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I’m not confident that united.com will price awards correctly starting next week or offer us all the best award choices.
February 1 marks the introduction of two new United charts that are much worse than the current chart (so you should be burning United miles for 2014 travel this week).
The way the charts should work according to United’s posts on FlyerTalk is that:
- Awards with all flights operated by United should be on the United chart.
- Awards in which United-operated flights are at least one cabin higher than partner flights should be on the United chart. (Example: Chicago to Frankfurt to Rome should be at the United business price–57.5k miles–if Chicago to Frankfurt is in United business and Frankfurt to Rome is in Lufthansa economy.)
- Awards with all flights operated by partners should be on the partner chart.
- Awards with partner flights in the same cabin or higher as United flights should be on the partner chart. (Example: Chicago to Frankfurt to Rome should be at the partner business price–70k miles–if Chicago to Frankfurt is in United business and Frankfurt to Rome is in Lufthansa business.)
- If you’re confused about numbers 2 and 4, see this fuller explanation.
I am not confident that the 2nd category–United flights in a higher cabin than partner flights–will price correctly or that we’ll even be offered these choices. For them to price correctly, united.com would need to be overhauled significantly.
Let’s look at this example of award space from Honolulu to Tokyo to Singapore. (Click it to enlarge.)
This award has two flights:
- Honolulu to Tokyo-Narita on United
- Tokyo-Narita to Singapore on ANA
There is Saver award space in both flights in economy. That’s what a blue button displaying the economy price of 25,000 miles each way means.
There is Saver award space in both flights in business class. That’s what a blue button displaying the business class price of 37,500 miles each way means.
There is Saver award space only in the United flight in first class. That’s what a blue button displaying the first class price of 50,000 miles with the Mixed Cabin explanation below means.
Through January 31, united.com is correctly pricing all the award possibilities in all the cabins.
Starting February 1, this exact same space will be priced much differently, and I don’t expect united.com to give us all the best options priced correctly.
Starting February 1, the options are:
- both flights in economy for partner economy price of 35k miles
- United Business and ANA economy for United business price of 50k miles
- both flights in Business for partner business price of 60k miles
- United First and ANA Business for United First price of 60k miles
I expect united.com to correctly offer the economy option at the economy price. I expect united.com to correctly offer both flights in business class at the partner business class price.
I do not expect united.com to show option 2: “United Business and ANA economy for United business price of 50k miles.” Why not?
United.com doesn’t currently show the option to fly United Business plus ANA economy. Of course, currently there’s no reason to show that option since business is available on both flights for no extra cost. But next week, booking both flights in business will cost more than invoking the rule that United business plus partner flights in economy stays on the cheaper United-only chart.
For United.com to make the tweak and show all four options I listed above would require a difficult rewriting of their search engine’s code (I imagine, I don’t know too much about coding.) United’s history of technical prowess during the United/Continental integration was poor, so I don’t expect united.com to correctly display options for United business plus partner economy at the United-only business price.
Right or wrong, I will have a follow up to this post on February 1. If united.com isn’t working properly for us, I’ll explain how to search for what you want to call in and book it for the proper price (and how to get the phone fee waived.) If united.com is properly displaying the new prices and all our options, I’ll congratulate United on a correct and difficult implementation.
Either way, burn your United miles by January 31, 2014 on your own or enlisting the help of my Award Booking Service.
I’m curious. What do you think? Will United correctly and clearly display all four options next week?
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Programming nightmare.
An interesting observation. Whether they can work the bugs out of this is to be seen but it would sure make the rests matrix a bit more confusing. Although I bet they will just ignore this and display the higher price and people would just have to run a bunch of one way searches to figure out their real options. I.e. the same as today.
The pricing aspect shouldn’t be too hard to code once you’ve made your choice, but the display options are a likely nightmare.
Take a situation where IAD-NRT is open in United business class, and NRT-SIN is open in ANA/Singapore business class AND economy class. Are they going to give you the option to book both online? Many people would find that flight long enough to pay a premium for business class, but others would much rather save the miles–I can see good arguments for both.
I’d would be terrifically ironic if the time spent by phone agents to book itineraries that were previously bookable online (with fee refunded since it’s not bookable online) actually cost United more money than they saved in this devaluation.
It sure would be. 6 days until we find out.
I was fooling around with the UA award engine looking at possible itineraries from PHX to ATH via FRA in 1st class and some strange things were happening. Not alot of availability to ATH but if I just plugged in PHX to FRA there were multiple itin. available most days. I checked to see if it was the FRA to ATH segment but there was plenty of availability there although sometimes only econ. If I tried to piece together the segments using the multiple cities feature then they would price out as 80K or higher. Looks like the availability is there I would just have to call up UA to get the right price. Since I already have an award ticket in biz class, I finally gave up on my fantasy of flying Lufthansa 1st class before the new award chart comes online. To much added expense for only the possibility (although pretty good chance) of flying in 1st. If I thought that there was a greater than 50% of flying the LF 380 from IAH to FRA I would go for it but I don’t think there’s a good chance of that. The itin. that comes up on most days if DTW to FRA on a A340-600 but I’m not as interested. Also, one thing that is very clear is that even it the award calendar has no shading on a date, you should click and check to be sure. I have found availability at the saver rate many times that way lately.
Thanks for the report. If the FRA layover is under 24 hours, call to get the correct price of 12,500 miles.
Scott: If I book a partner business class award ticket prior to Feb 1 and then change the dates (but not the departure and destination city) will I get charged the new devalued award price or is this a free change since I already have a confirmed award booking?
According to United’s statements on FlyerTalk, you will not have to pay additional miles. Will it work as United says it will? We’ll see.