Halo117

Total math shows off $4PQD and 36 miles...this appears correct just the segment allocation is crazy.

jsloan

Ah, I see what happened.

The majority of your fare was allocated to the return flight, which makes sense because W class is a much higher fare than K.
If you add everything up, you get 8,516 award miles, which reflects PQD of 947, which is right in line with what you paid.

UA's redeemable mileage no longer has anything to do with the distance you fly. It's entirely based on what you paid, and they decided that you paid $132 for the outbound and about $835 for the return. (One of your numbers is a little off; 2214+5116 isn't 7328, and neither 7328 nor 5116 is divisible by 9). As a Plat, you get 9 redeemable miles for each dollar spent on airfare and fuel (but excluding taxes).

1K_SoCal

Thanks everyone! I understand it better now. And jsloan, yes, I do need help with my math... it should have been 2,214 + 5166 = 7,380

Boraxo

So far this is working out great as expected for a 1K that earns the bulk of my miles through a few TATL and TPAC paid business class fares. In the old days I would earn around 25k RDM per roundtrip and now I'm getting 65K or so. Very sweet. The major downside are the transcons & Hawaii in economy that now earn 5k RDM (on a $450 fare) instead of 10k but I can live with that - as long as they don't mess with the EQMs

jjmoore

For the last 4-5 years, I have been averaging $0.40/mi, and the spend-based award mileage accrual has been a huge windfall.... thoroughly enjoying it.

jsloan

And I've been averaging $0.07-$0.08/PQM, and I hate it. There are more of us in my boat than in yours.

I'm glad it's working for you, but understand that the net effect to the community is solidly negative. We need each other -- your travel subsidizes my low fares, but there aren't enough of you to fill the planes and keep the airline in business.

If UA had simply elected to take the higher of 100% of flown distance or 5x spend, this would have been a fantastic change. But, instead, your windfall comes directly out of my pocket, so to speak.

Kacee

I'm around 20 cpm this year (bis)*, which is theoretically above the break-even compared to the old miles-based accrual system. The thing is, the miles keep devaluing due to higher award prices, less favorable award rules, and reduced availability. So I'm spending more but the return is less. And since I'm mostly buying discount J/F, the 1K upgrade instruments have much less value to me (besides being very difficult to use, particularly the RPUs).

*There's also a big disparity for me now between BIS and PQM. Used to be close to 1:1 because I bought Y fares, which accrued at 100%. Now I mostly buy fares that accrue at 200%. So I can make 1K on half the flying.

Of somewhere around $25k in airline spend this year, maybe half will go to UA. That figure used to be close to 100% (on lower overall spend).

sapguy

emcampbe

mahasamatman

But people like you and me are not the kind of people that United wants to reward. Be glad you're not flying AC - I just got 25% PQM on my last trip.

jsloan

Giving the higher of the two would have given more to those who spend more and less to those who spend less --the gap would just have been smaller.

It's more a problem of optics than anything else. When AA introduced the frequent flyer program, it was a new concept and they didn't foresee the eventual divergence between price and distance. (There was more more correlation in the CAB days). If they had it to do all over again, all frequent flyer programs would probably have been revenue-based from the beginning. Nearly all hotel frequent guest programs are based on room rate (for redeemable points), and nobody really complains.

The problem is that they transferred benefits from low-value flyers to high-value flyers, instead of merely giving additional benefits to high-value flyers. It's one thing to reward your best customers. It's something else to rub everyone else's nose in it.

And, when you talk about the "cost" of the program, you're buying right into the airlines' collective propaganda. The cost to UA of an RDM is negligible -- and is entirely under their control. They decide the redemption rates; they control the inventory. They use the paper liability the miles represent in order to help their earnings look the way that they want -- open more award seats when they want to pay down the liability and make profits look better; open fewer when they want to build up the liability and make profits look worse.

There was absolutely no business reason that UA (or DL) couldn't have implemented my proposal. They likely would have made up for it by devaluing the miles a little bit more, which would have been nearly invisible (a 17% points devaluation isn't much different from a 14% devaluation from the customer's point of view, but it be a big deal from the airline's perspective).

Indeed, in the "be thankful for small favors" department, the US airlines haven't yet had the courage to try to cut PQMs below 100% -- except for BE -- since CO tried it in around 2003, before pulling back due to the backlash. If the economy stays strong, it'll return. While normally I'd expect DL to lead the way, I think AA may do the "honors" this time. They seem to have picked up DL's ball and run with it.

UA may not want to reward you and me, but they need us. There simply aren't enough HVFs to allow an airline to be profitable. They need seat-fillers; while I may fly on fares that are below their average costs, they're well above their marginal costs. You can look at it either way -- the LVFs pay the operating expenses and the HVFs the profit, or vice versa; either way, an airline needs both.

jjmoore

Unfortunately the high spend is not by choice... it's almost all last minute work-related bookings and changed tickets... The only reason that it's not higher is because I book a plethora of personal travel too that is less than $0.05/mi typically. Had a conversation with a contractor today about exactly this topic... how last minute business travelers subsidize affordable travel for all of us that enjoy cheap tickets.... I'm kind of a hypocrite because I benefit personally from my business travel habits.... obviously it's a cumulative effect from business travel as a whole.

WineCountryUA

And the total number miles issued would have been higher.

Leading to more miles chasing the "same planned" award opportunities. That will lead to higher redemption rates or fewer opportunities per flyer. Which would diminish the value of the change to the HVF.

So to make this have the desired impact, UA would have needed to increase the award opportunities or cut back on the miles issued to non-HVF. UA chose the latter.

jjmoore

UA cut opportunities AND cut miles issues to non-HVF ... win-win for them, and bad for us all-around.

I have avoided the devaluation as I strictly purchase saver awards, and have not spent them on standard (and certainly not on the dynamically priced award prices that are higher than the usual standard awards)... but I don't think the future holds any good news for those of us with a horde of award miles... their value will not fare as well as the USD has through the last 10 years.

WineCountryUA

That's why I said The devaluations were long planned and did not come afterward in response to new revelations.