United’s response to the premium cabin earning rates changes: better than I expected

Posted by Seth Miller on January 3, 2013 under frequent flyer, points | 12 Comments to Read

Well, the bad news is that United Airlines has confirmed the new earning rates for premium cabin fares on many partner airlines. In posts today on FlyerTalk and MilePoint the company offered up an explanation and a full listing of the affected fare classes (which pretty much matches the list I had produced) and also an explanation. Apparently the old rates were a mistake:

In March 2012, when we migrated to a single system, we unintentionally increased PQM and PQS earnings for some of our partners to our former OnePass levels, instead of taking them to their intended MileagePlus levels.

While these higher earning levels remained in effect for the remainder of 2012, we are now reinstating the PQM/PQS earning rates for the following carriers and fare classes to 100% as of Jan. 1, 2013:

• Air New Zealand (NZ): A, B, C, D, E, J, O, U,Y, Z
• Asiana (OZ): A, B, C, D, F, J, Y, Z
• Croatia Airlines (OU): A, B, C, D, F, Y, Z
• Egyptair (MS): A, B, C, D, F, J, Y, Z
• LOT (LO): A, C, D, P, Z
• Singapore (SQ): A, C, D, F, J, P, R, S, Y, Z
• South African (SA): B, C, D, H, J, K, M, Q, S, Y, Z
• TAM (JJ): A, B, C, D, F, J , Y, Z
• TAP (TP): B, C, D, J, Y, Z
• THAI (TG): A, B, C, D, F, J, P, U, Y, Z
• Turkish (TK): C, D

I’m not entirely sure I buy that it was a mistake, particularly given how often they changed things around right when the initial announcement was made for the new program. Still, in a rather unprecedented move, the company has agreed to honor previously ticketed flights at the old earning rates:

We realize that some of you booked flights on these partners prior to Jan. 1 and were expecting the higher PQM/PQS earnings. In this particular case, given the circumstances, we will honor the higher rates regardless of your travel date. There are a few complexities involved with posting miles at the higher rates, so please bear with us. Specifically, if you booked your ticket through United, we will proactively adjust amounts after their initial posting (typically within a few days of when the original flight is credited). However, if you booked through someone other than United (like another airline or travel agency), you will have to contact the MileagePlus Service Center after your miles have initially posted in order to make the adjustment.

This will actually net me a few extra miles on my upcoming Bangkok-Haneda flight on Thai Airways so I’m pretty happy about that.

Related Posts:

• United guts premium fare earning rates on multiple partners

United guts premium fare earning rates on multiple partners

Posted by Seth Miller on January 2, 2013 under frequent flyer, points, Wandering Aramean Travel Tools | 24 Comments to Read

What I originally thought was just a “fixing” of an obviously overly generous set of elite status earning rules from United Airlines‘ MileagePlus program on partner South African Airways appears now to be a massive change in earning rates for the new year. More than 70 different fare classes across at least 9 partners are affected by these changes. And in every case it is the premium fares – first, business, premium economy and full-fare economy – which are seeing the elite earning rates cut. When the new rules came out for MileagePlus in 2012 there was a rather generous upgrade in earning rates for premium cabins on many partners. Apparently United has decided they were being too generous and they’ve now cut back significantly.

In addition to the previously identified cuts for South African noted here the following fare classes now all earn only 100% of the miles flown towards elite qualification, down generally from 150%:

• Thai Airways: J, P, U, Y, Z, A, B, C, D,F
• Singapore Air: R, S, Y, Z, A, C, D, F, J, P
• TAP Air Portugal:  B, C, D, J, Y, Z
• TAM: A, C, D, F, J , Y, Z
• LOT: A, B, C, D, P, Y, Z
• Croatia Airlines: A, B, C, D, F, Y, Z
• Air New Zealand: A, B, C, D, E, J, O, U,Y, Z (now showing only 100% again)
• EgyptAir: A, B, C, D, F, J, Y, Z
• South African Airways: J, C, D, Z, Y, B, M, H K, S, Q

These changes came without notification from the carrier, either through traditional means or through the online communities they have employees participating in. Quite unfortunate at many levels.

UPDATE:

Also add in:

• Avianca: C, D, J
• Asiana: A, B, C, D, F, J, Y, Z

Reading the tea leaves for MileagePlus partner earning rates

Posted by Seth Miller on February 26, 2012 under frequent flyer, News, points | 7 Comments to Read

With just a week to go before the new MileagePlus program launches for United Airlines and the OnePas program of merger partner Continental officially disappears, there are still a number of unanswered questions about the new program. Earning rates for flying on partner airlines is among the major points still unknown. In the past couple weeks a test website for the newly merged web presence of the company has been available (http://pss.united.com) and even more recently some details regarding earning rates for partners has shown up on that site. I am hesitant to consider this data completely authoritative for many reasons, among them that the carrier has explicitly stated that the site is not official, but there is enough information there that I figured giving it a first pass was worthwhile.

