United Devalues Their Miles

Absolutely disgusting!

jeff.smisek@united.com needs to hear from everyone

twitter/united

Two tier award charts? What’s the purpose of being in an alliance, then??

Eicha yoshvo b’first class…

Wow. Crazy.
Feel bad for all those people saving up their United points. Time to start burning!

And I agree with #1, we should not let happen without even making any noise.

Am emailing to Jeff smisek will get read – and replied to – by his $12 am hour secretary. But I guess it can’t hurt.

this is bad news!

what do i do now with my 400,000 Chase UR points?

some increases aren’t rediculous but some are! biz to aus going up 2.5k i can live with, but *A flights to israel going up so much?

[…] hier eine gute vergleichstabelle DansDeals.com […]

Not the whole story as you need to look at what the underlying cash fare growth has been since the last devaluation to get to the true cash devaluation value of the miles.

Wow! At least I did my first class trip around the world…. The experience was unbelievable! I was saving up for another trip… This is really sad news

YIKES!!! Talk about devaluations………….UnitedPesos….

how much per point is united selling for?

This makes me so angry – I have been planning for months a first class anniversary trip to the Maldives in Feb 2015 – any thoughts on if I book early and change the dates?

I think we need to start a Twitter campaign. Include United and chase in every tweet with the hashtag #unitedunfriendly. Spread it everywhere and overwhelm their Twitter accounts

The worst part about all these changes means that if you fly across the atlantic to Europe on United metal you won’t be able to make any connections without paying a serious premium of miles!

Does this affect the going rate for those of us that sell our points?

Completely disappointing for loyal customers who have earned their miles and now it list it’s value. .. sad 🙁

I’m assuming this lowers their value for selling as well

This means that it’s over with F. No way will I spend that amount. Hopefully LH gets their act together and installs the new Biz seats in all their planes.

Now UA to Israel will really be a premium for us to find a seat.

Simple math. United has pension liabilities and award liabilities. Pension liabilities go up, either write out a big check or cut the value of another outstanding liability.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

So this affects super saver awards?

start a Twitter campaign. Include United and chase in every tweet with the hashtag #unitedunfriendly. Spread it everywhere and overwhelm their Twitter accounts

jeff.smisek@united.com needs to hear from everyone

twitter/united facebook united airlines

Dan – I have around 450K miles from my Chase cards waiting to take a trip to Israel with my family.
Do you think it’s worth selling and just purchase the tickets?

I want to fly jfk fra nrt on lh f may 2014, what would be the best way, since lh releases f awards only days before departure?

agree with dan, need to really protest this, here’s what i sent to smisek

Jeff,

As a CEO of a hi-tech start up here in Israel, and a 1K mileage plus member and ~1M lifetime miles, we made a decision to move all of our corporate travel from Elal to United.

A big reason behind the change was the mileage program you offer. Given the upcoming changes to your awards travel (5%-90% increase in award travel to/from Israel on United and partner airlines) this have caused us to seriously reconsider our decision. This will impact not only our travel, but also related decisions like corporate cards on Chase United cards, etc.

If you are truly “Flyer Friendly” I’d seriously ask you to reconsider these changes that affect your most loyal customers.

Thanks,
-Jonathan

Hey guys,
We must follow Jim’s advice (comment #19), and all of you guys that don’t have united miles don’t think that you’re safe, because it won’t take much time for all the airlines to follow them so we must take action now, and I think the best man for the job is the one and only Dan.That being said, would mean that it is our job to make sure that Dan starts the E. Rally against this new development, I’m pretty convinced that Dan will be more than happy to lead.
LET’S GET TO WORK!!!

And all the talk of delta sky pesos. If one would actually consider that some people fly to earn their miles they’d realize that earning 2.25 miles per mile as a diamond versus 2 miles as a 1k is a built in 16.66 percent bonus. ON top of that united will now be more miles to israel than delta in economy (and sooner !). Sure no one ways on delta but you can get a free one way on a domestic ticket on delta so you can get 3 legs for 25k miles. Yes often hard to find but the notion that one should only have united miles bec of 28 partners just took a massive beating. Its all about how you choose to spend the miles. Their absolutely are PLENTY of places where delta miles are now significantly more valuable than United.

cant wait for the next trip report on the great value of using united on those emirates or singapore routes… Funny how Korean air just became an incredible bargain with delta miles.

Dan: Can you make a post about the best ways to use United Miles, similar to your posts about Avios?

So that means that a regular domestic flight in the US is going up from 12,500 one way to 17,500?

@mike:
-Except that DL Diamond requires 25% more flying than AA EXP/UA 1K.
-Except that Delta/Skyteam availability is much tougher than United/Star Alliance.
-Except that this devaluation main affected First Class, something not even part of the DL program. Good luck redeeming for Korean First with your DL miles.
You need Chase UR/Korean for that.

