How many of you layover out of loyalty?

Pretty simple question… just curious.

Started a new travel job where I fly a lot, last year a trip to India took me to Premier Silver. This year, the same trip plus a bunch more travel for work will put me at platinum. Might be able to make one 1K next year, just depends.

My only cause for concern is that out of my eight or nine clients that I frequent a year, six of them require I lay over to get to them adding about 1.5 hours to a flight time. I know it may not sound like a lot, but those if you know who fly a lot sometimes that can be annoying personal or business related. That’s not including the 1 in 5 chance the layover could and has resulted in a pretty exhausting change of plans.

All this to say, if I wanted to, I could stop being so loyal to United and just chop up my travel between United, Southwest, AA and Delta and I could fly direct forever more. But my personal travel would suffer because I do like the idea of racking up miles and status, it’s already paid off so much for my wife and I when we travel.

So did I answer my own question… just suck it up?