Regarding excursionist perk difficulties, note discussion in the omnibus questions thread, starting from this post:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/36693709-post787.html

It seems that there has been a devaluation to disallow same-cabin excursionist redemptions. Per the wording, excursionist is only allowed for a lower cabin, i.e. J-Y (excursionist)-J or F-J (excursionist)-F.

https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/mil...ir-awards.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20240926...ir-awards.html

To be clear, I was speaking more about being able to leverage IN inventory to start the ExPerk. There were some flights where the free flight would otherwise have been more than the domestic flight, so adding the first leg made the price go down.

The change I expected was that the first and last flights would have to be interregional, and possibly that they’d have to touch the same region as the ExPerk. What they’ve come up with instead is so pointless it seems like they should probably have just dropped it entirely instead of going to this version that doesn’t seem to work properly at all.

What happens if you book your "main flights" in Y? You have to just hold onto the wings for your Excursionist Perk?

This is a pretty big bummer and I'm glad I just burned the last of my UA miles for a C->C->C trip.

Yep, as worded, doesn't work for Y. Kind of baffled they think this could be called a perk any longer. :o

It was definitely branded as an upgrade from the old free stopover. Now it's undoubtedly worse.

I'm curious on how utilized this was that it caught the bean-counters eye as a place to save moolah. I got the sense that it was rarely used even among savvy FT'ers (no shade to the talented amongst us who were able to make use of it).

I guess the silver lining is they're finally done poking us in the eye and telling us it's an "enhancement".

Shouldn't it be "same or lower"? Other than gutting it what is being protected? E.g., if goal is protecting domestic F, then a Y ticket Europe-US wouldn't be eligible for domestic F, while a J ticket would (or should) be.

Same or lower is what is was before.

My assertion was that they got tired of people — myself included — using a domestic IN redemption in order to reduce the price of a J redemption on another carrier. For example, many South Asia redemptions had become 35K in J, but you could get US domestic IN / South Asia J / US domestic XN for 42.5-45K. I don’t have any particular evidence of that; it was just a guess.

I used the ExPerk on nearly every redemption I’ve made since it was released, often in exactly this fashion. Under these new rules, the only use I’d find compelling would be an O / J I / (XN?) combination, which is tougher to find given the general paucity of O inventory across the system.

How would O/J/XN be a valid combination under the new rules? Is regional J a "lower cabin" than O?

[see edit above]

Should be O/I/XN — I’ll fix it. But, yes, that’s what I’m asserting; business is a lower cabin than first. Whether that actually works, who knows?

O as in First on other *A airlines, not UA PE.

"O" right. 🤦‍♂️

Misread the meaning, thanks. Think the mixed verbiage (J vs I) threw me off, but anyway, I see now. The paucity part makes a lot more sense too!

Just realized that the website also has this "typo":

"The Excursionist Perk is a free one-way award within select multi-city itineraries. Members who book a trip with three or more one-way awards can get the first award for free, if the trip meets all these conditions:"

I guess if they're going to basically eliminate the perk, you might as well book a O/Y/Y itinerary and get the first leg for free. Save the screenshot for documentation. :)

Heh, good eye. Screenshot has been saved by flyertalk (post above) on for any who wish to use it. :p

I was trying to book a TPE-SIN/SIN-KUL/KUL-TPE trip in Y yesterday on the App. During the selection process, the SIN-KUL had 0 miles only for some days. However, when it priced, it added the 12,500 miles no matter what. So, instead of 45,000, it priced out to 57,500.

The funny thing is at the price breakdown, it showed 12,500 crossed out and replaced by 57,500 :D

Yes, it makes no sense that if your flights are all in Y. This means it won't work anymore.