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MileagePlus is offering a discount on roundtrip United economy award travel to and from Europe and the amount of the discount varies based on:
- Your elite status level
- Whether or not you have a co-brand credit card
You have to book today and travel during off season of January 13 – March 28, 2019. This deal is most notable, to me, because of its complexity for determining the discount.
Since I’m currently just a silver member without a United co-brand card (though I’ve had the card several times in the past) the best I can do is 30% off:
@ Gary — Who wants to fly Y? Why doesn’t UA ever offer these sales in J?
Offering inferior discounts to those with lower “status” is actually somewhat insulting, as if UA is saying, “We’re going to charge you low class folks more.”
@JetAway Why shouldn’t high-value customers get better options? That’s the whole point of an airline offering status- if I got the same treatment spending little what’s the incentive to spend more?
@Chucks-“high value customers” normally have many more miles in their accounts and are probably willing to spend more. Miles are a liability for the airline. Soak the rich. Encourage the lower value customers to fly on miles and, if the experience is good, maybe they’ll be willing to fly more on $$.
Everybody take a deep breath. This is fake news from United. I looked at 30 different dates from IAD and I see zero flights on discount. No need for gnashing of teeth. The “sale” is fake!!
@rjb.
It is not fake, but you have to read the fine prints. It works only for UA operated flights.
If you put a city where UA fly to, like CDG you will see the discounted miles for UA flights. It is a good deal only if you fly to one of the city served by UA. If not you will need to add feeder flights that add to the cost and could cause the lost of the ticket in case of missed connection.
For UA it is a good deal, but in general, other airlines have had better deals.
I just flown to France from IAD last september for 22,000 miles return including EU flights to my final destination.
economy, who cares? these flights are so cheap that it almost never makes sense to use miles.
business class remains the holy grail, and about as difficult to find.
Once you get past the headline, things go downhill rapidly. The discount decreases every phrase or two, and if you come out of it qualifying for any discount at all, you are going to fly UA only, and in Y ! They could safely offer a 99% discount on the same T&C’s and not cause the faintest ripple to the bottom line. Another great UA example of how to dress up a bucket of poop so it looks like gold, with rainbow attached.