When I got started in miles and points I mostly earned through actual butt-in-seat flying. Miles were much harder to earn: Credit card bonuses seemed a big deal when they were 15,000 miles for a signup (I had never seen a 20,000 mile bonus for a United card until April 2002). I thought iDine — earning miles for eating at particular restaurants — was pretty cool. If memory serves, United once limited that to elites. Redeeming awards wasn’t nearly as flexible, either: US frequent flyer programs did not allow one-way awards, and you could not combine more than one partner on a roundtrip award. If you booked a business class award on a partner airline and needed a domestic flight to connect up to the international segment, United would only throw that in ‘as a…
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US Airways-American Airlines Merger: Ten Things to Expect Next
Now that the Department of Justice has settled its anti-trust suit with American and US Airways, what can we expect to happen as frequent flyers? The deal is expected to close in December. US Airways will leave Star Alliance, quickly, and join oneworld. We don’t have a timeframe yet but it should be within a few months. That means if you want to book Star Alliance awards using US Airways miles, you will want to book those very soon. And any changes, once US Airways leave Star, will need to be onto airlines that are in oneworld instead. Once the two airlines are both in oneworld, they will also implement a partnership with each other, and they will likely make it possible to move miles back and forth between US Airways Dividend Miles and American…
Believe it Or Not, Some People Will Benefit from Lower Award Prices from United MileagePlus
Oddly enough, with United’s big devaluation that goes into effect February 1, there are actually some awards that are getting cheaper. Did you know that even the price of some first class partner awards have gone down? After the devaluation announcement, after looking at the increases that United is pushing through (including of its standard award chart), I compared United’s new award chart to American’s and Delta’s. These comparisons were of awards to and from North America, though. Flyers in some other parts of the world, traveling to some destinations, will actually see decreases. Most of my readers are based in North America, so lot of good that does you, right? Well, sometimes putting together complicated award trips all over the world you might find yourself needing a one-way award flight between Central Asia and…
Class Action Fuel Surcharge Lawsuit Against British Airways Going Forward
Last summer I wrote that a law firm was preparing a class action suit against British Airways over fuel surcharges. The case was filed and a federal judge has refused to dismiss it. Fuel Surcharges Briefly Explained Award passengers are frequently shocked to learn that their ‘free’ mileage ticket costs as much as $1000 in cash when redeeming points of certain frequent flyer programs. Fuel surcharges are a fixed amount of money added to a fare. The amount will usually be the same across all fares for a given city pair. In other words, all “New York – London” fares that an airline publishes will add the same amount for fuel surcharge. Fuel surcharges are an easy, efficient way for airlines to alter their airfares across a given market. They can change one number —…
Devaluation Plan B: How I’ll Keep Flying International First Class on Miles For Years to Come No Matter What US Frequent Flyer Programs Do
US Frequent Flyer Programs: on the Brink United is devaluing its award chart. The program is still good for coach and business class awards, good for awards on United, but will not at all be good for partner airline awards in international first class. That’s why I need to look to alternatives. I do not expect a major devaluation from American. Obviously facts will prove me right or wrong on that. For now it is by far my program of choice, and especially so within oneworld. But I still want to prepare myself and think ahead. Delta of course has SkyPesos… a debased currency which does have strategic uses and that I do accumulate but that cannot get me excited at all, in part because of the limited quality airline products you can redeem for…
Will American Follow Suit and Devalue its Miles?
United’s award chart will be devalued come February, award prices are going up, up up. Big changes at United have many flyers considering alternatives. But it would be a shame to jump to a new airline to accumulate points, only to find that airline devaluing its own points shortly thereafter. That uncertainty is what’s holding many people back, and helping United. I’m going to predict there will be some adjustments to American’s award chart over the coming year, but that we will not see a wholesale devaluation like what United has done — not even close. American’s Award Chart Isn’t That Much Less Expensive Now for Many Awards, So There’s No Need to Raise Most Prices United’s changes aren’t as bad as they seem for many flyers. Coach doesn’t go up, or up very much,…
Delta Announces an Interim Devaluation for February Travel (Because Their June Travel Devaluation Was Too Far Away)
Delta Skymiles — already the least generous major airline frequent flyer program in the U.S. — has deservedly earned the nickname Skypesos. Nonetheless, the program leadership has announced that they believe the program is too rewarding today — notwithstanding that they already announced that they were making it less rewarding for travel June 1 oneward. (Delta announced award chart changes effective immediately, for travel beginning in June, back in mid-August.) Sure, the changes went into effect right away, but only for travel in summer 2014. The clear implication of announcing changes for travel beginning June 1 was that travel up until June 1 could be booked at the ‘old’ rate. And by setting the travel date about 9 months out, that meant that members could still earn miles and redeem them at the existing lower…
Lufthansa First Class Awards Available (Using United Miles) Next Summer
On the heels of United’s dramatic devaluation that goes into effect February 1, many folks are seeing their United miles are no longer so great for booking partner awards (although they’re still non-crazy for booking partner awards in business class). First class awards on partners are where the real changes come into play. A first class award, say Washington Dulles to Munich and back on Lufthansa, goes up from 135,000 miles to 220,000 miles. And of course first class awards on Lufthansa have become really tough to get. A couple of years ago they were everywhere, now they’re usually only bookable within two weeks of travel. Lufthansa has reduced the number of first class seats it flies and have severely restricted the ability for partner frequent flyer programs to book those seats. Since they’re tough…
United MileagePlus Has Devalued its “Standard” Award Chart, Too
Traditionally US frequent flyer programs offered to let members book any seat on any flight for twice the miles. That way if there wasn’t any “saver” award inventory, it would still be possible to use your miles. Now it wasn’t always precisely twice the miles. Sometimes it was less than double! Up until October 2006 United Airlines Mileage Plus offered awards from North America to Australia in business class at 90,000 miles roundtrip at the saver level — or 150,000 miles for what they called “standard” or rule-buster style awards where you could have any empty seat instead of constraining yourself to award space. At the time that award struck me as one of the best in the world. Delta and Northwest at the time both charged 150,000 miles for their capacity controlled awards to…
How Do United’s New Award Charts Stack Up Against American and Delta?
With all of the furor over United’s massive award chart changes, I thought it would be useful to put together some context and compare United’s new February 1-onward award charts against the offerings of their two major competitors in the U.S., American and Delta. (I exclude US Airways because it’s a smaller carrier and still may merge with American.) I’ve put travel between North America and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific side-by-side to have a look at United’s new award charts (for both United flights and flights on United’s partners) against the award charts of American AAdvantage and of Delta Skymiles as it applies to travel June 1 onward. Each airline has a slightly different definition of which countries are in which ‘zones’ but this is a pretty fair comparison of…
