United MileagePlus Devaluation Coming 1 November 2017

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United Airlines’ MileagePlus program has announced that, from 1 November 2017, quite a few things will be changing – mostly for the worse. The main changes involve the repricing of United’s international Saver Awards, the introduction of variable price “Everyday Awards” and the repricing of United’s partner awards.

Changes To MileagePlus

United Introduces “Everyday Awards”

From 1 November 2017 United will replace its Standard Awards with Everyday awards for awards booked on United Airlines. Where Standard awards were offered at a fixed price, Everyday awards will vary in price from flight to flight (presumably depending on demand).

Standard awards will remain for redemptions on Star Alliance partners.

United has already published the new Everyday award chart (which is linked HERE) although, as pricing will be dynamic, the chart shows the maximum an Everyday Award will cost.

United’s Standard Awards can be very useful if you hold MileagePlus elite status or if you hold a co-branded Chase credit card as there are no caps on Standard Award inventory – if there’s a seat available for sale on a flight then it can be bought for the price of a Standard Award – currently 25,000 miles for travel within continental North America.

Everyday awards will still be redeemable in the same way as Standard Awards have been but United has announced that, as the price of the award varies, Everyday awards within North America will cost up to 32,500 miles (a potential rise of up to 30%)

Changes To Saver Award Costs

United has already posted an updated award chart for Saver Awards booked on or after 1 November 2017.

Here are the highlights of what’s changing and what’s staying the same per United Airlines:

• You will still be able to enjoy our one-way Economy Saver Awards for 12,500 miles and one-wayshort-haul Economy Saver Awards for 10,000 miles for awards within the 48 contiguous United States.
• We’re lowering prices on most short-haul intra-region Economy Saver Awards for regions outside of the U.S., such as flights within Europe. Short-haul intra-region pricing will only apply if the award is on a single nonstop flight and less than 800 miles in one of the MileagePlus regions defined on our award chart.
• Pricing will increase on Saver Award travel for select international markets and on United Business® Saver Awards for U.S. premium transcontinental routes and for select Hawaii routes.

What does this actually mean in practice?

Changes to United Saver Business Class awards include:

• All routes within the continental US and Canada – One way Business Class awards increase from 25,000 to 35,000 miles (40% increase)
• All routes between the continental US and Hawaii – One way Business Class awards increase from 40,000 to 50,000 miles (25% increase)
• USA to South America – One way business class awards increase from 55,000 to 60,000 miles (9% increase)
• USA to Oceania – One way business class awards increase from 70,000 to 75,000 miles (7 % increase)
• USA to Europe – One way business class awards increase from 57,500 to 60,000 miles (4% increase)

Changes to Star Alliance Saver Awards include:

• USA to Middle East – One way Business Class awards increase from 80,000 to 85,000 miles (6% increase)
• USA to Oceania – One way Business Class awards increase from 80,000 to 90,000 miles (12% increase)
• USA to Southern South America – One way Business Class awards increase from 55,000 to 60,000 miles (9% increase)
• Japan to Oceania – One way Business Class awards increase from 30,000 to 37,500 miles (25% increase)

Notably, Star Alliance awards between the US and Europe appear unchanged.

United Introducing A No Show Fee

This shouldn’t affect too many people but here are the details anyway.

If a traveler makes an award booking and then fails to cancel the ticket before the flight departs a fee of $125 will be levied if the traveler wants the miles restored to his/her account. This is regardless of the traveler’s status.

As things stand these are the redeposit fees United charges so, as you can see, this new fee won’t make any difference to General members but will make an increasingly big difference the higher you progress up the MilagePlus status ladder.

Thoughts

The elimination of Standard Awards in favor of dynamically priced Everyday awards is a loss but not probably one felt by too many readers of this blog – saver awards are the ones most people look to book.

Speaking of saver awards….

The increases in domestic Business Class Saver Awards are big (25% – 40%) and will be felt quite widely. United’s old pricing was directly in line with what American changes for its domestic Business Class awards…but not any longer.

The remaining saver award increases are annoying (no one likes to see award costs go up) but by no means heinous (this isn’t a gutting of the award chart).

The Star Alliance saver awards don’t appear to have been hit too badly…although some awards between regions not including the US appear to have risen sharply.

Overall clearly this isn’t good news but, compared to what we have become accustomed to seeing, this isn’t all that bad….and it’s not all that bad because we’re gradually becoming anesethized to the devaluations loyalty programs throw our way.