&gt; I can confirm that the perks are almost useless<p>I don&#x27;t know anything about United. But my status on SouthWest and Delta is absurdly useful. On SouthWest they gave me a companion pass, so any time I fly somewhere, my wife comes with me for free. For a consultant, usually flying every week Monday-Thursday, this let me skip a couple weekends from the rat race, since if my wife is there, why go home anyway.<p>On Delta, I can fly standby on any flight the same day. It&#x27;s so handy I got in the habit of just booking the last flight of the day and just come to the airport whenever I feel like it. Even when I don&#x27;t do that, I often land at airports early enough to hop an earlier connection than my official one, and I end up getting home half a day earlier than expected since I can standby on normally not permitted connections (airline regulations require a certain amount of time to make your connection, but if you can walk up to any gate and ask to standby, a lot more connections are available).<p>And of course there are the free upgrades to first and free extra legroom seats people normally have to pay for and the free flights using earned miles.