Good news regarding United nixing award charts (and some bad news too)

11

a plane on the tarmac

As promised and threatened, on November 15th 2019, United eliminated close-in booking fees and stopped publishing award charts.  I previously covered my thoughts about these changes with both a pessimistic view and an optimistic view:

Both of the above posts were written before the changes went into effect.  Now that the changes are in place, we’re seeing both good and bad.  Let’s start with the bad:

Bad News

Good News

  • Saver awards still bookable with partner miles: It never seemed likely to me, but with United moving towards revenue based pricing there was always the possibility that they would eliminate “saver” awards as a concept from their system.  Luckily, that concept is still there and on display.  That’s important because the existence of saver awards tells us that those same flights are bookable with partner miles.
  • 30 day close-in award prices do not prevent booking with partner miles: This is huge.  When Delta raised their close-in award prices it became impossible to book those flights with partner miles.  Luckily, United is doing it differently and you can still book flights within 30 days of departure using partner miles as long as saver awards exist.
    a white background with black text
    Shown above is a United flight for next week bookable with Avianca Lifemiles in both economy and business class. This is proof that United’s close-in extra award fees don’t affect booking United flights with partner miles.

    a calendar with numbers and numbers
    Domestic Delta flights cannot be booked with Virgin Atlantic miles within 21 days of departure. This calendar above shows that 21 days from today, the awards suddenly appear.
  • United has kept the partner award chart intact: When Delta eliminated award charts, all charts were gone, not just those for flying Delta itself.  Fortunately, United has continued to publish their partner award prices (found here). a screenshot of a computer

Big picture

For those that primarily book United flights with partner miles, the news is all good.  You can keep doing what you’re doing.  For those that book flights with United miles, the news is mixed.  True, the $75 close-in fees went away (great!), but that’s not news — that was expected. The good news is that saver awards still exist, and that the partner award chart has not changed. The bad news is that we will now pay slightly higher award fees for flights booked within 30 days of departure.

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