Comments on: The Frustrations of Booking United Awards Before Their Gutted Award Chart Went Into Effect

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:58:29 +0000

United offers more generous bonuses on cheap fares in many cases, other Star carriers offer far more generous bonuses on pricier fares, but that’s neither here nor there (and in many cases british midland can work better even on cheap fares).

Easier to earn miles with United? Air Canada and Singapore are AMERICAN EXPRESS TRANSFER PARTNERS for goodness sakes!

And while the United award chart changes bring them more or less in line with other Star carriers on PRICE, they are the ONLY Star carrier to block partner award inventory. So that makes pretty much EVERYOTHER Star carrier a better deal. United could give you a 500% mileage bonus as an elite and they still wouldn’t let you book seats that they are blocking…

By: David Balcon

David Balcon — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:54:12 +0000

While UA’s increases are hard to swallow, and the copays boarding on extortion, it should be considered that earning miles on UA is easier than on Aeroplan (your now preferred program) and most other STAR programs (unless one books paid premium fares). You seem to overlook the fact that a PremEx or 1K earns a 100% base mileage bonus on all UA and US flights, and even a Premier earns 50%. Over on Aeroplan, only top tier SuperElites earn the 100% bonus and only on AC flights, and mid-tier Elites get 50%, and first tier Prestiges a mere 25%.

So while you can still argue UA’s previous award chart was indeed a bargain — when one could get a saver business class award to Asia or Europe (you’d just have to fly and earn a base of 35-45K and be a PremEx or 1K to actually get enough for those premium awards) — it was even more so because of the bonus miles given to elites. Even the increases would put a PremEx or 1K at about the same earning level as an Aeroplan Elite or Prestige.

Yup, I’ve got some UA miles that have been somewhat devalued, but I do think you guys are protesting about something that just brings UA more into line with other STAR carriers.

True, the STARnet blocking is an issue to be dealt with, particularly because as also an Aeroplan Elite, the more of you guys who join up to get access to premium STAR awards, the harder it is for me/us to get them!

By: Jason H

Jason H — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:36:08 +0000

Right now my flying is mainly to Canada and last year was about 69,000 miles without any TATL or DEN-HNL; which is actually very strange for me. So I am a SkyTeam elite member with all the benefits (or lack thereof). I just find the Skyteam very difficult to deal with when redeeming miles and when flying to Canada. Not to mention to nearly useless PMUs that DL gives you.

I’ve got about 400,000 miles with DL and another 25,000 on UA. This are mainly all BIS miles, as I don’t have any of the airline branded credit cards to pump up the accounts.

I am flying more TATL routes and even there DL is a hard carrier to get away from since they have ramped up their service over the pond; especially with the addition of NW and AF/KLM routes they just seem to own the TATL market to cities other than LHR.

By: Gary

Gary — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:29:10 +0000

Well where will you be flying?

And how many miles a year?

Air Canada’s program is good, I like redeeming with them as long as it’s not on Air Canada flights or else they’ll whack you with big fuel charges and fees. (Though of course they too could always devalue their award chart.)

The other nice thing about Air Canada is just 35,000 miles to Star Alliance Gold status with them.

I would definitely credit to Alaska rather than DL/CO/NW/AA if not going to be an elite with any of them, might as well pool your miles and have more redemption options (though redemptions on Alaska metal itself has gotten tougher with their new 3-tiered award chart).

By: Jason H

Jason H — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:50:38 +0000

What would be your recommendation to non-Elite *A flyers? I am currently a DL elite, but I am at a UA hub (DEN). None of the large US mainline carriers really do it for me (if only AS had more service), my DL status is a leftover from living in SC. My main reservation on moving to UA completely are some bad experiences and hearing how hard it can be to redeem on non-UA airlines. Being that I travel to Canada a lot, should I credit my flying miles to AC? Is there a better option? Maybe credit to AS since they are a non-alliance carrier with Skyteam and One World agreements?

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:04:28 +0000

Apparently the LAX-LHR flight on NZ isn’t eligible for UA redemption, rather than being blocked in the traditional sense, at least as I recall.

By: Foster

Foster — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:44:27 +0000

I tried to redeem trans-atlantic on LAX-LHR Air New Zealand. The agent could not even see the flight. She insisted that Air New Zealand did not fly LAX-LHR, and there was no convincing her otherwise. Then I tried to book a Business Class award from US-FRA on LH, and for the entire month of July there was “no availability from any LH gateway in the US”…..

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:02:27 +0000

I had extreme headaches in trying to redeem for something as simple as a one-way interisland award on Hawaiian Airlines. After FINALLY getting them to realize the one-ways are only 5000 miles, and not 10000, they claimed there was no availability. So, I asked for Island Air, which they didn’t even seem to know about, and voila, I got my seats. But it took hours of headaches and trying to decipher some very poor English.

I’m definitely keen on keeping steady with American. Decent availability for my needs, English agents, flexible stopover rules, and very low redemption amounts. I couldn’t be happier.