MileValue is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.
Note: Some of the offers mentioned below may have changed or are no longer be available. You can view current offers here.
Starting March 1, 2015, you will earn award miles on United tickets according to the cost of the ticket instead of the distance flown.
Delta announced a nearly identical move a few months ago, and at the time my headline included “The Sky is Not Falling.”
The sky is still not falling. For everyone except United elites, these changes will have very little impact. The far worse news from United for most of us is still the devaluation of its award chart that went into effect in February.
The outsized value I get from miles comes from redeeming them to visit interesting countries in business or first class with stopovers, open jaws, and free one ways built into my awards. That outsized value remains unaffected by today’s changes.
The outsized value that comes from earning miles on cheap, long United tickets disappears starting March 1, 2015.
- What will the new earning structure be?
- How can you still earn United miles based on distance flown?
- How are miles earned from credit cards affected?
- How are award redemptions affected?
Change to Award Mileage Earning
United announced changes to award mileage earning today that take effect on March 1, 2015:
- For flights March 1, 2015 and later
- booked with United (ticket number beginning “016”)
- members will earn 5-11x of the dollar price of the base fare plus fuel surcharges
- based on status:
Currently you earn 1 mile per mile flown with bonuses for status and cabin flown.
The new earning structure will be worse for folks who fly far, cheap tickets and better for people who fly short, expensive tickets. Overall, it will be worse for more people and will disproportionately affect people in the frequent flyer community, many of whom are mileage runners.
This part of the announcement is bad news, though remember that just because you fly a United flight doesn’t mean you have to credit the award miles to United. You can enter your frequent flyer number with a United partner instead, and you should consider crediting future United tickets to ANA, Aeroplan, or Singapore if United status doesn’t matter to you.
No Changes to Partner Tickets Credited to United
Tickets for flights operated by a Star Alliance or MileagePlus partner airline that aren’t issued by United (ticket numbers that don’t start with “016”) will still earn award miles based on distance flown and the purchased fare class.
That is, if you buy a Singapore flight from Singapore Airlines, you can still input your United MileagePlus number and earn United miles based on distance flown.
No Changes to Credit Card Earnings
Your United credit card will still earn miles in exactly the same way.
No Changes to Earning Status
Last June, United announced changes to how status would be earned this year. The big change was the addition of a minimum spending requirement on United tickets or credit cards. How to earn status with United did not change today.
What Can You Do?
If you are not planning on flying many paid United flights, these changes are barely going to affect you. You can still earn heaps of United miles from credit cards and redeem on the United award chart at reasonable levels for economy, business, and United Global First awards (but not partner First Class awards, which are obscenely expensive.)
If you are a United elite, you have to decide whether staying with United makes sense or whether a switch to American or no airline loyalty makes more sense. Since Delta has already announced basically the same changes that United announced today, switching there makes no sense.
Switching to American is risky because what will stop them from making identical changes to their two main competitors, Delta and United?
I do like Gary Leff’s suggestion to try to let American know you are switching because their loyalty program is not revenue-based if you can, but I’m not really sure how you could let American know that.
Bottom Line
United went to a revenue-based earning program, which is not a big deal to most of us. If they had gone to revenue-based redemption, that would be far worse.
Today’s news is bad for most United elites, but pretty much a non-issue for most of us. Time will tell whether moving to revenue-based award mile earning is better or worse for Delta and United and whether American apes them or stays the course with distance-based earning.
I’ll watch with interest because the airline industry fascinates me, and I want readers to have the latest news but not because this is a huge, scary story for most of us. This is a small story for most of us.
Just getting started in the world of points and miles? The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the best card for you to start with.
With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel℠ and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!
Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers.
The comments section below is not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all questions are answered.
While mileage earning totals may decrease, more importantly, PQM will NOT change. According to their FAQ page…”You will still earn Premier® qualifying miles (PQM) based on the distance of your flight. Premier members will still earn a minimum of 500 PQM on United and United Express flights shorter than 500 miles.”
So when trying to earn status, you’ll still get the full credit for the distance of the flight flown, though the ‘bankable’ may be less.
Unlike some other blogs on this announcement, Scott got the details right and analyzed it in a reasonable way. Other people around the net appear to misunderstand that this change only affects tickets issued by United, which some blogs/articles do not make clear. I suppose there may be people in the U.S. that have to buy from and fly on United, but personally, even though Mileage Plus is my main program, I try to buy from and fly on just about any Star Alliance member other than United, and when I am forced to fly United, I buy my tickets from AC.
[…] Mile Value: United MileagePlus Earning Will Be Revenue-Based in 2015 […]
This is a tough call.
I’m closing in on 800,000 lifetime flight miles on United (most earned on the old Continental).
I fly about 50k a year and at one million miles, my spouse and I will be Gold for life.
This change is not good for me living on the West coast and flying across country to meet with clients.
Decisions, decisions.
[…] For instance, a recent paid flight I flew was a $129 one way flight from Chicago to Los Angeles on United, with which I had Silver status. Instead of paying cash, I could have booked the flight with just over 10k ThankYou points, and I would have still earned 2,181 miles for flying it, including my 25% status bonus. (Of course, United is changing the earning structure for paid flights next year.) […]
I am 2 million mile flyer with United and have been 1K member for over 15 years in a row.
The new rules are making me earn far less miles. For a flight from Singapore to Tokyo, which I take few times a year, I got 2783 miles vs. previously 6656.
I understand that the new program is designed to reward flyers who pay more for United services, but there is no reason to punish everyone else. I run my company and always try to keep the cost down.
I called American Airlines where I have currently only a Gold status and they instantly offered me matching Executive Platinum membership. Bye bye United…
Yes mileage earning is worse with United for almost everyone this year. Hopefully AA doesn’t follow suit next year.
I have reached my limit in tolerating United’s appalling treatment of its customers, Elite or not. I am “only” a 500k flyer with over 10-years of loyalty to Continental which was a great airline, then United which started to take the cheese off the pizza from day-1. After several disastrous travel experiences caused by maintenance and over-booking issues leading to no spare capacity if something goes wrong, I have started the switch to American. I am finding American service only barely better, but the prices are consistently cheaper on the routes I fly. bye-bye United. However, given the lack of effective consumer regulation in the USA compared with Europe where flights are typically one third the price of equivalent flights here, I am doubtful American will be able to resist the temptation to join United at the bottom.
[…] announced a nearly identical move in February 2014, and United copied Delta in June 2014. Both changes are already in effect, so American is just playing catch up (catch down?) here. At […]
[…] a lot more intentional. Lately United has loved copying Delta with award chart devaluations and revenue-based mileage earning. Maybe United wants to copy Delta in the future by deleting its award charts, and answering the […]
[…] March of 2015, United switched to a revenue-based award earning structure that is much like the structure American Airlines’ is adopting come this August. The […]