There’s no denying that the miles and points hobby has evolved a lot over the years. It has gone mainstream, and that’s both good and bad. Opportunities to earn points are better than ever before, while sweet spots and opportunities to redeem points efficiently just aren’t what they used to be.
A few months ago, I shared a trend I was noticing when it comes to United award availability, which wasn’t official at the time, so we could only speculate as to what was going on. I did want to provide an update on this front, as the airline is no longer hiding this practice, and quite to the contrary, is actually highlighting it… and it’s exactly what I expected.
United guts business class award availability for partners
Historically, United has been pretty good about making saver level Polaris business class award seats available on long haul flights, including to members of partner frequent flyer programs. At least going back several years, the airline generally offered the same amount of saver level award availability to members of partner frequent flyer programs as it did to members of its own MileagePlus program.
Some seats were made available in advance, though most frequently we saw award space open up close to departure, when there were lots of unsold seats. In my experience, United had pretty consistently opened saver level business class award availability anywhere from a day out to a month out, assuming there were a good number of seats still for sale.
However, a few months ago that trend changed, at least when it comes to booking this award availability through partner frequent flyer programs. I’ll take it a step further — United basically no longer makes Polaris business class awards available to partner frequent flyer programs, like Air Canada Aeroplan and Avianca Lifemiles. It’s not just that availability is worse than before, it’s just basically non-existent at this point.
How United is now releasing business class award availability
I don’t want to bury the lede here — what’s going on is that saver level United Polaris business class award availability is now a perk of having MileagePlus Premier elite status, and/or of having a co-branded MileagePlus credit card.
Why? Well, loyalty programs are huge businesses for airlines, particularly for carriers in the United States, where much of their profits are generated from the programs. Obviously for airlines, their goal is to get you to pick up their co-branded credit card, and/or to try to qualify for elite status, so that you’re more engaged with the airline.
If you look for Polaris business class award availability now through MileagePlus and don’t have elite status or a co-branded credit card, you may very well see a high award cost, but then see a note about how “Cardmembers pay X,” with a much lower price listed.
For example, take a flight from Newark (EWR) to Marrakech (RAK), where a Polaris business class award on a particular flight costs 200K, unless you’re eligible for the lower pricing of 80K.
While United encourages you to get a co-branded credit card, MileagePlus elite status will also unlock that extra award space. If you’re logged into an elite account, you’ll see a note about how “PREMIERS SAVE X%,” highlighting the mileage savings.
For those curious about the method by which this is being limited, United MileagePlus has special types of award and upgrade inventory for select members. For example, while “I” is the saver level business class award fare class available to all, United also has “IN” inventory, which is extra saver business class award availability reserved for a subset of members.
Nowadays, “IN” availability is available to all MileagePlus Premier members (Silver, Gold, Platinum, Premier 1K, Global Services), as well as all cardmembers of a co-branded MileagePlus card with an annual fee.
The strategy here is pretty straightforward. For a long time, MileagePlus just hasn’t been competitive when it comes to premium cabin award pricing, and you’ve almost always been better off booking United awards through a partner program. So United’s way of making the MileagePlus program more appealing is to simply limit its best value awards to the members who are most engaged in MileagePlus.
Truth be told, the concept of limiting awards to a subset of members is becoming an increasingly common trend across the industry, and I suspect it will only continue to become more widespread. It’s especially frustrating for those trying to plan multi-carrier awards, since it’s hard to combine multiple airlines on one ticket if they’re limiting award availability to a subset of their own members. It’s amazing how hard it’s becoming to cross the Atlantic with Star Alliance miles…
Bottom line
In recent times, we’ve seen major changes to the ways that United Polaris business class award availability is released. It’s now completely clear what’s going on.
United is no longer making Polaris business class award seats available to members of partner frequent flyer programs. Instead, the airline is seemingly making these awards available only in the “IN” fare bucket, rather than in the “I” fare bucket. This means that the award availability is exclusively for MileagePlus Premier members, and for those with a co-branded MileagePlus credit card that has an annual fee.
As much as I don’t like this, I can’t say I’m surprised to see the airline head in this direction. The airline wants to maximize engagement and profits for its own program, and this is certainly one way to do that. Maximizing miles and points gets more complicated by the day…
What do you make of these changes to United Polaris business class awards?
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