elitefreak

#flythegreedyskiesUnited

cova

That is the point. UA should raise the Europe partner level to say 500K miles from the new 220K level. But then give it to top elites for 160K.

Then they get more money from Chase - and give the Top tiers a break.

hobo13

Seems to me that the question was answered in a round-about way by saying that 'so long as it doesn't involve repricing the ticket, you got the old rates.'

And most changes to routing on international tickets will change the taxes, so it involves a reprice, and thus you're screwed.

Happy to be proven wrong!

GUWonder

AA charges YQ also for BA's non-TATL flights. I don't recall if having the AA mileage tickets issued out of Brazil is still a way out of the YQ charges on award tickets using AA miles for BA and/or IB flights.

ZZYZXROAD

Glad this type of event is seismic in your life. I wish I had those problems and this being a seismic event.

Listen, for the folks who took 'advantage', self-inflicted by airlines, IMO, of cheap miles needed to fly FC to ASIA, this really can't be a show stopper. All prices get raised. Fact of life. Supply vs Demand obviously. UA feels you have the miles stored so you can fork them over, if not save longer. The plane is leaving with or without you everyday. Yes, it still flies even if your not in FC. Stop complaining and switch airlines, accumulate more miles or sit in Coach.

Question? Your ambitious travel plans exist because it was affordable and free with luxury? Sounds like it's not really ambitious, more like entitlement. Would you spend 12K a FC ticket to Africa for a 3 week safari for family of 5, all inclusive for $100K total? Now that's ambitious!

mh3265a

The GUM hub was a cash cow for CO and believe it still performs well for the new UA. It's not just about the population of the island but the fact they reach unique markets that they charge a premium for. Plus, the realignment of Marines offers them a lot more contractors etc... that will (and are) flying to GUM. The military/gov't presence is only increasing.

Guam is considered "Oceania" for award redemption but that has nothing to do with CPUs etc... You have to look at the fine print on the Upgrade page of United. However, I would not that doing a search now still shows instant upgrade eligibility. I spoke with UA folks yesterday and they confirmed the CPUs/Instant Upgrades were going away for GUM flights since they are all international.

LarkSFO

Mr. (or Ms.) GetSetJetSet:

The Mileage Plus Upgrade and Award Charts (linked at the top of the wiki) provide your answer.

- Old = tickets booked before 2/1/14, can be changed up until travel dates per existing UA change rules.

- New: tickets booked 2/1/14 and beyond.

Old Europe to Northern Africa on a *A award ticket: 17.5 - 30 - 45 (Y - C - F)

Old Europe to Central / Southern Africa on a *A award ticket: 30 - 45 - 60


New Europe to Northern Africa on a *A award ticket: 30 - 55 - 100

New Europe to Central / Southern Africa on a *A award ticket: 30 - 55 - 100

So, if you fly in economy (I doubt it with the GSJS FT moniker), then there is no change Europe to Southern Africa.

C will go from 45,000 to 55,000 miles.

F (as in many of the *A changes) will take a big jump from 60,000 miles to 100,000 miles. Ouch.

The new award chart also combines Northern Africa with Southern / Central Africa, which has the effect of increasing Northern Africa awards by an even greater percentage.

Lark

PS Northern Africa: Algeria Morocco Canary Islands Tunisia Libya

Central Southern Africa: Angola Madagascar Benin Malawi Botswana Mali Burkina Faso Mauritania Burundi Mauritius Cameroon Mozambique Cape Verde Namibia Central African Republic Niger Chad Nigeria Comoros Reunion Island
Congo Rwanda Cote D’Ivoire Sao Tome and Principe Democratic Republic of Congo Senegal Djibouti Seychelles Equatorial Guinea Sierra Leone Eritrea Somalia Ethiopia South Africa Gabon Sudan Gambia Swaziland Ghana Tanzania
Guinea Togo Guinea-Bissau Uganda Kenya Zambia Lesotto Zimbabwe Liberia

azepine00

Unless you had your family travel in F on miles this is nowhere near that dramatic.

Finding 3-4 seats in F was never an option so for my family travel on average the impact is about 15-20% devaluation. Not a good thing but given good earning in MP, great network, lack of YQ and decent award availability I can live with this.
DL or AA awards to europe with $500-1000 yq are of little interest to me even when 20-40k miles cheaper. The gap is not as wide as before however...

AA_EXP09

Not necessarily change but will for sure recalculate.

Always Flyin

Changing carriers or routing requires a ticket reissuance and, hence, a repricing at the time of reissuance.

Date changes only require a revalidation of the ticket, not a reissuance, and therefore do not invoke a repricing.

I made the point earlier in this thread, but note that a date change can only occur within the ticket validity period, i.e., one year. If you try a date change to flights beyond a year from the date of original ticket issuance, that will require reissuance and repricing of the ticket. So you can obtain a ticket on 31 January 2014, but regardless of date changes, it must be fully used before 31 January 2015.

penner42

The people I feel the worst for are the people who were building towards specific trips, like an anniversary or honeymoon. Not so much people who collect miles through sign ups/spending/manufactured spend and then figure out later where to go with them. People who had a specific plan: Getting married in a year and a half, want to go to a specific place for their honeymoon. United and Chase set up the rules: You want this trip, get these credit cards, spend $X, and you can go there! A bit of flexibility needed on travel dates, but workable.

Now the rug has been completely pulled out from under them. There's no way they can earn enough miles *in time* for the specific trip. Yes, they can spend/churn/whatever some more but it's too late. I know at least 2 people personally in this situation (and yes, I fully admit to helping them choose which credit cards to get for their trips). One getting married next summer and another planning for a 10 year anniversary trip. They will likely end up flying Y instead of J/F and still going where they want, but not in as much luxury as they wanted for such an important trip. Yes, first world problem, I know...

I have less sympathy (but still plenty - this devaluation was awful) for people who just collected miles through credit cards for as of yet unplanned trips.

Always Flyin

100% agree.

Getting together and singing Kum Ba Yah isn't going to do a darn thing.

Stop complaining and walk. I just booked 700,000 miles on partner awards the day after this was announced (TG, OZ and NH). I now have 40,000 miles left in my account. It will not grow.

Many are saying that AA is going to do the same thing. I don't know and neither do they. What I know right now is that UA has already done this--along with a plethora of other negative changes--and I am done with UA.

I had already cut back flying UA dramatically, but this is the final straw. Enough is enough.

CrazyInteg

I didn't read all the replies, but has anyone mentioned the increases in 2006 and 2009? Come on people, we all knew this was coming. The partner increases were unexpected though. Oh well, you can't really blame United for wanting people to fly United. Remember when there was a 500 mile minimum earning?

I believe the Southwest people have a right to complain though. They got double screwed.

penner42

I think most people in this thread would agree that if the increases were just raising everything to the new levels for United metal, partners included, that it was an unfortunate but expected devaluation. But the huge increases for partners, combined with the fact that it's going to lead to much lower availability (because everyone will now be fighting for the same number of UA metal seats) is the real problem. Honestly, I don't care too much what carrier I fly on. I appreciated the partners just for more flexibility on routes, dates, seats. But now that's gone, as I can't see myself ever spending the miles required for a partner.

sdemw

Interesting. I suppose at some level if you think of MP as a standalone business who's revenue is based on revenue per point distributed against cost of those points there is some churn that will make sense for them. The question is when does that business model conflict with the basic need to drive loyalty in high $/seat mile passengers.