My lower earned miles so far
 

I just wanted to jump in with my numbers so far. Since I mostly fly on government funded trips, we're required to fly a US carrier, and also to use the lowest logical fare. Therefore, as others have obviously seen, my mileage earned has dropped since it's now revenue based. I wanted to wait a little to see how things are averaging out, and now that I've completed about 25k miles of actual travel, both domestic and international, I can see how it is going to go for me.

I'm Platinum status this year. So even thought I get 9x revenue for award miles, it's still doesn't quite add up to the miles flown.
From Mar 1 to today:
23,997 PQM (I take this to be miles actually flown)
22,904 Award Miles earned.
That's on $2,486 PQD.

So, if I keep up my Platinum status I'll basically earn award miles at a rate I used to be able to earn as a general member. It remains to be seen if this is "worth it" to have less miles to spend on taking my family members on occasional trips with me.

It's very tricky. I have benefitted by the new award plan, since I have bought short-distance first-class flights and medium-priced coast-to-coast flights.

This is why the SFO - AUH on Etihad AA codeshare is now rather enticing.

Shorted PQD after schedule change
 

I emailed MPSC about a discrepancy on my PQD (and therefore RDM also).

I was credited:
The above totals 15994 award miles, and 1454 PQD.

Originally, the last flight was UA4886 EWR-BWI, but due to schedule change that flight was no longer available...so I had them change the endpoint to IAD. Both versions of the receipt show:
...which totals $1552.20 towards PQD.

This is a shortage of at least 98PQD. I emailed MPSC about this, and the response I got back was:
How could this be right? Shouldn't I get the amount shown on my receipt? Or if the fare really changed, am I not entitled to the lower fare, and therefore a credit/refund?

If your post-change receipt shows you paid airfare + int'l surcharge of $1552.20, send them a copy of it.

Sadly, that's exactly what I did. Twice. :( :(

Wow that's gotta be frustrating.

1kvoice just fixed one of these for me. It was only $90 (a changed ticket, just like yours), but it's kind of the principle of the thing . . . .

Agreed, can't give em an inch...

Just wanted to follow up...I was thinking of letting it slide being a small amount, but as you all say, it's a principle thing. I called MPSC, and spent 45 minutes on the phone with them. They finally agreed to credit me 99 PQD and the 11x RDM difference. The adjustment showed up in my account immediately.

Thanks for allowing me to vent, and suggesting a course of action that actually fixed the problem.

I just got the PQD and award miles from my March 31st flight BUD-SAT fixed.

They still need to get all the places they display the award miles, PQM, & PQD to agree. My receipt for the 3/31 flight shows the MP earnings, but the breakdown by flight is significantly different from what they actually awarded. Of course the :More Information" popup had a different set of numbers.

On my next trip, the "More Information" display of earnings totals is wrong and doesn't match the display of earnings on the receipt. I will see how the actual earnings compare to those numbers.

2015 MileagePlus Program Updates Announced (Master/Consolidated Thread)
 

These changes are just too frustrating for the international traveller. I imagine there will be folks who fly 100k miles plus who find themselves cheated because flights were booked as bulk or not on a 016 code. I am having cajole clients who want to book international tickets through their agent but don't want to waste time on the A*retentiveness of an airline mileage program idiosyncrasies.

UA's international network is lacking and booking flights is much more expensive that the competition.

So this does leave me looking at status match to AA and or Etihad for flights to Africa and Middle East this fall.

United, you are screwing up, royally.

UA: the Middle East carriers are expanding into your market. Fight back, don't make the easy choice to be a switch to their program.

2015 MileagePlus Program Updates Announced (Master/Consolidated Thread)
 

Seems like only me here, but never one not to talk to an empty room. Anyway, trying to book SFO- AUH on 016. LH no longer flies there. UA flies to DXB but means traveling on UA transUS. I do too much of that as is. Find that the Turks fly a well timed route. Turns out that UA can't ticket Tk on that route so can't get an 016. Pah. looks like the Turks or Etihad. Perhaps just venting at the lack of vision at UA.

The new system is working well for me on both biz and leisure travel.

Example 1: SFO-IAH, base fare in Y $365 x 7 = 2555 rdm v. 2044 (pre-2015)

Example 2: SEA-SFO, base fare in F $269 x 7 = 1883 rdm v. 1186 (pre-2015)

Of course will be even better when my status goes up :)

Award miles down by 50%
 

I looked at my mileage account and I just realized how much the award has been reduced. I just did BOS<->HKG (V or W fare). It scored 17138 miles. By the previous rules that would have been 34420 (as it was in Jan this year).

Simple math: let's say we have a 1k with 100k miles and 10k spent. By the old rules that would score 200,000 award miles, by the new one it only scores 110,000.

So basically United has cut awards in half. Very disappointing.

They've cut awards in half for flyers who purchase highly discounted fares. Awards for flyers who buy expensive fares are doubling, tripling, or even more.