The New York Times just ran a really bad article about Delta's move to a revenue-based frequent flyer program in 2015.

I'm going to delve into the Times article since many MileValue readers discovered the blog from a New York Times article ("How to Get a Seat Out of Your Award Miles") in which I was quoted extensively.

Note that this post was almost posted yesterday before news broke that Delta is moving to a revenue-based frequent flyer program--at least on the earning side. This post discusses flying before Delta's June 1 devaluation to its award chart, but can also be read as a general plea to burn Delta miles before January 1, 2015 when more changes are coming.

Delta's upcoming June 1 devaluation is a little different than United's was.

Earning Delta miles will be revenue-based starting January 1, 2015. Instead of earning miles based on the distance of your ticket, you will earn based on the price you paid.

Though earning miles is changing drastically for Delta flyers, redeeming them might not change so drastically.

What do we know so far and what do we still not know?

I stumbled on this change while researching the Delta award chart for another post. The new change is being teased there. I've supplemented that information with information from this Wall Street Journal article.

I was nervous that free oneways might be eliminated by United upon its new chart taking effect yesterday. There was a cryptic comment on the new award chart that stopovers on certain awards might require extra miles.

Free oneways rely on a stopover at your home airport to pull them off. If certain free stopovers were eliminated, free oneways could have been eliminated with them.

Yesterday, prices for award tickets booked with United miles surged for most routes as the devaluation announced last year finally took effect.

But the prices we're seeing on united.com aren't the prices I expected based on how United said the devaluation would work.

To review, United made its award pricing a lot more complicated by splitting its single award chart into two charts--one for awards on United planes and one for awards on partner planes.

In case your award flies both United flights and partner flights, United told us how to determine whether your award would price according to the

Update 2/4/14: Devaluation is live. It's different than we were told it would be.

Update at 3:18 PM: Some routes now show the updated price. For instance LAX-HNL is 22,500 in economy. Some routes don't. For instance ORD-FRA for today's flight in Lufthansa Business is showing 50,000 (the old price, new price is 70,000). And many searches show no results when there should be tons of results.

The MileValue Award Booking Service is standing by to book your United awards before United miles are devalued on February 3, 2014.

Awards are bookable this weekend that lock in the current price for all of 2014.

On Monday you'll pay 110k miles for one way in First Class to Europe. Pay 67,500 miles this weekend. Here are a bunch of other awards that are increasing in price on Monday!

Book now or forever hold your peace.

For more information about the Service, testimonials, and full pricing details, see this page.

Update: UA Insider on FlyerTalk confirms the delay in this post

The much-dreaded United award chart devaluation looks to be temporarily postponed until February 3rd.

Back in late October, United announced that they would be increasing the mileage costs of many awards, especially those flow in premium cabins.

United would also be splitting their award chart on February 1, 2014.

This is it. January 31, 2014. The day we've dreaded since United's trick or treat on October 31, 2013.

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.