United To Increase Mileage Plus Award Costs

[clifford]

United will increase the cost of many international Mileage Plus awards (and decrease some short-haul awards) with effect from 1 November 2017.

http://mileageplusupdates.com/images/United-Award-Chart.pdf

There are some quite large increases for our part of the world, eg: Australia to South Asia (eg Thailand) increases from 30,000 to 50,000 miles for a 1-way business class ticket.

So, if you are planning to book any UA awards after 1 Nov, it might be a good idea to consider booking sooner.

 

[kamchatsky]

There goes the 30K/40K special from Australia to South Asia!

 

[kamchatsky]

Now officially announced

MileagePlus Updates

 

[JohnK]

Awful news. Need to bring forward planning for first 2 trips next year and stop accummulating MileagePlus miles.

 

[boomy]

Disappointing but expected to happen at some point.

At least they gave adequate notice.

 

[boomy]

Awful news. Need to bring forward planning for first 2 trips next year and stop accummulating MileagePlus miles.

Getting 2K miles for $15-20 extra with Hertz remains a good deal even after devaluation, at least for 1 day rentals. Unless there are better promos I've missed.

 

[JohnK]

Getting 2K miles for $15-20 extra with Hertz remains a good deal even after devaluation, at least for 1 day rentals. Unless there are better promos I've missed.

CX Asia Miles had a decent promotion recently with Europcar.

This is not a minor devaluation and has actually taken me by surprise. I have close to 200,000 miles which I was saving for something useful. Now forced to use them when I am not ready.

 

[kamchatsky]

CX Asia Miles had a decent promotion recently with Europcar.

This is not a minor devaluation and has actually taken me by surprise. I have close to 200,000 miles which I was saving for something useful. Now forced to use them when I am not ready.

I guess you have to go to Thailand a lot more often now!

 

[boomy]

This is not a minor devaluation and has actually taken me by surprise. I have close to 200,000 miles which I was saving for something useful. Now forced to use them when I am not ready.

It shouldn't be a surprise. UA pricing Australia to Asia was too low compared to other routes. Honestly I'm surprised it lasted so long. This is the risk of hoarding points and miles but at least we got decent four months notice to burn them and the old rate.

 

[clifford]

It shouldn't be a surprise. UA pricing Australia to Asia was too low compared to other routes. Honestly I'm surprised it lasted so long.

Perhaps someone at United actually looked at a map to see where Australia really is (but maybe not)...

 

[JohnK]

I guess you have to go to Thailand a lot more often now!

Not really. It means I waste precious miles on a short trip. I guess the wife will be happy but that raises expectations of future trips.

 

[burmans]

This is not a minor devaluation and has actually taken me by surprise. I have close to 200,000 miles which I was saving for something useful. Now forced to use them when I am not ready.

Surprise in terms of you didn't know about it, well yes. Surprise in that it's not something that could have been predicted, probably not, the cheapness OZ to South East Asia frankly stood out like a sore thumb so I'm certainly not surprised.

This is of course always the risk of having a pool of points without a clear use. Not gloating here, many of us are in similar situations, but it really shouldn't be a surprise by now, its happened on many other programs.

 

[JohnK]

It shouldn't be a surprise. UA pricing Australia to Asia was too low compared to other routes. Honestly I'm surprised it lasted so long. This is the risk of hoarding points and miles but at least we got decent four months notice to burn them and the old rate.

It is a surprise. There was no indication there was going to be a 66% devaluation on redemptions to SE Asia.

 

[auriga]

Wow, that's a massive jump!
Was almost tempted to buy some united miles on the most recent "sale", now thankful.

 

[potm]

Nooooo So sad.
Going to have to book as many trips to Asia as I can in advance.

 

[boomy]

It is a surprise. There was no indication there was going to be a 66% devaluation on redemptions to SE Asia.

Actually there was some indication. LM closed that loophole not long ago (only ex-AU so far). AA also increased redemptions by up to 66% last year.

 

[Finale]

Australia to South East Asia was 45K/60K before United dropping it to 30K/40K in Feb 2014. Compared to 2013, this is only 5K increase

For almost 4 years, I really enjoyed this sweet spot and spent almost a million miles doing South East Asia/Hong Kong routes.

 

[hummel]

This announcement essentially stopped me from buying anymore UA miles for the AU-Asia trips. Thankfully only have 10k in the account.

I feel airfares are getting cheaper though having picked up a revenue TG J CAN-BKK-MEL 2 days out for around $1200 - I thought that was pretty good.

 

[Tiki]

The writing's been on the wall for a couple years now. They had a major devaluation in 2014. AA devalued last year and really screwed over Aussies. Chase has been throwing free miles at US card signups for years and there are just too many miles in the system. What really sucks is that Aussies have borne the brunt of the devaluations. The ex-USA ones aren't so bad.

I started bailing on UA last year when they devalued the booking engine last year. You can't cherry pick segments to form a one-way trip, you have to take what the booking engine offers and it doesn't always offer the routings you want or indeed any routings at all. I'm down to 17,500-ish UA which should get used this year and then I am done. UA was good for Africa and Asia but my future travel is directed more to South America and I can get enough miles on QF & VA by working the Coles & Woolies promos for Asia & Pacific trips.

There is still value in short haul intra-Africa using the ADD and JNB hubs for routes less than 800 miles, also some Copa and Avianca routes and European routes.

 

[JohnK]

Actually there was some indication. LM closed that loophole not long ago (only ex-AU so far). AA also increased redemptions by up to 66% last year.

I don't follow Lifemiles so had no idea. I've lost interest in MileagePlus. There's no longer any value in the program for me. I'll spend up what's there before the devaluation and then they'll get the odd car rental from me but I'll be looking to credit 1 day car rentals elsewhere but even that's getting harder and harder to do.

I have done the same with Aadvantage.