Following the lead of Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Avianca LifeMiles and Malaysia Airlines Enrich, United’s frequent flyer program MileagePlus has become the fourth major frequent flyer program to announce a devaluation to its award chart this year.
MileagePlus miles are usually accessed by travellers based in Australia through their regular buy miles promotions.
Do note that you can still redeem at current prices for travel after 1 November as long as the flight is ticketed before the changes come into effect.
Here is a summary of how the changes will affect Australia-based travellers:
1. THAI First Class sweet spot disappears
The redemption that currently represents the most value to travellers in our region is a one-way First Class award on THAI between Sydney and Southeast Asia for 40,000 miles – that’s a steal! This will increase to 65,000 miles from November.
I actually have a MileagePlus booking from Hong Kong to Sydney via Bangkok in THAI First Class for September and would encourage those who want to try it to book a redemption before the changes come into effect.
THAI also flies from Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to its hub in Bangkok but does not offer First Class on these routes.
2. Flying to US on United and partners gets 10,000 miles more expensive
Finding Business Class award space on a direct flight between Australia and US is very difficult, so the increase in United’s pricing on its Sydney/Melbourne to Los Angeles/San Francisco (and Sydney to Houston starting 18 January 2018) routes from 70,000 to 80,000 miles isn’t much of a worry in practice.
Plus, based on my experience of United’s 787 Dreamliner Business Class from San Francisco to Sydney last year, I wouldn’t recommend it.
However, if you have more time up your sleeve and can transit through Tokyo with ANA or Singapore with Singapore Airlines, then a one-way Business redemption will increase from 80,000 to 90,000 miles, which isn’t a huge change but still notable.
3. ANA Business Class Sydney to Tokyo spikes in price
A Business Class redemption on ANA’s 787 Dreamliner flight between the largest cities in Australia and Japan will increase substantially from 40,000 to 55,000 miles.
4. Lufthansa First Class between Europe and North America stays the same
Luckily, you can still access Lufthansa’s fantastic onboard First Class product and First Class Terminal in Frankfurt for the same price.
However, keep in mind that Lufthansa still only releases premium cabin award space to its partners like United 14 days before departure, so this is a last-minute redemption opportunity.
5. A much less significant change
As KrisFlyer does, United differentiates between Saver and Standard Award pricing, with the latter being more expensive.
MileagePlus will replace its fixed (but expensive) Standard Awards with dynamically-priced Everyday Awards, which will be pegged to the revenue cost of the ticket.
Standard Awards have never represented good value for frequent flyers, so this change isn’t very important.
The current vs new award charts
Here are the current award chart in interactive form (for awards ticketed up to 31 October 2017) and new award chart in table form (for awards ticketed from 1 November 2017.)
Summing up
The last time MileagePlus devalued its award chart was in February 2014, so it is understandable they are wanting to increase prices, and giving four months’ notice is quite generous.
Having said that, if you have a specific flight redemption in mind and are sitting on some MileagePlus miles, you may want to book in your plans before the changes come into effect in November.
Supplementary images courtesy respective airlines.
I suppose date change is easy enough if i just pay the $75 change fee. But does
anyone know if i book Syd-Bkk-Syd before devaluation, and then if i want to add say a Bkk – Hkg – Bkk leg, can i get it on the same ticket or would i need to pay more miles for the hkg extension?
But the internet seems to suggest that any itinerary changes after Nov 1 will result in a reticketing at the new prices, which on the itinerary I’m planning would require us to come up with 50K miles to cover the shortfall, and we’re going to burn basically the entirety of our Amex balances on this so no points to spare here…
Oh well, I might still take the plunge – there’s only ever been one case in my life where I’ve had to change or cancel a booking…
Trying to book with Thai Airways via Mileage Plus.
Getting the following error message:
“Due to rapidly changing partner availability the following flights are no longer available. Please choose another flight or modify your search criteria.
Thai Airways flight TG472 – 18/04/2018 – 16:00 – Sydney, NSW, AU (SYD) to Bangkok, TH (BKK”
Have you heard of any issues recently with this?
If you need even more accuracy, you can use ANA’s site but you’ll need to sign up for that program to search.
I am planning the same flight before devaluation kicks in & it will be good to know so that I dont end up in the wrong plane.
Thanks.
Basically, the newer version has nine First Class seats and the older has ten in total. If you have access, you can check the seat map on ExpertFlyer. If not, maybe you can click through making a dummy reservation on the THAI website to access the seat map before payment details.
Hope that helps!
Thanks for highlighting this change.
Can I ask, how do you search for ANA flights on United website? Or, if you can’t, where do you recommend searching for them before calling United?
Thanks
As more people catch onto the frequent flyer game, there may be more devaluations but bonuses are also increasing, so travellers have more points to use too. It’s like inflation.
The US legacy carriers are leading the way with transitioning to revenue-based models but Alaska Airlines has held out until now and generally offers the best value program in the US market.