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Take a deep breath. For now.
- United deleted their award charts today for flying on United flights. We knew this was coming.
- United saver awards still exist! That means that cardholders and elite members will continue to have expanded saver award availability and that you should still be able to setup a Plan B saver business award. That’s amazing news!
- United saver awards are still pricing at the levels published in their previous award chart, which is saved here on DansDeals servers where they can’t be Smiseked, Munozed, Kirbyed, or Bonvoyed.
- Some United saver awards are pricing even lower than they were before today, which is a pleasant surprise. Anything that is pricing at previous saver award levels or below are marked as a saver award.
- You can still search for saver awards using the United calendar search option found on the United.com desktop homepage.
- United is still publishing a saver award chart for partner airlines! This is surprisingly positive news!
- United is still publishing upgrade award charts for travel on United.
- United has eliminated the $75 close-in award booking fee! Of course DansDeals Seminar attendees didn’t pay that fee for years until some bloggers who came to a seminar decided to leak that secret. This comes after United also eliminated the expiration of miles.
- My long-term concern is that United will start pricing close-in tickets significantly higher, as Delta does. But for now, United still has excellent close-in saver award availability.
I’m still very disappointed that United felt the need to remove their saver award charts even while keeping saver awards around. It breaks the bond of trust with their members as they can now change the rates whenever they feel like it without providing any notice. And it’s why I try to focus on accumulating hybrid points rather than airline miles.
However, this represents the best case scenario for today’s changes. Color me pleasantly surprised!
United certainly scared everyone with their original announcement. They’ll get positive coverage about what actually happened. Of course the pessimist would say that the real devaluations are still yet to come and United is taking the slowly boiled frog approach. But for now I’m heaving a big sigh of relief.
Here are some screenshots of how things look as of today.
Cleveland to NYC still has saver awards pricing at the previous 10K short-haul level and there are dynamic award pricing at less than that.
The United saver award calendar shows that close-in space is still excellent:
That means United miles remain significantly more valuable than Delta miles with their high last minute award rates:
Tel Aviv to Newark is still pricing at 42.5K miles in saver coach and 75K miles in saver business:
Chicago to London is still pricing at 35K miles in saver coach and 60K miles in saver business:
Los Angeles to Shanghai is still pricing at 35K miles in saver coach and 70K miles in saver business:
What do you think of the changes United made today?
Solid write up.
+1
Thanks 🙂
+1
The screen shot is how it looks as of today? It shows the savor awards.. what’s the difference? It used to show how many points on each calendar day?
You can still view the saver award calendar or the points calendar.
What are the savor award charts? Why is it any different than the calendar?
I think if u like at the link in #3 u will see the charts (now removed) versus the calendar (still present)
Now I don’t have to buy close-in award tickets on Air Canada/Aeroplan !
Would love if you made a post about dead tricks/methods!
+1
Someone’s gonna bentch gomel tommorow
You don’t bench Gomel until the danger is over ….
Why when I search TLV EWR dec 25 I don’t see 75K saver and in your screenshot I do see it?
cle-ewr went up from 10k to 12.5k in the last 2 hours
Dude, it has only been hours….Lets see how everything looks in a week or next month!
Of course. But at first glance, at least they’re keeping the concept of a saver award around and they still have saver award charts for partners.
Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but…
1. *A airlines are known for having good close-in availability.
2. With some notable exceptions, award space on *A airlines that’s available to partners is easy to find, by looking at what’s available either to the partner, to a different partner, or on the operating carrier as Saver.
3. Delta hates SkyTeam. United doesn’t hate *A.
4. Delta award space available to partners (including non-alliance) is difficult to find – no Saver chart, different seats for different partners, no good flexible dates search on most partners, etc.
5. United has not shown signs they want to screw with what’s available to partners. Among ones I’ve booked with, Avianca gets screwed out of some seats, as does Turkish sometimes; but for the most part, Saver awards – at least the ones I’ve been interested in – are easily bookable with partners, and have not gotten more difficult to find or book recently.
6. Avianca has maintained pretty good redemption rates, Turkish hasn’t done away with the domestic/Hawaii sweet spot, and Singapore has kept its Economy chart intact – evidence that United isn’t pushing back against partner bookings.
So I think they’ll keep the Saver designation, as they seem to benefit from partner bookings – something Delta doesn’t seem to want – and have shown no signs of wanting to change that. If they do see an opportunity to raise prices or lower availability, I think they’ll find other ways to do it. I don’t think they can afford to do what Delta did, as they can’t compete on quality and would have even fewer advantages to offset that.
Dynamic pricing just took my ridiculously expensive 1-way award from 45k to 102k UA
United’s seats in economy stink especially on a long trip they are so u comfortable. Tlv-Pbi. So unless you upgrade or buy Polaris seats or the purple ones that recline its not worth it.
LAX/SFO to TLV saver awards went up to 77.5k. Luckily we booked a few days ago.
US->Pakistan Coach increased from 42.5K to 46K oneway
I was looking to change my business award ticket from Zurich to Miami in early December, and all business awards are pricing at 73,500 miles now instead of 70,000 miles. Has this now increased without you knowing. Even tap Portugal and all other airlines were pricing at 73,500 miles!
Ewr – tlv now is 45k when it’s close to travel, they stop the fee but raised rates
Close in booking fee hasn’t exactly been eliminated (even though United earlier mentioned it would be), it’s just replaced with a miles based close in booking fee. I’d rather pay a 3500 miles fee than a $75 fee, but it still feels disingenous on United’s part given how they’ve snuck this in.
Hi dan, if death in family and need to cancel w united, ticket purchased via chase- would United refund?
Chase third party Insuravce impossible to work with
Takes weeks of documentation and they just don’t resolve
Call United.
Dan,
do you as a GS member see doted business saver award availability on the chart above when only PZ class is available or you have to call united to book it?
what class is premium economy saver award?
Call.
I don’t think there is a class for that.
in other words, premium economy saver award doesn’t exist?
It does, but it’s quite rare. I’ve seen it on EWR-LHR for 45K.
It doesn’t have a dedicated fare class AFAIK, it’s fully dynamic.
do partner airlines like Singapore have access to it?
Not that I know of.
Thanx
Called United
Rep said to apply on line /refunds
But refunds says need to cancel first and this can only be canceled by third party
Do u think united would come through?
Will they give a check refund ?
Paid by ur
Ur gave them chase own cc
Not pax
dan. be to advise you that the saver price became 3k more and they did it for all partners as well tough they told in many forms that the will not touch the chard of the partner’s airlines