It’s just a part of the miles and points world – award charts are going to change, and most of those changes are going to be negative. There’s a reason I have an entire category of posts called “devaluations“! Today it is United’s turn to devalue things. Thankfully these changes are not QUITE as bad as they could have been, but still will have an impact if you’ve got a big stash of United miles (or Chase Ultimate Rewards). For additional information on the devaluation, you can see: Live and Lets Fly, View from the Wing, Frequent Miler or One Mile at a Time, or the official release by United. But here is my take on 4 of the worst changes
5 United devaluations in 2017
- Adding an unlimited upper bound to awards – instead of having just “Saver” and “Standard”, starting November 1st, Standard award will be replaced by the new “dynamic”
- Increased Saver awards on United metal – awards from the US to Australia/New Zealand, Central/Southern Africa, Central Asia , Japan and Oceania, North Asia, South Asia, Southern South America and Europe are going up by 5-10K one way. Some of these changes are in business and some even in economy (US to Europe in economy going from 57,500 to 60,000 miles – glad I already booked that 250,000 mile trip to Europe!)
- Increased award cost on partner metal – awards on partners are also going up, but not as drastically
- Increased cost for “premium” transcontinental awards – award costs are going up from Newark to LAX or SFO or Boston to SFO and all flights to Hawaii. Hawaii saver business class goes from 40,000 to 50,000 (one-way).
- Adding additional fees for changing and canceling your award – these changes take place for awards booked on or after October 6, 2017.
You can find the new United award chart here (pdf)
2 good United changes
There are a few good things with this announcement.
- Short-haul saver flights within a region – Any nonstop flight within a single region of 800 miles or less will now only cost 8000 miles. This is comparable with using British Airways Avios, though there are some domestic flights cheaper than Avios – I got a nonstop for only 2300 miles.
- Better availability? – Maybe I am being optimistic but the change to dynamic awards may make more awards available and settle in to a more “equilibrium” price. Yes, prices may go up but in a lot of times I’d rather be able to book the flight at all than have nothing available (which is how things usually work for United award availability now – SEE: Why is United availability so awful?). I’ve noticed WAY better award availability on Delta since they went to revenue(ish) pricing and the prices have not been bad either, with many domestic routes discounted under 12,500 miles. We had plenty of availability finding 8 seats on Delta from Seattle to Cincinnati and roundtrip from Cincinnati to Sacramento. Try THAT on American or United
And I guess there’s something to be said as a “good” change that it could have been a lot worse!
Readers what’s your take? What was the worst devaluation in your mind?
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“Adding an unlimited upper bound to awards ”
i don’t know how you’ve been interpreting the story, but my understanding is that in the published award chart, the “Everyday” figure is the MAX number of miles quotable, not a MIN.
e.g. Saver is 12500, and Everyday is anything from 13000 to 32500 (that’s the published upper cap)
Yes, the published chart showing the ‘higher’ mileage limit, and it seems United will be lowering rates on Everyday awards on their discretion (on low priced routes presumably).
For business class – the Asian destinations are affected the most, and First all across the board.
Glad that I burned my United miles on JFK-JNB round-trip this year. Was a pretty nice flight with an awesome crew on South African (partner). That’s the only true direct flight from US to South Africa. Because of it SA charges around $7,500 RT = 160K United miles. So in this example it’s a big margin for United to pay back to partner, almost like for 1st class seats. But some domestic flights and partner flights to Europe just overpriced in miles.
United pushed it’s credit cards with bigger bonus – now they gonna recoup it from award customers. More points floating = more liability for them = faster devaluations. So they want to turn bigger profits now.
Will see if availability improves for Saver and Everyday awards. It’s been scattered all over, especially since new website roll-on. Hope for the best!
I’m super bummed about these changes. I have these miles to book flighs between Europe and Australia from the U.S, lol. Such a shame.
Dan,
You mention US tomEurope awards going from 57,500 to 60,000 try.
Haven’t those been 60,000 for,quite,some time?
I will be booking two rt’s to Europe (2 people flying each trip) prior to 11/1/17, so if I can get them for 57,500, that will save me 10,000 miles.
Pretty sure they are 57,500 if the longhaul leg is on United metal and 70,000 if they are on a partner