My United MileagePlus membership must be close to 20+ years old, and I reached a million miler status while living in the United States.
United stopped publishing award charts last year, and the number of miles required for awards is getting out of touch. I would encourage everyone to cut their United credit cards in half and use other airlines to credit their Star Alliance flights to like I have done already for years.
Here’s an example:
Mexico City – Helsinki
United Airlines
Aegean Miles+Bonus
The only drawback with Aegean is that you end up paying the fuel surcharge that can be high with some carriers.
Conclusion
I did redeem using my United Airlines MileagePlus because I need to get my balance down from 800K before they are worth absolutely nothing – we are getting there.
These miles are years from United flying that took place in the 2000s and Marriott Travel Packages before they were devalued,
I still find American Airlines AAdvantage miles valuable, like the United ones used to be. United nowadays is there with Delta in the peso miles department.
The only good thing with United is that there are no fuel surcharges and that the booking interface usually works well.
The problem with US-based airline, and soon hotel programs, is that they have basically become nothing to do with flying or staying at hotels but mainly for people churning credit cards, and nothing else.
John, you suggested that we should use airlines other than UA to credit our Star Alliance flights to. Could you do an analysis to compare the pros and cons of doing so? I’m a long time UA customer and 1 million miler and in the past always credit my non-UA Star Alliance flights to UA. In light of UA’s relentless devaluation of its miles, I have to question the justification and long-term benefit of this approach. Thanks!
It really depends where you are based and what type of tickets you buy.
It’s my understanding that Star Alliance Golds have access to United Club on domestic flights, but United Golds do not.
Correct. Non-UA *A elites get lounge access like Non-AA OW elites get access to AA lounges even in Y on domestic flights.
Yeah what foreign options are there for Star Alliance? Is Aegean still 4 aegean flights a year and low miles in order to get gold?
You get lower qualification if some Aegean/Olympic flights, but not that difficult even without them.
Couple of recent awards would have been double if redeemed with United compared to Aegean for longish flights within South America.
I blame Delta Airlines for the out of touch awards. Since they started raising their award levels both AA and UA have followed. About the best i can make out of those points now are domestic flights.
Winner Winner
Chicken Dinner
Spot on
You nailed, this is exactly why UA and AA both suck now
I don’t think it is that bad. United has less surcharges. In your example it is € 90 with United versus € 324 with Aegean.
I am not saying the balance in miles is worth the balance in money but still not that bad after all.
Have to agree with Martin…I don’t think 86k miles for a business class flight from Mexico to Finland is all that bad. Similar flight would probably be 180k (or more) on Delta. Plus it looks like if you leave 3 days earlier it’s only 75k miles. I’m looking at flights from the US to Tokyo and it’s consistently 88k United miles. Yeah, that’s a few points but it sure beats paying with money.
United prices inconvenient flights with 3+ connections and longer/overnight transits at a cheaper price. No thanks!
That’s true, though the flight you specify in your article is one stop and under 19 hours total travel time. I can’t imagine you can do much better than that between Mexico and Finland. My search for CLT to TYO on United sometimes finds one stop flights with reasonable layovers in places like Toronto or Chicago, but I need to be very flexible with my travel dates. If I wasn’t needing 3 business class seats, availability would be substantially better.
I agree. The unannounced 10% increase last year was it for me. United miles are seriously out of sync with “fair value” now as are singapore airlines. I do not live in the US so earn miles the hard way without all the massive credit card giveaways and bonus categories which are driving the devaluations. Shame that Asiana will no longer be avaliable for star alliance after Korean air merger.
I do still value my SQ KrisFlyer miles for Singapore Airlines flights with generally good availability.
Qantas has the monopoly down under. We are used to High points requirement and high taxes. However, the lounges and the offerings in Oz are far superior to their US counterpart.
I agree your statement on the Hotels. If you compare the pampering/benefits provided by Hotels overseas against US…they are miles apart.
TK Miles&Smiles business class award flight US-Europe is 45000 miles, not only with TK but with all partners.
TK Miles&Smiles business class award flight US-Europe is 45000 miles, not only with TK but with all partners.
From worst to first…
and back again!
Like John, I have too many unused “miles” and CC points that can be converted. What other choices are there with Chase points? Have readers found decent value using the chase travel portal?
My main complaint is the lack of First/Business Award seas for Domestic connection flights to an International US Gateway. Another significant failure tis the ability to obtain First Class Awards on partners compared to OnwWorld AA/JL/BA/CX, even if you do manage an ANA First USA to Tokyo there’s very little chance of even a Business Award on an onward International Connection. Thai used to be ta wonderful exception, but as they now have plans to virtually eliminate First Class there goes another great former Award.First Class Patner.
Gave up both Chase and United two years ago for this reason. It’s nice, no regrets.
I agree with comment regarding credit cards. In fact this plus fact US airlines hand out miles for CS issues like candy.
Just like with real money, you can’t keep “printing” miles and expect no inflation.
These high prices are result of passengers wanting to earn more and more miles. Not saying airline haven’t taken advantage of this. However it’s also a reasonably expected outcome.