Each of the programs had about 500-600 rules for earning on Star Alliance partners; the new program is no different in that regard. Of those, somewhere between 20-40% seem to have at least one aspect of the earning rates changing as part of the new program. That’s a lot of new information to process.

In most cases the changes reflect the company choosing the rates from one of the two programs which is being retired; there are, however, a few instance where the numbers are completely new. And, since many people like to wonder if the program is trending more towards the legacy United or Continental way of business, my rough count suggest that in those cases where the two were different and one of the legacy rates was chosen, Continental "won" at a 2:1 clip.

So, what are the changes of note? Here are a few, broken down by partner:

Aegean

• Four economy fare buckets – P, T, U & V – no longer earn at all. This is in line with the legacy United rates and worse than the legacy Continental rates.
• Two economy fare buckets – Y & B – will earn fewer EQMs per trip. The are now at 100%, the legacy United rate, versus the 150% rate that Continental offered.
• Four premium cabin fare buckets – A,C, D & Z – will now earn 125% EQMs per trip. This is a downgrade from the legacy Continental rate (150%) and an upgrade from the legacy United rate (100%).

Air China

• Eight full fare or premium cabin buckets – A, B, C, D, F, J, Y & Z – will earn 100% EQMs, matching the rates in the legacy United program. This is a downgrade from the OnePass program (150%).

Asiana

• Most full fare and premium cabin classes will see EQM earning set at 150%, matching the OnePass program and an increase from the United program.
• Two discount economy fares – G & T – will see earnings at 70%. This is an increase from both the OnePass program (50%) and the Mileage Plus program (0%).

Austrian

• Most full fare and premium cabin classes will see EQM earning set at 150%, matching the OnePass program and an increase from the United program (100%).
• Deep-discount economy fares – S & W – will earn only for flights within Europe, at the rate of 100%. This is a downgrade from the Mileage Plus program and an upgrade from the OnePass program.

bmi

• Two economy fare buckets – L & U – no longer earn at all. This is in line with the legacy United rates and worse than the legacy Continental rates.
• Three full fare economy and premium cabin buckets – I, S & Y – will earn 100% award miles and 150% elite miles. This is in line with the legacy Continental rates and an upgrade from the legacy United rates (100%/100%).
• Six premium cabin buckets – A, C, D, J, P & Z – will earn 125% award miles and 150% EQMs, matching the rates in the legacy Continental program. The EQM earning rate is an upgrade from the 100% earnt in the legacy United program.
• All fares earn 500 mile minimums, matching the OnePass charts and an upgrade from the United charts.

Blue1

• Eight full fare or premium cabin buckets – A, B, C, D, J, S, Y & Z – will earn 150% EQMs, matching the rates in the legacy Continental program. This is an upgrade from the legacy United program (100%).
• One discount economy fare bucket – O – will earn at 25% RDMs/EQMs. This matches the legacy OnePass rate and is an upgrade from the legacy United rate (0%/0%).

EgyptAir

• Most full fare and premium cabin classes will see EQM earning set at 150%, matching the OnePass program and an increase from the United program.
• Seven deep-discount economy fare buckets – G, L, S, T, U, V & W – will earn no credit, matching the legacy United program; this is a downgrade from the 25-50% rates they earnt in the OnePass program.
• Two economy fares – Q & K – will earn at 100%, matching the legacy Mileage Plus program and upgrading from the 75% rate in the OnePass program.

Ethiopian

• Three premium cabin fares – C, D & J – are upgrading from 100% to 150% EQMs. This is an upgrade from both legacy programs (100%).

Lufthansa

• Most premium cabin fares see an upgrade to the award miles earning rates, in line with the previously discussed earning rates for United flights. These rates are much higher in most cases than the legacy United or Continental rates.
• For discounted economy fares – L & T – the rates will match those of the legacy United program, earning 100% on intercontinental flights and on intra-Europe flights which connect to intercontinental flights. The OnePass program offered 50% credit on all flights in those fare buckets.

Swiss

• Similar to Lufthansa, most premium cabin fares will earn at much higher award miles rates. In addition, the EQM earning rates for those fares will be increased to 150%, matching the legacy Continental rates and improving from the 100% that United used to offer.
• Three discount economy fares – K, L &T – disappear from the earning charts completely, a downgrade from both legacy programs.

