JetAway

Perhaps the "economists" working at UA think people will be willing to spend more for miles after the huge award devaluation? "They're going to be desperate and will pay anything!" In the real world, of course, devaluation means the miles are worth much less than before.

raybolt

Right now I have 2 paid trips offering 2.3, and 2 award trips offering 2.5 for RDMs. The award trips went up from the 2.3 sometime within the past two weeks. PQMs are 10.3 and 10.5

-dan

Eddy421

Just grabbed some more RDM at 2.3 cpm
One just need to get a multi-airlines / intercontinenal flight to catch that rates...
Just hoping it might go back down to the 2.1 cpm experienced until mid 2013 for such itinerary...

5khours

I'm guessing UA will need to cut rates 20 to 30% in order to sell RDM.

wco81

And the purchase didn't add one cent to your PQD total?

Micp3208

I am sure this has been discussed at length, but skimming through, I could not quickly find the answer. Are you still offered the option to purchase miles AFTER you check in? I am not quite sure if I want to go with it, yet.

I know it usually offers it, at the airport, but I never noticed if it will still be online. Think the prices will change?

LarkSFO

From .021?

I would change the word guessing to the word 'hoping' in your statement. Then perhaps your travel patterns will again make sense!

(.021 - 30% = .0147. At this level do partner international redemptions in F or C make sense with the new award chart?)

danhunterpost

Hey All,

Still very new to the site and have a question. Just booked a trip on all UA metal from SFO to BKK in mid-March. They are offering me 40,000 bonus miles for $920, this seems expensive. Will there be a better offer at an airport kiosk or should I take this offer?

Also bought a V fare and is offering me an upgrade to Global First for $4K more. Also seems strange as I have never been offered a 2 class upgrade before. Have things changed recently?

Thanks!

Jaimito Cartero

There are usually ways to get miles cheaper. I would not consider anything over 2 cents per mile, unless I needed a small amount to top up an account.

WineCountryUA

this is the award accelerator
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...es-2014-a.html
at 2.3cpm this is about as good as purchasing miles from UA gets (sometime 2.1 cpm will appear)
Doubtful a better RDM offer will appears at the airport, the PQM offer might change -- better or worse.


No recent change, this has been possible for couple years. Cash buy-ups have always been exempt from the no double upgrade policy.

IADFlyer123

40000 RDM for 920$ is really cheap ($.023/mile). If you try to buy them directly from the Buy Miles page, they will be 2.5 to 3 times this cost.

Volga981

Hi,

You might want to read how other FTers value miles at redemption. This thread discusses the topic:

What are united miles worth to you?

The thread gives interesting ideas on how one can estimate the value of these miles.

I got an impression that for many people the redemption value is somewhere between 1 and 2 cpm; those who have a lot of them are at the lower bound, and those who use them often for personal Y travel (including myself) value these miles somewhere between 1.5 and 2 cpm.

WineCountryUA

a bit of an overstatement
Purchase Personal Miles
That's 3.76 cpm or 1.63 times the 2.3 cpm rate

5khours

From the current 2.3.

Guessing (not hoping). If you look at this objectively, you would assume that UA has set the effective price of award redemptions to maximize their bottom line. There are two ways to adjust effective redemption prices.... either through the price of miles or through the redemption rates. If effective redemption prices were previously optimized and UA raises the redemption rates, then they will need to lower the the price of miles in order to stay optimized. (Of course this assumes that UA management is making rationale decisions not gut reactions to buy time and avoid getting fired.)


As for me I'm covered with UA awards through 2014 and then have about 2 million Amex miles that will get me through 2015 so I won't be spending much at UA for the foreseeable future.

Eddy421

2.3 cpm looks to be the current floor
Their current miles promo at 40% is equivalent to 2.26 cpm
2.1 used to be available for a while last year - we will see it if ever comes back
Eddy