What's on my mind the most is the implications of
any changes on award redemptions.
Not exact matches
However, these can
change depending
on the
redemption, and United airlines
award travel value depends
on the person.
The loss of a cherished
redemption on Thai Airways certainly hurts for those who like to get creative with their trips abroad, but United's
changes to
award rates to / from the U.S. were not too onerous.
For example, Delta recently
changed its partner
redemption rates so that a one - way business class
award to Europe
on Virgin Atlantic, Air France,... read more
Yesterday, while most people's attention was focused
on the addition of Premium Economy
redemptions to the Singapore Airlines
award chart (more
on that in a separate post), the airline slipped in a
change to the charts in a way that increased the cost of Premium Cabin Saver
Awards to certain European cities.
For example, Delta recently
changed its partner
redemption rates so that a one - way business class
award to Europe
on Virgin Atlantic, Air France, KLM, or Alitalia costs 85,000 SkyMiles.
Some die - hard AA lovers did try to put lipstick
on that pig, but things are even worse than you showed because your clearly objective evaluation of how you'll be hit
on the EARN side once AA switches over to the revenue system did not include the
change that's been made to the
award charts
on the
REDEMPTION side!
American Airlines hasn't made any
changes to its
redemption options aside from some modifications made in March, and said it still plans to show the
award redemption requirements
on its website.
With the introduction of so many different
award classes, the miles needed for an
award have
changed drastically: Some of the «Standard»
awards have dropped by more than 20 % — that was to be expected as all the routes in question have offered very cheap economy fares over the last year, making a
redemption on these routes generally unattractive.
Yesterday my analysis of the
award chart
changes was focused
on redemptions originating and terminating in the US.
People love Aeroplan because they offer some pretty great
redemption options (90,000 miles for business class to Europe, though they've recently
changed their
award chart to be less valuable)-- see here for details, and they love ANA because with their distance - based rewards you can get some great values (63,000 ANA miles for a business class ticket
on Virgin to London which until recently did not require Virgin's outrageous fuel surcharges).