I’ve already written my thoughts about the changes to United’s award charts and upgrade policies last week. So did a lot of other bloggers. Thanks to the collection of data I have from the Hack.Travel site I got to see just how much was written about it. Turns out there was a lot. I’m counting well over 40 blog posts about the topic and I know I’ve missed a few from the collection. Also, the variety of the headlines is actually pretty interesting. We’ve got “MASSIVE” and “devastation” in there. “Gutted” shows up a few times in one form or another. And there are a few who suggest that it isn’t all that bad.
Perhaps the biggest surprise to me, however, was the repeat posters. I guess some people just really had a lot to say on the topic.
Any favorite posts you read about the news??
- BIG United increases award costs – from 1 Feb 14 – Star Alliance carriers – MilesFromBlighty
- United Massively Devalues Its Award Chart Starting February 1, 2014 – MileValue (Scott)
- United’s Frequent Flyer Award Prices are Going Up, Up, Up. Redeem Now (for Premium Cabin Partner Travel Outside the Americas). – View from the Wing
- Black Friday Is Truly Dark. United Decides Their “Friend”ship Costs More, Raises Many Award Prices – Pizza in Motion
- Neither Trick Nor Treat: Massive United MileagePlus Devaluation – Food, Wine, and Miles
- Frequent Miler’s interview with United regarding their massive award chart devaluation – FrequentMiler
- United Devaluation – Need A Laugh? – Frugal Travel Lawyer
- Rant: This United Devaluation Nonsense is Stressing Me Out – Just Another Points Traveler
- Quick Analysis of United’s Recent Devaluation Announcement – Milenomics
- United Award Chart Changes Bad, But Not Horrible for Most – Mommy Points
- Massive Changes to United MileagePlus Award Charts Effective February 1– Frequently Flying
- United Airlines MASSIVE Award Chart Devaluation/Devastation – Mike
- United Devalues MileagePlus, What’s Next? – Miles, Points, and Mai Tais
- Fly The Unfriendly Skies of United: Massive Devaluation of Award Chart – Live and Let’s Fly
- New United MileagePlus Award Chart Damages Star Alliance – One Mile at a Time
- Eight Silver Linings of Today’s Massive United Mile Devaluation – MileValue (Scott)
- United Devalues MileagePlus Award Chart – Ariana Arghandewal
- Some Clarifications on Today’s United Devaluation – Mommy Points
- Updates from United on the Award Devaluation – Canadian Kilometers
- What Should We Call United Miles Now? – View from the Wing
- New MileagePlus award chart released: OUCH! – Wandering Aramean
- Clarification from United Airlines on Award Chart Changes – Live and Let’s Fly
- Why United Devalued its Award Chart: Three Competing Explanations – View from the Wing
- How to Use United’s New Award Chart to Travel to Non-United Destinations at the Lower United Price – View from the Wing
- Let’s Break Down The United MileagePlus Award Chart Changes – Food, Wine, and Miles
- Who’s to Blame for the United Devaluation? – Milenomics
- Recap of United’s Downgrades: Award Charts, ExpertFlyer and Meals – Frequently Flying
- The Other United Airlines Devaluation: Fewer Upgrades at a Higher Cost – Live and Let’s Fly
- United Didn’t Just Change their Award Prices, They Changed Upgrades Too – View from the Wing
- United MileagePlus Devaluation – Badice.com
- United Increases International Award Prices, Drastically! – Deals We Like
- Three Ways to Beat the February 2014 United Miles Devaluation on Premium Cabin Awards – MileValue (Scott)
- United Airlines Devaluation for MileagePlus Award Tickets – The Miles Professor
- The game goes on, Stardust and all – FrequentMiler
- How Do United’s New Award Charts Stack Up Against American and Delta? – View from the Wing
- My Thoughts on United MileagePlus Changes – MJ on Travel
- The new United award chart – what you need to know and where is the value now? – Mighty Travels (Torsten)
- Should I Double Down on Delta After the United Devaluation? – Free World Travel (jeffsetter)
- Best Ways To Use Your United Miles – One Mile at a Time
- United Devaluation… Thoughts a few days later – We Fly Free
- What Economics Tells Us About Mileage Inflation, and Why United is Now a Banana Republic – View from the Wing
- MILES&POINTS: United Airlines announces changes to the cost of award flights – Frugal Asian Man
- United’s Newest Customer Unfriendly Campaign: Increase the Cost of Award Tickets – The Points Guy
- My Fears Realized: United Guts Their Award Chart – Online Travel Review
- United MileagePlus Award Chart Devaluation – One Mile at a Time
