United’s big devaluation also creates a more complicated mileage program. There are distinctly different award charts for travel on United (or Copa) and for travel on United’s partners.
The complication of course is that there are plenty of world destinations that United doesn’t serve. And they still want you to fly United for the major portions of the trip, since that redemption costs them less.
The initial clarification was that you could add a partner connecting flight in a lower class of service than your United flight without forcing the higher partner award chart price. In other words, they said they were going to allow you to fly US – Europe on United in business class, and then Europe – Your final destination in Europe on a partner in coach and you’d still pay the United business class award price. (If you flew United first class across the Pond you could include intra-European business class for no additional miles as well.)
In fact, the way this has been implemented is more generous than they said it would be. Matthew flags this clarification from United:
[W]e have made an exception for most itineraries which require connecting onto a MileagePlus/Star partner in First or Business for a short distance. Specifically, if a United/Copa award itinerary contains a connecting segment on a MileagePlus/Star partner that is wholly within one MileagePlus award region, then the United award price will apply.
For example: IAD-FRA in United BusinessFirst connecting to FRA-FCO in Lufthansa Business, will be priced at the United mileage award amount.
Note that this exception will not apply to a few specific regions and routings, such as intra-Africa connecting segments and certain fifth-freedom routes (e.g. BKK-KUL operated by Lufthansa)
As long as you only fly United between regions you can include a partner flight wholly within a region in the same class of service for the United-only award chart price.
The way this appears to be working is that if you add a flight on a partner that’s between regions, you either have to book that partner flight in a lower class of service or pay the higher partner award chart price.
If you fly DC – Frankfurt in business class on United, and Frankfurt – Tokyo on Lufthansa, then you either book Frankfurt – Tokyo in coach (to get the United price) or in business (and pay the partner business class price).
Wandering Aramean notes some routing complications. Since Japan is its own region, flying United to Japan and connecting beyond will mean that the partner airline takes you to another region. If you connect in Japan on the way to China, you have to book the flight to China in coach or pay the partner price.
If you want to pay the United award price and travel to North Asia, connect in Seoul, Taipei, or China instead.
Similarly, United only flies to Hong Kong in South Asia. So if you want to fly to South Asian destinations like Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, or Indonesia, at the lower United price and without downgrading your connecting segments, you need to fly United to Hong Kong as your transpacific segment.
My guess is that this is somehow IT-related, United couldn’t quite get the pricing to work as they had indicated. Regardless of the reason, though, and as bad as the devaluation may be — this outcome is still somewhat better than they had told us to expect.
It’s interesting as well that this new rule doesn’t apply everywhere (such as intra-Africa) or to all flights (it applies to Thai’s Bangkok – Kuala Lumpur flight but not Lufthansa’s). So United makes their program even more complicated still.
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What about say SFO-FRA-JNB – no benefit to booking on UA metal then? May as well go LH all the way.
@Nick – right, unless you want to fly FRA-JNB in coach!!
Doesn’t United fly to Singapore?
So to get the lower rate for Africa, you would have to do IAH-LOS, and then connect on SA/MS/ET? Pretty unfriendly. Wonder if its the same for UA’s limited network in Australia.
@Chris . . . United flies to Singapore, but only from HK. So any United metal award from U.S. to SE Asia will have to connect in HK to get the lower cost. . . at least that’s my understanding.
If you fly coach (gasp) between region 1 & region 2, then does coach between region 2 & region 3 spur a partner award?
Or maybe UA is now allowing you to book the jump-seat between region 2 & 3?
Scratch that, partner and UA coach awards are at the same level.
I think it’s rather ridiculous (and hilarious) that Hong Kong and Taipei/Taiwan, which is just an hour-long flight apart from each other, are grouped into separate areas of Asia.
@kevin
The Berlin Wall divided a country into 2 opposites.
UA is trying to do the same with Loyalty. With ua OR a partner?
UA goes to SIN from NRT as well
It may be worth noting that LH is changing its SEA tag flights at the end of the month. I was on the LH BKK-KUL flight today, and the premium cabins were a bit of a ghost town, especially compared to the FRA-BKK portion yesterday in which F was full. I believe that the new route is FRA-KUL-CGK and that the Vietnam flight is also being deep-sixed. I’m waiting for a blogger to schedule a trip that combines the last day of the old tag routes with the first day of the new ones.
I can also book short flights on partners within certain regions and pay the United price, even if there is no connection (i.e. BKK-HKG on Thai prices as if the flight is on UA metal).
this is f’ing ridiculous. As if this program wasnt complicated enough (even and especially for their OWN phone agents) now they make it even more confusing.