Originally Posted by
mrclshppn
That's easy. low season awards are 60 for coach and 100k for business. You quote off-peak, which is such a limited period, it may as well not exist. US now has four levels off peak, low, mid, and high. low is the equivalent of partner travel award costs, and anything above that is a US penalty for loyalty. The 5k discount for having and using their credit card is ok and may make the first level palatable if you don't look at the difference in service levels on anything above coach. But if you travel coach and can limit yourself to the designated off-peak, not low, mid or high travel season, then the new award is a plus, otherwise it sucks. Also I can buy that PHL to Rome flight for such a low price that it is the equivalent of 25k purchased, so still no real deal.
As pointed out in the thread I linked to that's been on-going for a month, US is still generally better overall than Mileage Plus or OnePass for redemptions. Especially since the majority of inter-region awards on *A don't change.
100K in C to Europe (or 95K if you really want to burn on US and have the credit card) is still better than 105K that UA and CO people have to spend.
It's still 110K in C to South Pacific which is an awesome deal and if you know the routes to search, you can usually find availability near your travel dates.
I don't burn miles on US so the various levels mean nothing to me but I've seen fine availability for the off-peak - yes it's limited but that's what off peak is. It's not 6 months of off-peak, it's the dead of winter, at least for Europe. Fine by me, great time to go in my opinion for 60K (or 55K) in Envoy.