@Aaron:
No. Not sure why you think that.

I think the bloggers, including Dan, need to reach out to the major publications (CNN, NY Times, etc.) and get this out there. This is not a fair devaluation, it’s a slaughter!

Dan- Agreed but good luck redeeming first class united points for asian partners. Even you wont splurge to fly first with united points anymore on those carriers. Not to mention that veryyyyy few of your readers have THAT volume of points.
Delta sky team availability isn’t nearly as tough for the number of miles youll have to pay on united to fly first or even business. You are comparing finding delta saver ability for biz class with united ??? united is now double the price on its partners than delta is on its partners.

This is simply a cause and effect of the excessive exploitation of the system and the rampant “grey market” mileage selling that takes place. I foresee many more extensive changes taken place to curb the airlines significant loss of revenue due to the sale of miles . I would not be surprised if programs start restricting the ability to book award travel for any passengers other then the named mileage account holder.

Dan- to go to europe for 140k round trip on partners of united in biz or 160 to israel I can gladly find you that opportunity on deltas partners. bec with delta youd only need a low fare one way and medium on the return to do that… changes the game. I have never suggested not having united miles. However you have always championed the worthlessness of delta. As if somehow in the cc game they were at the “expense” of united miles. My point is simply that that approach was shortsighted for SPECIFIC AWARDS. like Tahiti for example…

@Aaron- You are confusing alaska with rest of usa and canada. Only travel to alaska and Hawaii has changed in terms of “domestic” awards

I am including the email I sent as a resident of Israel…

Attention Jeff Smisek,
As a CEO of a company here in Israel, and a 1K mileage plus member, I made a decision to move all of our corporate travel from Delta to United. In fact for 2013 I was still a diamond on Delta (you can verify as my ff number there is……..)
A big reason behind the change was the mileage program you offer. Given the upcoming changes to your awards travel (5%-90% increase in award travel to/from Israel on United and partner airlines) this have caused us to seriously reconsider our decision.
I have earned my 100k miles (currently 98 this year) almost entirely on united metal (you can check) flying primarily the EWR-TLV route. United has exactly one flight on its own metal from Tel Aviv. The above mentioned flight. Which means that I and my employees are being asked to earn our miles entirely on united metal (our business contacts are in ny) but ANY and EVERY REDEMPTION other than the flight we earn our miles on will cost us as much as a 90 percent premium. That is entirely absurd to fly premium cabins since we will have to do it on your partners.
Back when I was with continental you also offered free lounge access for those living outside of the usa who were 1k members. You gutted that. You also offered us 200% base miles (not just 150%) on business tickets on united metal. You gutted that. We are flying more times to earn our status on united metal and in turn you are gutting our perks left, right and center.
This will impact not only our travel, but also related decisions like corporate cards on Chase United cards, etc.
If you are truly “Flyer Friendly” I’d seriously ask you to reconsider these changes that affect your most loyal customers.
Thanks,
Mike

Dan,
Do you think I should sell my United Miles now? Will I get paid less per point from the brokers after Feb 1st?

I sympathize with everyone on this board… but for those of us who primarily fly coach (and adopt a more destinations, less luxury approach) this isn’t nearly as bad as I had worried. Plus coach rewards are the same on partner airlines… when flying coach to Asia, Singapore or Asiana metal makes a *world* of difference

Any clarification on whether the multi-city option will still be as generous as it has been for some time?

@Justin:
If you fly round-trip coach booked in advance you will do better spending on a 2.2% cash back rewards card rather than earning airline miles to redeem on coach tickets.
Plus you’ll earn miles on your tickets that way and you won’t be limited by award availability.

This reinforces my airline miles philosophy. Use them when you’ve got them and don’t try to save them for a rainy day. When the rain comes, the miles will have been severely devalued.

@Dan:

That depends on what time of year you are flying (especially to TLV)

@Dan:
How far in advance do I need to book an int’l coach ticket, in order for a cash back card to be a better option?

if someone has United miles to sell, is it better to do it now or too late already?
thanks

I have 907,000 Chase points. Any idea on what I can expect to get per mile?
What other valuable way is there to dreamed them?

if you book the ticket with points prior to the4 devaluation, and then have to change it , besides that there will be a fee, I am guessing there is no way to guarantee a date for you to use those tickets. in that case you might not be able to use the ticket except for days that you cant go. Is there something I am missing?

@Dan, but not that one:
True.
Though of course your dollars are also devalued, it’s just done on a daily basis so you don’t feel the sting like a major airline devaluation every 5 years.

@Anonymous:
Depends on lots of factors such as the exact route.

@esther12:
@Miles to sell:
Everyone has been dumping their miles since these announcements so the market price already went way down.

I don’t anticipate them falling any further, the pain has already been priced in.
If anything it may rise slightly as there’s just a glut of people dumping them now.

@avrum:
Of course, this all only works if you are somewhat flexible.