To kick off the new year United has made a huge devaluation to their earnings structure for premium cabin travel on partner airlines.

As most of you probably know you can earn United PQMs (Premier Qualifying Miles) for travel on any Star Alliance airline. For the most part premium cabin travel on partner airlines would accrue 125-150% PQMs, just as United issues bonus PQMs for paid premium cabin travel on their own flights.

However, with the exception of Air Canada, ANA, Austrian, Brussels, COPA, Lufthansa, SAS, Swiss, and USAirways, United is no longer issuing more than 100% PQMs for travel on partner airlines.

For example, take a look at the accrual chart for Singapore Airlines:

As you can see, even a paid suites class ticket only accrues 100% PQMs.

This is a huge devaluation for those that credit partner airline flights to United. I suspect United is either trying to thin their elite ranks or incentivize passengers to travel on United instead of their partner airlines, or probably both. It would have been nice if they gave some advance notice of this (since I assume passengers have booked travel on partner airlines with the intent to credit United and earn bonus PQMs), or at the very least announced the change rather than just updating their accrual charts.

(Tip of the hat to Miles from Blighty)

United posted the following announcement on FlyerTalk / Milepoint:

I wanted to let you know about a change we’ll be making to the way we allocate MileagePlus award inventory for United Global First and United First on 3-cabin aircraft. As many of you know, we currently use the same fare class (ON) for both upgrades and Saver travel awards redeemed from MileagePlus Premier Platinum, Premier 1K and Global Services accounts. A consequence of this pairing has been fewer seats being available for upgrades.

To remedy this imbalance, we will begin using ON exclusively for upgrades into United Global First and United First on 3-cabin aircraft effective February 1, 2013. Having a dedicated fare class for these upgrades will enable us to offer differentiated availability. To accommodate this change, we will no longer offer a dedicated fare class for Saver travel awards redeemed from MileagePlus Premier Platinum, Premier 1K and Global Services accounts. Instead, the inventory once used for ON class will be allocated to O class, which will become the sole booking class used for Saver Awards in United Global First and United First on 3-cabin aircraft.

Between now and January 31, ON will still be used for new Saver Award bookings from Platinum, 1K and Global Services accounts, and any flights booked prior to this change will not be impacted. We’ll also continue to offer better access to Saver Awards in United First (on 2-cabin aircraft), United BusinessFirst and United Business for Premier Platinum members and above, and better access to Saver Awards in United Economy for all Premier members.

Basically up until this point Premier Platinum/Premier 1K/Global Services members could redeem miles at the saver level for seats in three cabin first class that were otherwise only available for upgrades. Airlines have different fare “codes” for awards and upgrades, and typically the number of available upgrade seats is greater than the number of available award seats, at least in three cabin first class.

This was at times a huge benefit, as “ON” (upgrade/elite-only award) space was often much more readily available than “O” (award) space. Just as an example, take a look at the flight below, which has five “ON” seats and no “O” seats:

So there’s still time to book under the old policy, though not much. Here’s to hoping it’s one of the few MileagePlus changes for next year.

(Tip of the hat to Wandering Aramean)

American and United seem to be engaged in a first class (that’s right, not coach or business class) fare war to China. Out of select markets, paid first class tickets to Beijing and Shanghai are available as low as ~$3,000 all-in. The fare is available through the end of the schedule with no minimum stay requirements. There’s even some availability remaining for this year, which could be tempting with American’s double miles promotion.

American seems to have these fares out of United hubs, while United seems to have these fares out of American hubs. There could be other cities available as well, so I suggest using ITA Matrix to search fares/availability out of your city.

Anyway, this is a bit out of my budget, but as far as paid first class fares to China go, this is about the lowest I’ve ever seen. I doubt this will last for long!

Here’s a quick trivia question — if you’re redeeming United MileagePlus miles, which airline offers the best business class hard product to Asia? The answer might surprise many of you, but on select flights it’s EVA Airways, the carrier based in Taipei, Taiwan.

A vast majority of people don’t even realize that United partners with EVA. They’re expected to join the Star Alliance in 2013, though for a long time have had a reciprocal mileage agreement with United.

