Changes coming to Mileage Plus Award charts

Editors Note: This is the first blog post by UnRoadWarrior’s first co-blogger – The Nomad. I would like to welcome him to the blog. Do leave a comment and make him feel welcome.

Major changes are coming to United’s (and of course the merged Continental’s) Mileage Plus Award Charts from June 15, 2011. Most sectors see a 5k to 10K increase in miles needed for round trip awards apart from domestic awards. From the point of view of economy passengers, I would say this is not really a good change. Most business and elite passengers will though, probably be elated by the decrease in award miles required for Europe and Asia trips.

United Mileage Plus.jpg

Here’s is the United PR speak:

Here are some examples of what will be changing:

  • We will lower the mileage requirement for domestic award trips that are less than 700 miles one way. OnePass members have enjoyed this benefit, and now Mileage Plus members can, too.
  • Some destinations will be included in different regions. Most notably, Mexico will become its own region instead of being considered part of Central America.
  • Some United and Star Alliance™ Award amounts will go up; however many popular award routes, including North America to Hawaii and the Caribbean, will remain the same.
  • Some Mileage Plus Upgrade Award and Star Alliance™ Upgrade Award amounts will increase.

Here are some of the main differences in the new Mileage Plus Chart that I can see (miles are for one-way awards, double for roundtrip and standard one-way, Y-economy, C-Business, F-first)

  1. Award for domestic destinations <700miles will be available for 10K miles in Y. Down from 12.5K
  2. Southern South America to Central America will be 17.5K, 30K, 40K in Y, C, F . Down from 25k,40K, 50k
  3. US/CANADA/ALASKA to Europe will be 50K in C. Down from 52.5K.
  4. US/ CANADA/ALASKA to North Asia/South Asia will be 60k, 70K in C, F. Down from 62.5K,72.5K.

The increases:

  1. Northern South America to US/CANADA/ALASKA will be 20K miles in Y, up from 17.5K.
  2. Central America to Hawaii will be 37.5K, 47.5K in C,F up from 35k,42.5K.
  3. Caribbean to Caribbean awards are 17.5K, 30K, 40K in Y, C, F. Up from 15K, 22.5k, 30K.
  4. Caribbean to Hawaii will be 37.5K, 47.5K in C,F up from 35k,42.5K.
  5. Southern South America to US/CANADA/ALASKA/Hawaii will be 30K in Y, up from 27.5K.
  6. Southern South America to Caribbean will be 30K, 50K, 62.5K in Y, C, F . Up from 25k,45,55k
  7. US/CANADA/ALASKA to Europe will be 30k in Y. Up from 27.5K.
  8. Europe to Southern South America will be 47.5K in Y. Up from 45K.
  9. US/CANADA/ALASKA to Japan will be 62.5K in C. Up from 60K.
  10. US/CANADA/ALASKA to Middle East/Africa will be 40K, 60K, 75k in Y, C, F. Up from 37.5k.57.5k, 72.5K.
  11. North Asia to South Asia will be 15k, 22.5K in Y,C up from 10k, 15K.

Will keep updating this as I notice more changes.

– The Nomad


To get all my posts and articles, sign up for updates vis RSS or email. I also post updates on Twitter and Facebook on Airline Miles, the Airline Industry and other travel related stuff.

a yellow sign with white text

5 Comments

  1. I fly frequently on business btween India and US. When I lived in the US, I used to be a Mileage Plus member. Since moving back to India I became a member of Lufthansa Miles and More program. I normally use that number for ALL Star Alliance flights, including the last one in Sep 2010. However, for my latest trip (in March 2011) I decided to use my Mileage Plus number. I was in for a surprise when the miles got credited. I got HALF the Base miles on UA as I got on LH when I flew the SAME flight number between the SAME cities in the same Class Z (Business Class), paying almost the SAME Money. When I wrote to UA they said they do not consider “Z class” as Business and Lufthansa’s policies were “different” than UA’s, and basically, that was tough. As an example, on flight LH 750 between Frankfurt and Calcutta, I received 9185 base miles in LH in Sep 2010, but 4599 miles on UA. Even on an atlas, it is closer to 9000 miles than 4500 . There is a ticket open (REF:12151345A) with UA to explain this where I have sent them a reply after they said inane things like “You cannot claim miles from 2 different airlines for the same flight”. Will keep you posted. But, it seems, switching to Miles and More will give members more miles for the SAME flights than UA.

  2. Debu,

    FRA-CCU is 4600 miles (http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=fra-ccu). So, UA is giving you 100% miles for distance flown. LH is giving you 200% miles for miles flown. They probably give a 100% bonus on Z fares flown, where as it appears, UA does not.

    Are you an elite on LH? UA give double miles on LH for UA Premier Execs and 1K’s, but only 100% miles to others.

    urw

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *