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As promised and threatened, on November 15th 2019, United eliminated close-in booking fees and stopped publishing award charts. I previously covered my thoughts about these changes with both a pessimistic view and an optimistic view:
Both of the above posts were written before the changes went into effect. Now that the changes are in place, we’re seeing both good and bad. Let’s start with the bad:
Bad News
- Higher award fees within 30 days: United appears to have replaced 21 day close-in booking fees with 30 day close-in increased award prices. Milestalk reports seeing one-way award prices inflated by 2,000 to 3,500 miles when booked within 30 days of departure. This is similar to what Delta did after dumping award charts. When this started in 2015, I called this a sneaky new close-in award ticketing fee. United seems to be doing the same but with both United and partner awards. Worse, 30 days is more than a week longer than Delta’s sneaky fee.
- Business class awards are not cheaper: With award charts disappearing, we expected to see award prices go down on cheaper flights. This already happened with economy flights well before November 15th (see: Finding United MileagePlus 5K Awards). However, we’re not seeing the same with business/first class flights. Through quite a few searches, I have yet to find a domestic first class flight priced at less than 25,000 miles one-way.
Good News
- Saver awards still bookable with partner miles: It never seemed likely to me, but with United moving towards revenue based pricing there was always the possibility that they would eliminate “saver” awards as a concept from their system. Luckily, that concept is still there and on display. That’s important because the existence of saver awards tells us that those same flights are bookable with partner miles.
- 30 day close-in award prices do not prevent booking with partner miles: This is huge. When Delta raised their close-in award prices it became impossible to book those flights with partner miles. Luckily, United is doing it differently and you can still book flights within 30 days of departure using partner miles as long as saver awards exist.
Shown above is a United flight for next week bookable with Avianca Lifemiles in both economy and business class. This is proof that United’s close-in extra award fees don’t affect booking United flights with partner miles. 
Domestic Delta flights cannot be booked with Virgin Atlantic miles within 21 days of departure. This calendar above shows that 21 days from today, the awards suddenly appear. - United has kept the partner award chart intact: When Delta eliminated award charts, all charts were gone, not just those for flying Delta itself. Fortunately, United has continued to publish their partner award prices (found here).
Big picture
For those that primarily book United flights with partner miles, the news is all good. You can keep doing what you’re doing. For those that book flights with United miles, the news is mixed. True, the $75 close-in fees went away (great!), but that’s not news — that was expected. The good news is that saver awards still exist, and that the partner award chart has not changed. The bad news is that we will now pay slightly higher award fees for flights booked within 30 days of departure.
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Is anyone else seeing the Excursionist perk getting priced out as >0 miles? Before Nov 15th, I could do a SIN-HKG excursionist leg for free, but now, it’s pricing out at 3.5k! That reeks. United.com page still says: “The Excursionist Perk is a *free* one-way award within select multi-city itineraries.” It burns me up that they’re charging for it. Do you think this is a temporary glitch? Do you think you could book it and call in to have the 3.5k refunded?
I haven’t looked to price these out. Have you tried going all the way through to the final price screen for the whole award? I’m wondering if it just shows the 3.5K in the middle when selecting the flight, but maybe fixes it on the check out screen?
I wish that were the case. On the checkout screen, it’s still adding in the 3.5k total. I’ve tried a couple of different itineraries too. Same thing.
Just tried using different itineraries/regions. The legs are something like this:
Departure: few days out
Excursionist: about a week out
Return: about two weeks out.
I’ve tried rewriting the itineraries so that the Excursionist leg was positioned in various regions/carriers:
(1) partner-operated international flights (SIN-HKG),
(2) United domestic US flights (NYC-LAX),
(3) United-operated international flights (MAJ-GUM).
In every case, the Excursionist leg is priced out at 3.5k. So, on such an itinerary, each of the three legs is getting hit with an extra 3.5k. What I used to be able to get for 16k + $75 is now pricing out at 26.5k!
The most insulting part is that the Excursionist leg was not supposed to have changed with the latest devaluation. If I had to make this booking today, I’d go through with the reservation, call United within 24 hours and ask to have the 3.5k for the Excursionist leg refunded, citing https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/mileageplus/awards/travel/types.html. But I’d rather see them correct the priceout on their website to honor what they’ve already stated, that the Excursionist benefit is a “free” leg. Unless United has a dictionary on their shelves that says: ‘free: the price of 3,500 units charged in exchange for a product or service.’
Did United just lower the change fee too or did it happen earlier and I missed it. Currently the chart shows a $75 change fee 61+ days in advance. It used to be $125, didn’t it?
Routes I have been checking on up 2500 or 3500 miles. Definately a devaluation
Hmm… Perhaps I should I start crediting my United flights to a different Star Alliance partner.
I’m not getting my hopes up quite yet. Continued close-in partner awards and 3,000 miles instead of the $75 close-in fee are definitely good news. But with an unpublished award chart my concern is that United will eventually deflate the value of miles.
Yes, that’s likely, but it’s great news that the partner award chart is still published since many of us primarily used United miles for partner flights anyway.
Agreed. It will be a major hit if/when United trashes the partner award chart. I have a feeling that’s coming before too long.
Dont worry something else will come along.