In May, we and other media sources reported that United Mileage Plus massively devalued partner award redemptions in many regions, which caused outrage among members to the point of United walking back most increases.We’ve since been monitoring United awards across the board, and they have now started to increase awards yet again, as before, by more than 100% in required miles compared to just a few months ago.
Remember that United doesn’t publish award charts with actual rates anymore which makes it somewhat difficult to keep track of current pricing, but when you now pull up certain city pairs, you notice extremely high redemption rates.
After United hiked the rates first (see my article here) they received a major backlash and then walked back their increases as John reported two weeks later:Since then, as promised, I kept monitoring United and have noticed steep increases in their Economy and Business Class awards in Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. Some very attractive one-way short-haul awards went up by more than 100%, which is extreme.
In comparison, the same award Tokyo-Seoul I redeemed in January and March on the Tokyo-Seoul route for 8,800 miles increased to 17,500 miles – pretty much double the previous mileage. Business Class went up as well.
I believe this was 28,000 miles before and now crept up to 45k.The Economy Class redemption for this route always used to be 22,000 miles – now it’s 35,000. Business was always steep at 49,500, but now it’s absolutely insane with 90,000 miles for a one-way. You can book this with other programs, such as Lifemilies for 37,000 miles or Aeroplan for 45,000 miles, and have the option to include a stopover somewhere for an extra 5,000 miles.The same is now 90,000 miles for a 5:30h one-way flight.
I’m really not sure what United is doing here. It’s getting more absurd as time progresses, and I feel that we’re slowly getting to the point where these loyalty programs lose any purpose and value proposition.
Of course, this all depends on how you collect your miles, but with such a low return, I wouldn’t actively use United credit cards anymore, let alone spend extra money to accumulate miles with mileage plus.
Conclusion