United Airlines MileagePlus Award Chart Changes Effective November 1, 2017 (Up To 67% More Miles Required For Some Star Alliance Awards!)

United Airlines yesterday announced changes to MileagePlus awards that will take effect on November 1, 2017. As one can expect, majority of these changes are negative.

United has already removed the current award chart promptly from its website but we have now made side by side comparison for Star Alliance awards (only worthwhile use for United miles) now and come November 1.

You can access United’s web page for the changes here.

Here are some changes:

– $125 fee for award redeposit that are not canceled before the flight take place

– Standard Awards replaced by dynamically priced (albeit with a ceiling) EveryDay Awards

– Many premium Star Alliance awards up (some up by up to 67%)

– Some short-haul flights such as those within Europe require only 8,000 miles

– They still continue publish award charts (unlike DELTA!)

Here’s the side by side Star Alliance partner award comparison now and November 1, 2017:

Download (PDF, 37KB)

Here are the new charts published by United:

Download (PDF, 520KB)

Conclusion

It is very unfortunate that the US airlines feel that they need to destroy their frequent flier programs, although I have personally stopped crediting flights to them years ago. There are some exceptions such as Alaska and UA’s JV partners with high business class earnings.

Nothing overly drastic to those that don’t use partner awards, but some huge jumps for awards between Asia and Australia (where I most recently redeemed United miles).