As if yesterday's move of adding
minimum-spend requirements to attain elite status was not bad
enough, United today (with no advance notice) has updated its award
fee chart and General Members will be hit hard.
No more free routing cha...
As if yesterday's move of adding
minimum-spend requirements to attain elite status was not bad
enough, United today (with no advance notice) has updated its award
fee chart and General Members will be hit hard.
No more free routing changes outside of 21 days. Now $75.
Changes within 21 days now $100.
Cancellation and redeposit now $200 for General
Members.
Premier Members not affected.
Affects only tickets booked on or after June 19, 2013.
Here's the
new fee schedule. I've highlighted the changes in red
below.
Why the change now?
Many asked yesterday how United would make elite status more
valuable in exchange for adding minimum revenue requirements. Today
we get a taste of Untied's answer: make MileagePlus less valuable
for General Members!
So I suppose you can say that elite status will be more valuable
on United when it comes to booking award travel, but none of us
should be comforted by the addition of more consumer fees:
especially in light of the fact that an award routing change more
than 21-days out (and even close-in) is cost-neutral to United when
done online. In fact, I would think that United would welcome
online changes as travel approaches, because usually people change
to more direct flights, meaning that United theoretically saves on
money it must shell out to partners for award seats.
What is next?
While I do not believe that United will embrace a revenue-based
redemption model, I would look for an inflated award chart and the
introduction of fuel surcharges in the next 18 months. Those
changes would certainly affect more than just General
Members...
Bottom Line
United MileagePlus still is the most valuable U.S. mileage
currency overall, but the ability to change routing outside of 21
days (now only available with American Airlines and not for long I
suspect) was a great benefit that will be missed by many of my
Chase-card-holding clients, no doubt.
I wonder if UA cleared this with Chase? Poor form that more
notice was not given...
(HT:
Hack my Trip)