US Airways

• No more 500 mile minimums for flights, a downgrade from the OnePass program and matching the United program.
• Only 100% EQMs on Y and B fares, a downgrade from the United program and matching the OnePass rates.

Croatia AIrlines, Singapore, Thai & TAP

• Most full fare and premium cabin classes will see EQM earning set at 150%, matching the OnePass program and an increase from the United program.

For Air Canada and TAM the earning rates are not yet loaded on the site, and the TAM page shows some data from bmi and some from TAM. For Copa it does not show an elite earning bonus, though that is unlikely to actually be the case.

The only chart that appears to remain the same across the board is that of partner Turkish Airlines.

Non-alliance partner EVA will see a much broader partnership, with many more fare buckets available for earning. The rest of the non-alliance partners look to be pretty much the same, though I didn’t give those charts as thorough a review.

Again, please remember that the analysis here is from unofficial data and should not be considered necessarily accurate, though it is accurate from what was on the website when I looked at it today.

And, should these rates end up being accurate, it would appear that this is a case where the company being somewhat one-sided in where they favor a legacy program will work out well for customers. In nearly all the cases that the legacy OnePass rates were picked it was an upgrade for the Mileage Plus rates. The same cannot be said for the cases where the legacy Mileage Plus rates prevailed.

Related Posts:

• Decoding fare buckets on the new United

The many different prices of a flight

Posted by Seth Miller on November 20, 2011 under Flying, Trip Reports | 11 Comments to Read

I like to think that I have a pretty solid grasp of how revenue and inventory management work together within the airlines to control the price of a flight. I understand fare rules, inventory allocations and routing rules and I can generally figure out what’s going on. Heck, I’ve even built tools that help find the information and distill it to simple numbers. So I was incredibly surprised this weekend when I went to purchase a few "local" flights for our New Years trip to South Asia. Needless to say, the numbers were not playing nice.

I got an award flight into India using my OnePass miles from Continental and a revenue ticket on the return from Colombo, Sri Lanka on a combination of Emirates and British Airways. That part was relatively easy, though I did run into some issues booking one of the return options (now since discarded) via EgyptAir from Bangkok. But that was nothing compared to the crazy I experienced trying to buy the domestic flights in India and the short hop from Chennai to Colombo.

Here’s a screen shot from the ITA pricing engine for one of the flights we wanted:

Pretty simple, really. Based on that we should have been able to get the flight for about $200 without much trouble, right? So I started checking around a few different booking engines. Thanks to the various referral link/rebate options for flight bookings I was checking three different engines, Expedia, Vayama and CheapoAir (n.b. – those links earn me that rebate if you use them). The rebates offered vary so there is some flexibility in figuring out which is best deal but, all else being equal, I should be able to get the published fare from each, right??

Not at all.

For that flight which nominally cost $200 the options I got were $257 or $247 from Vayama and CheapoAir, respectively:

Exact same flight, date, time and fare bucket, but a price that was 25% higher. Zoinks! Fortunately Expedia was able to book the flight at the "correct" price for that one.

For the flight from Chennai to Cochin a few days earlier, however, CheapoAir was about $50 less than Expedia and actually ended up being less than the published price in ITA thanks to a coupon that they had published, a coupon that didn’t work on the above itinerary.

Similarly, for the flight to Colombo the ITA price seemed decent enough, with flights at the right time for what we wanted:

Once again, Vayama was terribly over-priced, even including the click-through rebate earnt:

And Expedia was still showing the published ITA rate:

But don’t forget to check the operating carrier, too. A quick visit to the SriLankan website pulled up this price:

That converts to USD $213 at the current exchange rates, a full $80 less than the fare published in ITA and a whopping $140 less than what Vayama wanted for the exact same rate.

So, is there a moral to the story? Maybe it is this: Airfare pricing is horribly inconsistent and near impossible for mere mortals to effectively and easily compare. It also further enforces my fears of how much worse it could get if the airlines continue to pull information out of the GDSes and move towards their direct sales model. In this case the direct model ended up saving me a few bucks, but only after quite a bit of digging to find the best price.

It really shouldn’t be this hard.

Related Posts:

• Buying a ticket shouldn’t be this hard
• Amadeus and United extend partnership – with a twist
• Is air travel a commodity or not?
• Let’s talk airfare and distribution

Buying a ticket shouldn’t be this hard

Posted by Seth Miller on October 22, 2011 under Trip Reports | 3 Comments to Read

I’ve been working lately on cobbling together a rather ridiculous series of flights for our winter vacation this year. The plan is mostly South Asia, focusing on the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka, plus a quick stop in Bangkok on the way home. At least that’s the theory.

