I wrote a while back about how to leverage your status to gain other, more powerful statuses so don’t ever hesitate if you are given the chance to obtain any status. You never know when it might come in handy.
