James provided news about about the changes coming to the United MileagePlus award chart back in June, but in case you forgot those changes are just days away now. You need to book before November 1 if you want to lock in today’s prices. After that, many awards could cost between 5,000 and 10,000 additional miles in each direction! (The new chart is already loaded, so it may be difficult to look up older prices on United’s website. Try using the Award Maximizer instead.)
Loyalty Lobby has created a pretty detailed chart of all the different award chart changes about to take place. I’ll just highlight a few examples that apply to awards to and from the continental U.S., using one-way prices.
For destinations served by United Airlines and United Express:
- Southern South America: business class increases from 55K to 60K miles
- Europe: business class increases from 57.5K to 60K miles
- Middle East: business class increases from 70K to 75K miles
- South Asia: business class increases from 70K to 75K miles
- Japan: business class increases from 65K to 70K miles
- Australia/New Zealand: business class increases from 70K to 80K miles
- Premium transcon (LAX/SFO to EWR/BOS): business class increases from 25K to 35K
- Premium routes to Hawaii (from IAH/EWR/ORD/DEN): business class increases from 40K to 50K, and first class increases from 50K to 55K
For destinations served by by Star Alliance partners:
- Southern South America: business class increases from 55K to 60K, and first class increases from 70K to 80K
- Central Asia: business class increases from 80K to 85K
- South Asia: business class increases from 80K to 90K, and first class increases from 130K to 140K
- Japan: business class increases from 75K to 80K
- Australia/New Zealand: business class increases from 80K to 90K
- Oceania: business class increases from 75K to 80K
In addition to the award chart changes, standard awards, which are more expensive awards with better availability, will no longer have a fixed price. Instead their prices will fluctuate similar to what you find when redeeming Delta Sky Miles and American AAdvantage miles. I don’t think you should ever book a standard award, which often cuts the value of your miles significantly. It’s often better to pay cash and use those miles for another time. But people who like them will feel the pain and suffer the unpredictability.
Fortunately United continues to publish award charts, which Delta just doesn’t do at all. They also provided plenty of advance notice, and some awards are actually going down in price. But by and large, these changes are negative. Some of the awards I didn’t mention, between other regions of the world, are increasing by over 50%. The value of United miles will significantly diminish on November 1 if, like me, you enjoy using those miles for international travel in business and first class cabins.
