FlyerTalker70

Now that UA has moved to a dynamic based award chart the rules of engagement have changed. Instead of blindly following award charts we must now be vigilant looking for the occasional award deal UA posts.

The purpose of this thread is to share such thousand of points (TOP) award deals with the community so that we all can hopefully get a good deal rather than letting our miles be wasted on overpriced awards. Before listing a deal, ask yourself, "is the price of this award flight below the saver rate UA had posted prior to the enhancement?" If so, then feel free to post the route, date of departure (and return if applicable), cabin and number of miles required. If this deal is valid for a date range (i.e. week of December 3rd, 2019), please state so.

To get this party started I thought I'd post a couple deals I spotted:

• EWR > LHR in Polaris J - 60K OW on Wednesdays from Jan 8 to Mar 4, 2020 and Mar 3, 2020
• SFO > TYO in Polaris J - 70K OW on Nov 26,28 and Dec 4, 30,31, 2019 and Jan 21-23,28,29 Feb 4-6,11, 18 & 19, March 3,4, 2020
• EWR > GUM in Polaris J - 70K OW on Nov 26,27and Dec 30,31 2019 and Jan 28, Feb 19,20 and March 10, 2020
• ORD > FLL in Y - 11K OW on various dates throughout 2019 and 2020

Here's the last award chart I could find online:




For those interested, UA offers a 30 calendar in the award search which allows you to see at a glance a whole range of prices by cabin. They'll even highlight the lowest awards in green to make it easier to skim through and see whether you need to keep searching:




Here's to hoping we find many many more good deals and hopefully some great deals (i.e. savings of over 10,000 miles or more!)

Safe Travels,

James

glbltvlr

How do you get the 30 day view as shown above? I get this:

FlyerTalker70

It looks like you're using the old version of the UA website - I'm using the new version which displays these award costs much more clearly. Could you try clearing your cookies and signing back in to United? That should (in theory) do the trick although I'll let the peanut gallery comment on if there's a better way to force United to use the new version.

-James

seenitall

You are looking at flights in July and August 2019 -- this is before the new dynamic pricing goes into effect in November. So displaying the old Saver/Standard graphic is logical. Look for flights leaving after the new scheme goes into effect.

glbltvlr

Ahh... Thx

ryman554

That's not the reason, I see the same search results as the OP for award searches since well before the devaluation announcement as I was searching award travel for europe->USA tickets for this summer back in February.

Each day has the lowest award pricing on it (+ cash required for taxes), and I can get a 7 or 30 day window for results, not necessarily aligned with any calendar month (for30 days) or week.(for 7 day). Further, this can be set for lowest price, or lowest price per cabin (economy/business), but there is not yet a premium economy only choice, if there even is one yet. YOu can also set nonstop only. Typically, I see already dynamic standard award pricing, since saver award is usually nonexistent for the nonstop flights I want.

All in all, even though the lowest price is usually 2 stops or more, I find the chart incredibly useful, even if it turns out I (and hte OP) have been beta-testers for dynamic price (gouging) for some time now.

glbltvlr

That sort of worked. Cleared cache/cookies, relogged into United, selected dates in December, found fine print link to get 30 day view. Economy shows up with miles/dollars by day, but when I select Business, all the calendar cells have "View Options."

FlyerTalker70

View Options generally means no or limited availability. If you try something like EWR > LHR in January you should see a ton of business availability with award costs all over the board. Also important to note that the calendar that shows the points required works for any date that you can book on UA not just post-award chart as others mentioned. For instance, here's what SFO > HND looks like for June:




It's also possible to see a 30 day calendar view for other cabins including Premium Economy just select Premium Economy beside where it says Show fares for. Here's the same calendar view for Premium Economy for the same route:


As you can see from above, there's limited availability during that time, hence the reason why you see tons of View Options.

If we all can keep our eyes peeled, I have no doubt we'll be able to find some good deals (i.e. awards below the current Saver Rate).

Here are some more deals I found today:

EWR > HKG for 75K miles in Polaris J for February & March 2020 (i.e. Feb 19, 20 and Mar 10):



EWR > SIN in Polaris J for 75K miles in March 2020 (i.e. Mar 10 & 17):



...Or how about ORD to PEK for 70K in Polaris J OW in March 2020 (i.e. Mar 10 & 17)?


Look forward to seeing more offers crop up in the future!

Safe Travels,

James

glbltvlr

OK - very interesting. When I search from ORD to LHR there are 70K seats available almost every day. When I search from an outstation with an ORD connection on the same day, it's 160K. Even more annoying as this particular outstation is economy RJ only, so there aren't any domestic first seats. Might have to ticket domestic and international separately and take the connection risk.

Repooc17

i need to position for my award flight from ATL to Asia (nonstop with another carrier) later this year. UA was the cheapest at 6,500 miles. Thanks dynamic pricing? One-way cash fare wasn't cheap at all.

BBSHOPSINGER

I've noticed this situation since they went to this format. If I search from an outstation, it shows very little availablitly because there is virtually no domestic first class seating offered. It used to show the business mileage availability when there was mixed cabin availability. But now you have to look at each day individually to find these flights.

jsloan

The calendar has always been notoriously inaccurate, and I seriously doubt that they've fixed it. It's a good place to start, but I'll still be clicking through every date.

As for the 160K vs 70K thing -- that's not really new. In the non-dynamic world, any combination of Everyday UA flight plus a Partner flight would lead to the Everyday price being used for the whole journey. Try multi-city search -- domestic leg then the international leg. That should get you a discount, even if it won't be all the way down to 70K. (It'll be 70K + the cost of the domestic leg).

FlyerTalker70

Wait a second, I always thought everyday awards were by definition the most expensive award type typically orders of magnitude more than the saver award. Are you telling me that 2 weeks ago we had two types of awards: Award Chart (Saver), and Dynamic (Everyday Awards)? It would seem like we got a real downgrade if true!

Safe Travels,

James

glbltvlr

No. There are two charts (Every Day and Saver) through November. What he's saying is that when you are looking a multi segment trip, the web site prices the trip at the every day rate unless saver space is available on all segments. It may be possible to get a hybrid rate if you look at each segment individually.

WineCountryUA

Well, by 2 to 3x presently between Saver and max Everyday, not even close one order of magnitude

Yes for the past 18 months -- you may have missed UA MP award changes 1 Nov 2017 (Everyday award/dynamic price, No RTW, No Show fee,..)
Some dynamic Everyday got close to the Saver and others were 2-3X Saver.
EveryDay had a published max.

This is why many believe the latest announcement is simplely
-- elimination of saver
-- elimination of published max for Everyday

What is most unclear about the new change is how the pricing of the new dynamic awards will operate -- will it be a simple "price" translation (say x cpm) or ????