- Win a United Airlines Devaluation Belt! – Will Run For Miles
- Big United Miles Devaluation – Coach Increases Slightly, but First Class Star Alliance Awards Almost Double! – Million Mile Secrets
- United Devaluation – UA Significantly Devalues Award Chart as of 2/1/14 – Travel Summary
- United Guts Its Award Chart – Hack My Trip (Amol)
- HUGE UNITED DEVALUATION – Canadian Kilometers
- Contemplating the End… – TravelBloggerBuzz
- Full Summary of United Devaluations & New Developments…plus my personal exposure – Point me to the Plane
- Alternatives to United for Star Alliance premium awards – MileCards
- How United’s new awards compare to Delta, American & US + What you should do – MileCards
- New United ‘Standard’ award chart – more loss almost everywhere – MileCards
Sorry to anyone who wrote one I missed in the recap here. It certainly wasn’t on purpose. Also, sorry that I don’t have links to all the original posts. The data collection doesn’t make that easy and I’m too lazy to go collect all the links manually.
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I prefer this horse to be beaten than credit card pimpin’ disguised as “breaking news.” Though, I’m sure many of these posts had gratuitous links to the Chase United Explorer cards and Sapphire/Ink cards.
I flew 130K on UA last year. This year 32K Star PQM most of which was not on UA.
I will use my GPUs, burn my miles, and fly UA only if there is no other viable option.
It is a shame the UA longer values its high value customers.
Are you a high value customer, Charles? I have more PQMs than that but I know I’m not one. Just flying a lot of miles doesn’t necessarily make one valuable to an airline.
You should do a follow-up post on which blogs used the devaluation as an excuse to pimp the Ultimate Rewards cards
Not surprising to any of us I’m sure, that includes some of the larger boarding area blogs, especially a certain blogger who prefers not to take things multiple miles at a time
Miles at a time got banned from ua years ago. Thats why he flies aa.
@Skip He’s kind of the poster boy for ‘over entitled elite’ a la Rainey as are some of the author’s quoted by our lost columnist. 🙂
What’s striking is that few are calling out the elimination of stopovers on open-jaw tickets.
Especially those who gratuitously abused it and relied on telling how to abuse it to build a following. Fortunately Chase/UA were smart and didn’t let the gratuitous ones make money off their cards.
Has that change been confirmed, Greg?
That would be quite significant, but I haven’t seen it in the rules yet.
Seems to be
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/21708538-post422.html
That’s a confirmation that something might change. It does not appear clear what exactly is changing. It might be no more stopovers in a transit zone rather than no stopovers at all. It might be no stopovers at the point of origin. It might be a lot of things.
I try not to get bent out of shape until I have confirmation of what the rules actually are.
Frequently Flyer Programs are not a natural right, such as freedom of speech, etc the ways so many seem to talk about them. They are a gimmick to make people spend more money with the particular airline. United doesn’t think they are getting as much bang from their FFP buck as they could spending it else where or just holding on to it so they are changing their FFP.
If people complain, write endless blog post , … about how bad it is and United doesn’t see a correlation or -gasp- there isn’t one between these devaluations which have occurred since _fill_in_your_date_ then they aren’t going to change and may get ‘worse’.
If these changes are bad for airlines bottom dollar or in fact if things are bad for the airlines for any reason, then things will revert and/or some other bangle will be dangled in front of us to chase (no ®).
If not, get use to it. 🙂
I read a lot of these “miles and points” blogs… what is shocking is that there are so many! I’m only reading about 20% of this list. 🙂
And that list is hardly the full collection, Erik. I’ve got more than 140 in the source list for Hack.Travel last I checked, and I know there are some missing there as well.
i dont understand the following:
on a mileage flight if departure and destination are same but you change the city connecting at after Feb 1st -does this change
number of miles to new requirements?
similarly,as stopovers on openjaw roundtrips will be bannedafter feb 1st,if you change the connecting city will this invalidate the openjaw roundtrip or push it to higher mileage requirements?
thanks