manneca

I looked to book a trip to DXB in business. There was no saver business or first tickets available except with connections on partners (and this was rare). On an entire page, there might be one flight that was at saver levels. It seems that whenever I've looked to book award travel that's been the case.
So, it seems (without actually looking at a chart) that this just means no saver availability on business or first on either partners or UA. So, it's pushing folks away from saver availability which means that it is essentially doubling or more the miles needed for international.

txflyer77

Well, guess if I want to fly LH F it's now or never. Fortunately my schedule is flexible, I should be able to find something between now and 2/1ish.

halls120

i do feel bad for Aaron. it must suck to be the person who is given the task of delivering nothing but a steady diet of bad news.

Y_me?

A dead currency seems more fitting: MileageDrachma (sounds appropriately harsh) or MileageLira (Turkish Lira undermines, though)?

FlyWorld

You missed the point that they are now flier friendly.

AAExPlat

It is one thing to focus regular credit card spend on Chase and to then redeem the miles on LH F. But that isn't what has been going on. There is an ocean of bloggers out there that have been aggressively hawking the Chase cards to readers, including the advice to violate card member agreements by applying for and using the business cards to fund non-business expenses to max out category bonuses. That is then combined with gift cards and bluebird and voila! A machine that earns miles without actually spending money...just recycling it.

I know there will be many that say this is a fringe group and that it is a tiny percentage of Chase customers. But I disagree. Remember how entire cities were wiped out of vanilla reloads at some point earlier this year? This is not fringe and it is being abused all over the place.

I honestly can't blame UA for trying to stop the abuse of the system by kettle who used manufactured spend to hang out at the FCT in FRA twice a year.

But I do think, in typical UA fashion, that they went too far. They could have used a more nuanced approach. How about putting in PQD that are not subject to credit card spend waiver and then allowing GS and 1k to continue to redeem at lower rates than non-elites? That way, the most profitable and highest volume customers would still have reasonable access to the award inventory and the moochers would be discouraged. Instead, they took the hatchet to everyone including GS and 1k.

Bingo. This could not last.

Exactly. This move is so drastic and so sudden that it just reeks of panic and desperation. The most tragic thing is that it will do the exact opposite of what they they THINK will happen. UA management tragically misunderstands how business works and their competitive position in the industry. Of course, they think this will decrease the outstanding liabilities they have on the books from the unredeemed miles...and that buying behavior will otherwise not be affected.

In reality, what is going to happen is that outside of those who have zero choice in whether to fly United (a group I unfortunately belong to as of this past week), anyone with a choice can and will now decide whether they want to move business to DL where miles are not necessarily worth more, but where they get to fly a better airline OR if they want to move business to AA where miles are still worth more as long as they are redeemed on AA partners that don't charge YQ.

And every time a customer leaves for another airline, it put more pressure on yields because less and less seats a filled from the outstations and spokes of the system. And the crappier the yields, the crappier the revenue performance and that is the ONE thing they have to improve to get credibility with Wall Street.

In the end, this move will do the exact opposite of what Smisek and co think it will do and it will hasten their exit.

Incidentally, this move won't affect me as much as others as I typically redeem in Y and I don't mind flying UA in Y due to E+. But it sucks not having the option of flying in J or F going forward considering I will be clocking in 200k+ on UA annually going forward.

You already know the answer...

LufthansaFlyer

So this is what third-world country currency devaluation feels like......

United757

MileageLess strikes again. So glad I'm done with this airline.

Chaikel

Chase must be paying UA upward of $100s of millions a year for their miles. UA would be crazy not to listed to them.

Anyway if DL is Pesos, UA is Bolivar

SJOFlyer

I did the following table to illustrate the changes for Central American members... Only 3/17 regions have no change all of them have gone up.

Central American Reward Changes

UAInsider, after reviewing the chart, please confirm that Business Award between Central America went from 10k to 20k, I must think this is an error for a 1hr flight in the region....

pushmyredbutton

I'm guessing awards that are mostly on United metal, but the last leg is on *A to a destination United doesn't serve....those get charged the full amount?

For example EWR-HKG-SIN (UA) - BWN (MI)

So in that case, really no incentive to keep the first part on UA metal it would seem

whakojacko

Wow this is a massacre. I'm fortunate that I mostly fly SFO-JFK, where I have lots of choices. MP was basically the only reason I dealt with UA, and it just became much less of a reason

Yea thats going to kill premium awards to Europe as well. Even if you take UA on the TATL segments, for a lot of destinations you need to take LH...

pushmyredbutton

That's what I'm thinking. In some of these cases it makes a lot of sense to just fly to FRA on UA metal and book a cheap roundtrip in LH Y to save the increase in miles spent.

JC1120

. That is all.

belfordrocks

You can fly to OSL/GVA/WAW/other LCC 'hub' and tack on a LCC flight from there.