United Makes Major Negative Changes To Its Miles Program

The coronavirus pandemic has caused unprecedented disruptions in the travel industry, forcing some airlines to cut flights by over 90%, or even to ground their fleets altogether. After the initial waves of cancellations and the chaos of issuing refunds began to subside, some airlines turned their focus to shoring up their frequent-flier programs and devising strategies for maintaining their fliers’ loyalty until travel can resume.

Among them, United extended its MileagePlus members’ current elite status for another full year, through January 31, 2021. It also cut the usual elite qualification requirements for 2020 in half. The airline had already eliminated mileage expiration last August. Now, however, United has made two major negative changes to its mileage program that will affect customers aiming for elite status as well as those who hope to redeem their hard-earned miles for award tickets.

Cuts To Earning Elite Status With Partners

Last fall, United announced a dramatic overhaul to how MileagePlus members would earn Premier elite status starting this year. In the past, fliers would achieve status based on spending between $3,000-$15,000 on tickets and flying between 25,000-100,000 miles or 30-120 flight segments in a calendar year, depending on the status tier.

Beginning in 2020, though, the airline instituted new metrics called Premier Qualifying Flights (PQFs) and Premier Qualifying Points (PQPs). PQFs are basically the same as segments. However, fliers earn one Premier Qualifying Point for every U.S. dollar spent on airfare, carrier-imposed surcharges, and certain other purchases like Preferred and Economy Plus seating assignments and paid upgrades, but not taxes. In a normal year, the new status requirements range from earning 12 PQFs and 4,000 PQPs (spending $4,000 on airfare) or 5,000 PQPs ($5,000 on airfare) for Premier Silver status all the way up to 54 PQFs and 18,000 PQPs ($18,000 on airfare) or just 24,000 PQPs ($24,000) for top-tier Premier 1K status. 

United also altered how fliers rack up elite-qualifying activity on partner airlines, such as those in the Star Alliance and others like Aer Lingus. In previous years, you had to buy a ticket through United with a “016” in the ticket number in order to rack up credit for your airfare spending on partner flights. So if you bought a ticket on Singapore Airlines through Singapore Airlines itself, your spending would not have counted toward elite status. Now, however, travelers can earn PQPs on partner flights, even if they were not purchased through United. Up until now, you divided the award miles earned on a flight (which is usually based on the distance flown) by either five or six (it depends on the partner airline), and that would determine the number of PQPs you earned. That was great news for folks who fly a mix of airlines but like to credit their activity to one mileage program, especially as it meant that passengers flying long-haul partner flights could rack up PQPs relatively cheaply.

Without any warning, though, United has placed new, extremely low caps on the maximum number of PQPs you can earn on partner flights, ruthlessly undercutting the value proposition of booking with other airlines.  For flights on or after July 1, 2020, MileagePlus members can only earn up to 500-750 PQPs per flight segment in economy or premium economy, and 1,000-1,500 in business or first class, depending on the partner.

To put that into context, let’s say you booked a round-trip ticket on Singapore Airlines from Los Angeles to Singapore in premium economy. Prior to this change, you would have earned 17,540 award miles and 2,923 PQPs. Now, you’d only earn a mere 1,000 PQPs. That’s an astonishing 66% reduction. By making this move, United has seriously restricted the potential elite-qualification earning fliers can expect on its partners. And worse, it did so with no advanced warning to its customers.

United Removes Partner Award Charts (And Raises Some Prices)

Just a day later, United also removed the award charts for partner flights from its website and made the award pricing variable. This development was a long time coming since the airline announced it would do so in November, but only got around to it now. However, it makes it no less painful for folks who were looking forward to redeeming their award miles for flights on the airline’s partners, like ANA, Lufthansa and SWISS, once international travel becomes possible again. 

Why is this significant? Before now, award flights on partners priced out at specific levels depending on the cabin class and regions in which travel was taking place. Now, however, there are no pegged mileage values for partner flights. That means some award tickets might price out at fewer miles, but you can bet that those in premium classes of service will begin creeping up in price. In fact, based on a search of various partner flights from the U.S. to Europe and Asia, it seems like this move is actually a 10% price hike on partner tickets across the board.

For example, if you wanted to fly from the U.S. to Europe on a partner airline like Austrian Airlines or SAS, you would need 30,000 miles each way in economy or 70,000 in business class. Now, however, flights are pricing out at 33,000 miles in economy and 77,000 miles in business class. It used to cost 80,000 United miles to fly ANA business class from Los Angeles to Tokyo, but awards are now pricing out at 88,000 miles each way. Flying partners such as Air New Zealand or EVA Air from the U.S. to Australia or New Zealand still costs 40,000 miles in economy, but 99,000 miles in business class instead of 90,000.

While a 10% upcharge might not seem like much, keep in mind that these pricing changes went into effect as soon as United removed the partner charts from its website. So you can bet there are more price increases to come. If you have been saving up your United miles for a trip sometime in the future, consider redeeming them as soon as possible to protect yourself from possible further devaluations.

It is not unusual for airlines to tweak their mileage programs and award charts. What is unusual is the timing of all of this. Like other airlines, United is posting enormous losses and burning through its cash reserves quickly while travel is almost completely locked down. It made some positive changes to the MileagePlus program recently in order to keep its most loyal fliers engaged, even when they can’t travel. However, by turning around and implementing these negative changes with no notice whatsoever, the airline has drastically undercut the value of remaining loyal to United and its partners after coronavirus-related travel restrictions begin to ease.