Initially I booked the trip using points for award travel round-trip between New York City and India. Since then the itinerary has morphed a bit so I’ll be changing things up (thank goodness for free award changes as an elite!) but I actually need to get a couple of the tickets purchased in order to make those changes, just in case. And it is proving incredibly difficult to buy at least one of the tickets.

If you had asked me a month ago, before I started all of this, I would have bet that the ticket on Sri Lankan would have been the hard one to acquire. I would have lost that bet. The transaction with them was smooth as could be, handled fully online and it was only a couple days later that American Express called to make sure that I really was buying a couple one way flights from Colombo to Bangkok in early January. It wasn’t even a big enough risk for them to call immediately.

Buying the flight from Bangkok to JFK on EgyptAir, however, is proving to be a ridiculous mess. I started with their website which looks pretty slick, at least for the flight selection search bits. It showed the fare I had seen otherwise online (about $150 less for each ticket than any other channel) and I went through the long process of entering in all our personal data to book the flight. At the final payment screen, however, the transaction was denied. Repeatedly.

My first call was to Visa to make sure my card was OK. It wasn’t, but they cleared that up. Waiting two hours didn’t help; still denied. Another 24 hours later and still denied. Even more strange, however, was that the credit card company didn’t even show the most recent transactions. It is as if EgyptAir never even tried to authorize the card; they just rejected the transaction. It took a couple calls but eventually I got in touch with someone in the EgyptAir ticketing office in New York to try to process the transaction. The first agent saw the reservation and the price I was quoted online. She transferred me to another agent to handle the transaction who promptly informed me that the fare was $300 higher. Ugggh.

So long as I was not going to get the discounted fare I figured I’d try to get some other value for the transaction. American Express offers bonus Membership Rewards points for travel booked through their portal so why not give that a go, right? Apparently their system is not robust enough to handle selling a one-way ticket in business class from Bangkok to New York City:

That’s is simply ludicrous, especially considering that probably a dozen airlines or more offer service on that route with a single connection.

And so I’m essentially left with a bevy of third party online travel agencies through which I can try to book the flight, but now I’m faced with wading through their differing fares and service fees to find the right price. Plus I’m stuck with dealing with one of them for service going forward rather than dealing with the airline directly. What a mess.

It shouldn’t be this complicated to spend money on a plane ticket.

VVIPs and the guy confused by a “business class” seat

Posted by Seth Miller on December 29, 2009 under Trip Reports | Be the First to Comment

Sitting on board EgyptAir flight 362 from Luxor to Cairo right now, happily ensconced in the bulkhead aisle of the “business class” cabin and laughing to myself about the scene going on across the aisle.  The flight is operated by the Express arm of EgyptAir on an Embrear E170 (my first time on this type, I believe) and the business class cabin is anything but special.  The bulkhead seats have plenty of knee room and typical bulkhead legroom while row two has nothing special to speak of, save for the guy in 2K (starboard window).

Boarding off the bus and up the air stairs he seemed quite shocked to discover that the business class seats were really just regular seats.  So shocked that he didn’t shut up about it, grumbling to his wife in the row behind for several minutes before calling the flight attendant over to inquire about the situation.  Once informed that the only difference is in the food service on board he gave up, pulled his hat over his face and passed out.  A bit strange, but it definitely goes to show that there are plenty of people out there who have no idea what they are buying when it comes to travel.  For what it is worth, the sandwich we had was pretty decent though I found the dessert a bit dry.

Shortly before boarding started a group of about a dozen guys showed up at the airport in dark suits.  Several of them went into one of the private waiting rooms in the gate area while the rest milled about just outside the door.  Not so hard to identify VVIPs in this sort of situation.  And these two definitely are.  They are two cabinet-level ministers in the Egyptian government – Education and Youth/Sports.  They were the last two on the plane (plus their rather conspicuous security guy) and the doors were closed pretty much right after they got on board.  The flight attendant told me just how special they were when I asked and the body guard poked his head out to say hi. 

I didn’t ask for a photo with them – I’ll blame it on not wanting to document the crazy that is my hair right now rather than having no real reason to ask and a lack of cojones to ignore that – but it was certainly interesting.  Especially the part where a security guard cam running down the stairs after us to make sure we didn’t try to board their VIP van since we followed them directly off the plane.

Good stuff.