cricketer

Ouch. This seriously hurts. I currently pay 70K miles to fly SFO-FRA-NRT-BKK-HKG (as an example) on LH F and TG F all the way through. Which is pretty awesome because I'm essentially paying 10K miles to upgrade from C to F (since it's 60K in C).

As painful as this is, and for me it halves the value of miles, we have been spoiled for a long time. It honestly makes no sense for F to be just 10K more than C on that route.

Unfortunately I was getting a great deal until now. I won't be getting it going forward. The balance of the value exchange has been altered, and ultimately we each have to determine whether it's changed enough to change our flying patterns.

And really, hands up anyone who didn't expect this to happen?

CO_Nonrev_elite

United is alive thanks in part to the billions from Chase. And where does Chase get their money from? Indeed, from the "despised" card holders.

Why are the card holders despised. I currently have three cards (churning) but I am also a multi million miler, CO Platinum & 1K for 10 years straight. I do both the butt in seat mileage accrual and the bonuses from the cards...

If that gets us despised, then you guys are seriously missing out on some free miles. If you think that today's blood bath is because of chase cards, you are most likely mistaken

Lastly, if you are a UA flyer, and mainly fly on UA metal, today was hardly a bloodbath at all. If you primarily fly *A carriers using UA miles, then ... today was not a good day

raehl311

There is an economic reality to consider:

When FF programs were best, airlines were losing money and fuel was cheap.

It was never sustainable.

One can hope that will change on Feb 1.

kenziid3

Does this change mean CPU's are no longer good between HKG-SIN after Feb1?

Dieuwer

Some people on this board think that it is the card holders who ruined everything.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
The fact that they were losing money is not necessarily due to FF programs.
I thought the main culprit was the high labor costs.

cubachao

banking miles is not really a good idea. so no more loyalty to any airlines, they change when they want, never think about their loyal customers. too bad UA, once i use all my miles, i will go cheapest airfares available, never pick UA as my preference.

lisa2926

need to burn my miles as fast as I can

raehl311

Anything with a cost affects the bottom line.

The question is, do the costs of the FF program drive enough revenue to make having the FF program a net gain?

I can certainly see how the pricing they had for F partner awards wasn't working in that equation.

The prices went up. The miles are still worth something. At least UA hasn't gone the DL route and institute a bunch of chances to make the miles nearly unusable (crap award search calendar, no changes within 72 hours AT ALL, huge close-in and other booking fees... all on top of crappy redemption rates....)


Like I said, I don't fault UA on raising the F partner award prices. When I was booking the India award flights yesterday I very nearly spring for the F as the cost difference in miles was so minimal. The actual cost difference J->F couldn't possibly have been proportional.


I do fault them for messing with J that much, and for not providing inventory on their own metal.

RockyMntFlyer

Very true. I recently found two business saver awards on AC DEN via YVR to SYD. Actually wanted UA, but checked for months. Plenty of flights, but zero saver availability on UA metal in business class for months. Ended up taking the AC flights (thankfully). Yet another downgrade. Very sad.

Richklhs

Can you blame United when Delta reports a $1.3 billion quarterly profit? They have skypesos and are still raking in that kind of cash. Maybe I'd do the same

lisa2926

GPU seems to be more valuable after 2/1, RPU seems to stay the same value

Dieuwer

It is a workaround, but I use the Alaska award engine to search for DL awards. Since AS only shows low-level awards that are actually bookable, it works pretty well.

LufthansaFlyer

The card programs recently helped to 'print' more miles just like beloved Federal Reserve and treasury just print more dollars....eventually they lose their value...and inflation kicks in ---- we've just witnessed about a decade's worth of inflation literally overnight....

exerda

This is a good question; however, during the days of losing money hand over fist, frequent flyer programs were nonetheless incredibly profitable for airlines--so much so that some spun off and sold their FFPs IIRC. Clearly, those programs were a net gain even in hard times.

bob_the_d

yeah but they improved the product and operations and decided they can compete on that, so they felt free to gut skymiles. and it worked because they're reliable and have a solid product.

UA in my opinion hasn't gotten operations to a level where it can compete. and they keep reducing amenities on the on-board product. so their draw was MP. with under 80% on-time (is that right? what's the latest number?) operations, a weaker (it's subjective i guess) soft and hard product, you can't gut the FF program which is the last remaining major attraction and expect to rake in the profits.

you need a competitive advantage to sell. and a route network doesn't work if you're constantly late.