Why’s their business class so great? Well, many of their 777-300ER aircraft feature the new Royal Laurel Class, which is a very similar hard product to Cathay Pacific’s new business class, which I flew from Bangkok to Hong Kong just a few weeks ago.

Cathay Pacific’s new business class

Here’s a video of EVA’s Royal Laurel Class:

With that in mind, here’s what you need to know about redeeming MileagePlus miles on EVA.

EVA’s route network and new business class

EVA’s destinations in North America include Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver. They also offer connecting service from there to all over Asia.

EVA’s destinations in North America (via gcmap.com)

Presently EVA’s routes to New York and Los Angeles feature the new Royal Laurel Class. Always be sure to check the seatmap before making a booking, to ensure it looks like this:

You want to make sure the seatmap doesn’t look like the one below, or else you’ll be flying their old product, which isn’t so great:

Searching EVA award space

Now, you could call United to ask about award space, though as I’ll cover below, that’ll be a pain and I don’t recommend it, since a majority of United agents don’t even realize that EVA is one of their partners. Do the research on your own first.

The first step is to sign up for an Evergreen Club membership, which is free and can be done here. Once you have a membership and are logged into your account, click on “Evergreen Club” along the top menu, and then click on “Redeeming a Ticket Award.”

On the next page click “Redeeming Online.”

On the next page enter your origin, destination, class of service, and desired date(s). Two important things to note here. First of all, don’t check the box by “Open Date,” because that only complicates things and doesn’t make the search any easier. Second of all, if one person is traveling you want to keep the box by “Adult” at zero. That’s just asking if there are any additional passengers.

After you execute the search you’ll be brought to a results page which lists the flights operating that day. Unfortunately you have to specifically choose which flight you want. I’m warning you right now, the search functionality is only getting less user friendly from here. This thing makes tax code look straightforward, so you’ve been warned.

Once you’ve chosen the flight date you’ll be brought to a page which either shows the flight as being available, or has a prompt that pops up and says the flight will be waitlisted. If the prompt shows up saying the flight will be waitlisted you won’t be able to redeem miles for it. If you see availability at the saver level, you should be able to redeem miles for it. The issue is what a pain-in-the-rear the search functionality is. If your date isn’t available it involves a lot of clicking to search days around it.

Booking the ticket

Once you’ve figured out which flights have award availability you can call United to book. It’s important to note that EVA uses different fare codes for their award space than United’s other partners do. For travel on EVA, “I” class is coach award space, and “D” class is business class award space. It’s very important to mention this to the agent, as for most of United’s other partner airlines, “X” class is coach award space, and “I” class is business class award space.

Award tickets on EVA cost the same number of miles as any of United’s other partner airlines, and you can even combine EVA with United or other partner carriers on a single award ticket. As is the case with award redemptions for travel on all of United’s partner airlines, there are no fuel surcharges.

Other awesome things

EVA has a “Hello Kitty” jet with a dedicated website. How cool is that?

Conclusion

EVA can be a useful partner to know about for a couple of reasons. First of all, EVA has an excellent new business class, so if you can find space it’s an option that’s tough to beat. That being said, award availability is extremely limited for their new business class. That being said, award availability is quite good on their old product, so if there are no other options available it’s definitely worth considering. Knowing your options is good, and EVA is one of them.

Questions/comments?

(Tip of the hat to Pablo)

United.com lists the following notice on the United Club page:

Effective January 1, 2013, United Club annual membership rates will increase by $25 and membership-with-spouse rates will increase by up to $100. Additionally, the three-year membership options will be discontinued. Current three-year memberships will be honored through their existing membership period.

The current rates are as follows:

That means the new costs for a one person membership will range from $400 for Premier 1Ks to $500 for general members.

United will also be discontinuing three year memberships, which represent a $250 savings over three years compared to buying them individually.

Anyway, if your United Club membership is expiring soon, this would be a good time to renew it. These price increases aren’t unreasonable, though why pay an extra $25 if you don’t have to…

(Tip of the hat to Frequently Flying)

United has made a few customer friendly changes over the past several days that are worth mentioning.

