United MileagePlus

Just as it did in October last year, the United Airlines MileagePlus program is again offering members a 30% bonus when they convert select hotel currencies into MileagePlus miles. For members with Marriott Bonvoy points, this could be a good deal. For people with orphaned hotel points that qualify for this promotion, this could be a good deal. For just about everyone else, this is a promotion to avoid.

Just 6 days after pulling the last discount that it offered on its currency, United Airlines is back with another promotion in which it's offering a bonus of up to 100% when members buy MileagePlus miles by the end of the month.

Today, United has announced a couple of very minor extra status benefits for those of us who sit towards the bottom of the MileagePlus food chain, and if you have Silver status and fly with a few of United's Star Alliance partners, these may turn out to be benefits that have genuine value.

As we covered the Marriott/United partnership yesterday, now seems like a good time to for a reminder that top-tier Marriott Bonvoy and with United MileagePlus elites are being offered a limited-time promotion which allows them to earn upgrades in the other's  loyalty program. 

In recent weeks we have highlighted Marriott's recently enhanced partnership with Singapore Airlines and its partnership with Emirates, so it makes sense to now cover the more major of Marriott's airline partnerships - it's partnership with United Airlines MileagePlus.

Over the past couple of weeks, we have gone over some of the changes that have been brought in (or announced) for 2024 by Alaska Airlines, Southwest, and American Airlines, so it's only fair that we also look at the one key change that United's MileagePlus program has introduced for the 2024 elite year.

As of next year, United's MileagePlus program will be bringing in the elite qualification criteria that it had promised to introduce before the pandemic put a halt to the program's plans. Unfortunately, that means that the lower elite status thresholds that flyers have been enjoying for the past few years will soon be nothing more than a pleasant memory but on the upside, there is at least a little bit of good news coming out of MileagePlus today.

Earlier, I reported that United's latest mileage sale ends later today but it was something that I noticed in the terms and conditions that stuck out a lot more than the sale itself. According to United, purchases of Mileage Plus miles will now be recognized as United Airlines purchases and code as such with the credit card companies.

United appears to have chosen a moment in time where it thinks that its customers aren't watching to push through a subtle (yet very real) devaluation to its MileagePlus loyalty program - a program that had already been significantly devalued since the beginning of this year. 

United is the second of the three big US carriers to announce measures aimed at placating its frequent flyers (Delta announced its measures yesterday) and the airline is going further than simply extending status for all that currently hold it – there are changes to this year’s elite status requirements, it will be easier to earn status through credit card spending and numerous flyer benefits will no longer expire this year.

United has completely overhauled the way Premier status is earned and has increased the spending thresholds for each status level too but, despite its best efforts to shift MileagePlus towards being a revenue reward program, the airline hasn't actually managed to prevent the distance travelers fly from having a significant effect on the status they can earn.

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United Airlines has today announced that it is replacing Regional Premier Upgrades (RPUs) and Global Premier Upgrades (GPUs) with a new upgrade benefit called "PlusPoints". The new system shouldn't see any members disadvantaged and, instead, should add a bit more flexibility to how members can upgrade their flights.

United's Mileage Plus program has been having a lot of issues with partner awards this year. Back in January, quite a few people noticed that United.com wasn't showing award availability for a number of its Star Alliance partners despite the fact that other sites (like Aeroplan) were showing that lots of awards seats were up for grabs.

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Let's be honest and open about this - Basic Economy fares are a rip-off. Airlines would love for us all to blindly believe that Basic Economy fares are just super-cheap, no-frills fares brought in to compete with the low-cost carriers...but they're nothing of the sort. Basic Economy fares are no cheaper than the cheapest fares that were around before Basic Economy was even a thing - they just come with considerably fewer benefits.  Remember that the next time you read about an airline CEO telling us all how Basic Economy is great news for the budget traveler.