United elite members can now redeem Mileage Plus points for hotel nights at Marriott and Radisson and car rentals with Avis, National, Alamo, and Hertz.

This is good progress, to be sure, although the certificates are paper and take four to six weeks to obtain and it looks like blackout dates and capacity controls will apply.

In general the hotel nights represent a fair value for non-airline redemption, in some cases you’ll get a full penny per point. Rental car redemption strikes me as somewhat absurd, with pricing running from 10,000 to 12,500 miles per day.

Nothing like the good old days when flight awards came with hotel nights and rental cars, or even when — once that practice ended — award redemption came with complimentary hotel and car rental discount certificates.

But it sure beats a whole in the head. More options are good.