First of all, United is now offering Global Services members traveling BusinessFirst internationally (and business class on Premium Service) access to their seven Global First lounges. I’m surprised United didn’t have this feature earlier as a way to differentiate Global Services from 1K status. American, on the other hand, has long offered their Executive Platinum members access to their international first class lounges whenever traveling on an international ticket. If anything I’m kind of surprised by the restriction that Global Services members must be traveling BusinessFirst in order to access the Global First lounge. Either way, a great improvement.

The other two positive changes involve confirmed upgrades:

• Newly-earned GPUs and RPUs will be valid longer. Starting later this month, when newly earned GPUs and RPUs are deposited into your account, they will be valid through the end of the following Premier program year instead of just one year from the date of issue. So, for example, all GPUs and RPUs earned in 2012 will be valid through January 31, 2014; those earned in 2013 will be valid through January 31, 2015 and so on.
• Unused GPUs and RPUs earned in 2012 will also be extended. For those of you who currently have GPUs or RPUs in your account that were earned based on 2012 travel, these will also automatically be extended and will be valid through the end of the next Premier program year (January 31, 2014). This includes GPUs and RPUs that are waitlisted or redeposited. Upon redeposit, the extended validity date will be reflected.

So Global Premier Upgrades and Regional Premier Upgrades are now valid through the end of the program year after which they’re earned, which is awesome. It’s also quite generous of United to extend all confirmed upgrades earned this year for an entire year. Not sure why they’re doing that, but it sure is generous. Though in theory I suppose it could also mean upgrades will be even tougher to clear next year, as more people have confirmable upgrade instruments to burn.

Kudos to United for these changes!

United is offering a 20% discount on roundtrip coach saver awards between North American and Europe for travel on United between January 15 and March 13, 2013. The offer is only valid for bookings made between November 6 and November 15, 2012, and the discount should automatically appear when searching for availability.

United ordinarily charges 60,000 miles for a roundtrip coach saver award, so through this promotion the cost is lowered to 48,000 miles.

The discount is nice if you were planning on redeeming miles for such an award anyway, but it’s not something I’d jump on just to take advantage of the deal. Travel is limited to United metal, which is pretty restrictive since it means you can’t add a stopover within Europe since that would require flying one of their partner airlines.

US Airways still offers the best off peak awards to Europe, as they charge just 35,000 miles roundtrip in coach or 60,000 miles roundtrip in business class. If you have their co-branded credit card you get a further 5,000 mile bonus. The big restrictions are the date limits (January 15 through February 28) and that you’re also limited to US Airways metal.

Yesterday I posted about American’s excellent business class fares to Asia, which go extremely well with the double miles promotion they’re running through the end of the year. Fares are as low as $2,200 roundtrip all-in from the west coast to Beijing (with routings allowed through Chicago), and as low as $2,800 from the east coast. Best of all the fares can be upgraded to first class using systemwide upgrades.

Well, it appears as if Delta and United are offering similar fares for the foreseeable future. While they don’t have equally tempting promotions, these are prices that are tough to beat if you’re looking to requalify for status this year or just get a head start on elite status for next year. For example, from Los Angeles to Beijing all three airlines have $2,185 all-in business class fares:

American:

Delta:

United:

While availability is sporadic, I’m seeing plenty of availability this year and lots of availability into the new year as well. For example, I’m even seeing availability for the fare some dates next March:

So if you’ve been eying a trip to China and are willing to spend a bit extra on business class, hop on over to matrix.itasoftware.com and you should be able to easily look up availability for your preferred dates using the flexible calendar feature.

While we’re on the topic of American’s double miles promotion, it looks like AAdvantageGeek and I have a bit of a disagreement as far as our interpretation of the terms and conditions go. AAdvantageGeek wrote an FAQ today on the promotion, and said the following:

Do the bonus elite-qualifying points count toward AAdvantage Elite Rewards?

