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Comment by eganist | Hacker News Reader

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just finished a mileage run. It made sense for me because I already had the status this year (not from a prior mileage run), which meant I ended up being upgraded on every flight and e.g. flying overnight and showering in airport lounges rather than burning time in hotels. I used it as an opportunity to catch up with old friends in far away places.

Worked out pretty well.

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Ha I have United Platinum status and I rarely get upgraded to business. My typical flights are international or fully booked coast-to-coast, where being in business would actually be nice to lie down. I almost always end up having to purchase the upgrades outright if prices aren't jacked up.

Really the only value I care about from the status is premier check in desks across star alliance, which isn't that enviable.

More than signifying anything enviable, top airline status basically just means you get a crap ton of extra radiation exposure every year (e.g. SFO to Tokyo is a chest x-ray per hour, 20 microSv, if you didn't know). Really not worth going out of your way to get.

> Ha I have 100k United status and I almost never get upgraded to business.

I get upgraded transatlantic with just Gold occasionally so not sure why you are being so unlucky.

You won't get upgraded if it's a full flight and most biz seats are paid for, even with GPU. With gold especially unlikely, that will put you in the middle of a usually 50 person waitlist for 3 or 4 available seats.

All depends on how busy chosen routes are.

Can confirm (1k with 125k+ BIS miles). My GPUs rarely clear on any reasonable route.

You must be sweet talking the gate agent, because UA CPU's aren't applied for transatlantic flights: https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/mileageplus/awards/upgr...

I'll shill caniupgrade.flights which has info on which flights can be upgraded using various instruments. I need to update it for PlusPoints, but otherwise it's accurate.

No idea then - but it's happened at bag-drop at least twice. Just after I achieved status each time I think so I thought it was a thing they did to make you think it was really worth having achieved it.

I've gotten it once (HND to SFO), so it's not unheard of, it's just not official policy. 24 hours before the flight departs, the upgrade list gets transferred from the online waitlist to the airport, and check-in staff and gate agents have full control at that point (this is why UA doesn't let you use upgrades within a 24 hour window). Occasionally, you can get someone at the airport to put the upgrade through (though I've found it burns goodwill, so don't do it too often).

Are you above average height? I'm 6'4" and get upgraded often. Seems to be more likely if I check in at the airport quite early.

Your comment is warranted, but I think I know at least one contributing factor (normally fly around 200K / yr on United)

I'm making up an extreme case to make the point, but let's say the plane's business / first cabin is 100% empty / unbooked, and the economy cabin is full (even overbooked) and the standby list is 30 deep.

Even though UA is reluctant to give out free INT upgrades, if it means they can put 30 more people on that plane and collect the revenue, they'll do it. There's more to it than that, I'm sure there's a heuristic, in fact one day I hope there will be an AMA "I code the conditional logic for airline XYZ's algorithm <for Global Services> <for INT upgrades> <for domestic upgrades>" but until that time, we can only discuss what we've observed and speculate on the rationale.

Me, I'm still wondering why when I'm first on the ugprade list and there are 8 unsold first class seats, why do I have to board (in my economy seat), settle in, unpack and decompress before some gate agent comes waddling down the aisle 30 seconds before the door closes to tell me I've been upgraded. It was clear 30 minutes ago that was the case. First world problems, I know.

When I fly from SFO to Canada I get upgraded pretty regularly on gold status. Of course these are domestic first, so while better they still aren’t great.

Do you have a source on that figure, because a cursory google search says that a chest xray is 0.1 mSv, and a 7 hour flight is 0.02 mSv.

From the FAA, >.02 mSv per hour measured for LA to Tokyo [1]

From Wikipedia, .02 mSv for chest x-ray [2]

[1] https://www.faa.gov/data_research/research/med_humanfacs/oam...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose#/media/...

I'm not sure that banana chart from wikipedia is up-to-date:

https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=safety-xray https://www.health.harvard.edu/cancer/radiation-risk-from-me...

Most sources seem to put it at 0.1 mSv for a chest x-ray.

The FAA link for a Tokyo to LA 9 hour flight would be about 0.0206 mSv, or approximately 2 chest x-rays for the total flight.

However the FAA research you linked would put a New York to Seattle flight at a total of 0.112 mSv, whereas this CDC link says a trans-continental flight is only at the order of mangnitude of 0.035 mSv...

https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/commercialflights... - summarizes more sources that contradict the raw FAA numbers.

This FAA calculator also seems to give numbers that agree with the lower radiation levels: http://jag.cami.jccbi.gov/cariresults.asp

With United Gold I got upgraded to business my last 7 flights in a row to south america.

About the radiation - pretty anecdotal, but Arthur “Art” Astrin (rip http://ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/its/MtgSum/Astrin.html) was responsible for Wireless part of Apple revival product range ~1999 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj5NNxVwNwQ He spend couple of years flying weekly SF-Shenezhen. Ended up with severe metastatic melanoma. "Incidence of cancer among licenced commercial pilots flying North Atlantic routes" put 10% higher rick of malignant melanoma on frequent flyers.

I think it's one of those things that you have to be "in the know" to understand and experience the benefits, and why a mileage run or other status qualifying event is worth the time and effort. Same reason some folks have no value getting Global Entry, but for a frequent traveler, being saved from one missed flight due to border control time deltas (looking at your YYZ!) makes the $100 fee and the interview worth it.

I think you're largely right. I derive pretty good value from the programs I'm enrolled in, so a mileage run makes sense to keep doing the things I'd like to do next year at a relative discount.

Nexus is probably one of the best investments I’ve ever made. The amount of time saved from that one little card has been incredible.

I don't live on the border so I had to stick with Global Entry, but I totally agree that Nexus is the way to go if you can swing it. I also got the APEC Business Travel Card ($70 addon to Global Entry) that gets you the diplomatic line in ~20 countries while on business travel. Has literally saved me hours in line in Tokyo, Taipei, and Hong Kong.

Agreed. Nexus also bundles access to Global Entry and TSA precheck at no extra cost -- a good investment for $50 over 5 years (works out to $10/yr!).

It's the best deal ever, not only for travel between U.S. and Canada, but also from any other destination to/from U.S. and Canada and within the U.S. and Canada domestically.

I travel regularly from U.S. to Europe and I get full GE and Precheck privileges through Nexus. I usually clear customs in less than 5 minutes as opposed to 1.5 hr line at larger airports like ATL.

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