Just got off the phone with United, where an agent read a memo stating that to “ensure a seamless customer experience” the old award chart will remain in effect through 02 February 2014. All travel booked on or after 03 February will incur the new massively devalued rates.
My guess is that UA’s crack IT team could not complete the transition in time. I do not underestimate the difficulty of this re-code and I still have trouble envisioning how the award pricing will be displayed on united.com.
So take a deep breath! You have a couple more days to burn at the old rate.
ETA: United officially chimed in on Flyertalk that the new chart will take effect on Monday. It also said that those token areas where the amount of mileage required drops will now be able to take advantage of the new lower rate even before 03 February.
Hi everyone,
With the updated MileagePlus award chart about to take effect, I have a couple updates and clarifications to share (which a few of you have already noticed):
The new Saver and Standard Award mileage requirements will become effective on Feb 3. We have moved implementation to a weekday, to better ensure we are able to serve our customers, particularly those who call our contact centers for assistance.
Booking an award where the mileage amount should have been reduced on February 1? If you book one of these awards on February 1 or 2, we will honor the reduced mileage amount. Although initial ticketing will be at the current, higher level, we will retroactively re-price your award to the lower mileage amount within 10 business days.
I’ll provide another update confirming the new mileage requirements have become effective, on February 3.
Aaron Goldberg
Sr. Manager – Customer Experience Planning
United Airlines
Spin: we’re so Customer___Friendly we’re giving everyone the weekend to get a few more tickets!
Reality: SHARES is so incompetent that we can’t make the deadline we said we would 4 months ago
HA! I suppose there was a loophole after all. Per usual, “blame it on IT!”
It’s Feb 3….is IT at UA still having problems? I’m not seeing any changes yet looking for a roundtrip flight East/West USA.
All functionality has been restored.