No. From the terms and conditions “This offer does not increment the member’s prize eligible mileage balance”. Speaking of AAdvantage Elite Rewards, the deadline to register is December 15, 2012. Go here for more info to to see the list of gifts for this year.

As a reminder, the reason I’m considering booking a paid business class ticket to China is because it would get me over the 125,000 elite qualifying point (EQP) threshold for this year, which earns me 70,000 bonus AAdvantage miles through the 2012 Elite Rewards promotion.

From reading the terms and conditions of the 2012 Elite Rewards promotion, I don’t see any reference to promotional elite qualifying points not qualifying towards the total. AAdvantageGeek seems to be referring to the terms and conditions of the double miles promotion, which in part states:

I don’t interpret that as meaning it wouldn’t qualify towards the Elite Rewards program, since that would mean there’s no metric by which one can measure how many EQPs they have. I think they’re just referring to one’s Million Miler balance and also maybe miles towards sticker upgrades. But I’ve sought official clarification, and will post here when I find out for sure. How do you guys interpret that?

United is offering bonus miles for hotel points transfers (registration required) through November 30, 2012, with the following bonus thresholds:

The bonus is cumulative, meaning the thresholds are based on total points transfers from all programs. In other words, you can transfer the equivalent of 25,000 United miles from two hotel programs and earn the highest threshold bonus of 15,000 MileagePlus bonus miles.

In most cases this isn’t a great deal — Hilton points convert to United miles at a 10:1 ratio, Hyatt points convert to United miles at a 2.5:1 ratio (or 2:1 in certain increments), Starwood points convert to United miles at a 2:1 ratio, Priority Club points convert into United miles at a 5:1 ratio, etc. I don’t think any of those are even remotely good deals.

There are two circumstances where I see this potentially making sense:

1) Marriott’s “Flight and Hotel Packages”

One of the best use of Marriott points are their “Flight and Hotel Packages,” whereby you can redeem points for seven nights at a hotel plus airline miles. One of their partners is United, and their entry level package includes 50,000 miles, which in this case would net you 65,000 United miles with the bonus.

2) Transferring Wyndham points

Wyndham points convert to United miles at a 2.5:1 ratio. While it’s not a great use of Wyndham points, they are running a pretty amazing promotion right now whereby you can earn 16,000 bonus points for a free night, and if you were planning on converting your points to airline miles, this only sweetens the pot.

Just my two cents — this isn’t a great promo on the whole, but in the above two circumstances it could work in your favor.

Back in July United had a glitch whereby they were pricing all award tickets to/from Hong Kong at just four miles, which many people took advantage of. A few days later they started canceling the tickets, which caused quite an uproar.

The reason many people thought United couldn’t back out of the “deal” is because of the new DoT regulations which prohibit airlines from changing a fare once ticketed. The relevant regulation reads as follows:

Therefore, if a consumer purchases a fare and that consumer receives confirmation (such as a confirmation email and/or the purchase appears on their credit card statement or online account summary) of their purchase, then the seller of air transportation cannot increase the price of that air transportation to that consumer, even when the fare is a “mistake.”

A contract of carriage provision that reserves the right to cancel such ticketed purchases or reserves the right to raise the fare cannot legalize the practice described above.

Anyway, several months later the DoT has completed their review of the situation, and here are their findings:

We have completed our review of United’s conduct regarding its recent Frequent Flyer fare sale to Hong Kong from the United States on its website. Our review found that the actual price of the advertised fare was never clearly stated during the booking process, thereby creating ambiguous circumstances in which it could be reasonably interpreted that the actual price of the fare was significantly more than the amount consumers paid at the time they attempted to purchase the fare, e.g., $40 plus 4 frequent flyer miles. Therefore, we are not able to establish that consumers, in fact, paid the full amount of the offered fare at the time of purchase. Accordingly, the evidence does not support a finding that United engaged in an unfair and deceptive practice in violation of the relevant statute. Please note that, regardless of the outcome of our investigation, consumers are free to pursue claims (e.g., a breach of contract claim) against the airline in an appropriate civil court for monetary damages and other remedies particular to their situation.

So there you have it, folks…