United Has Tightened Routing Restrictions on Asia Awards

Exactly one month ago, I wrote a post entitled New, Stricter United MileagePlus Routing Rules for Travel Between USA and North Asia? At the time, I concluded the rumored draconian new routing restrictions on awards between North America and North Asia were merely rumors, but now it turns out they were a foretaste of what was to come. New routing rules have been published that (if true) significantly devalue the MileagePlus program. Currently, united.com has only been partially programmed to reflect these changes and my telephone interactions reveal no disceranable change in pricing. But I have to think the routing rules changed for a reason…

I hesitate drawing any attention to this, for fear United will speed up the “fix”, but the rules seems so incredibly harsh that I have to question whether even United would stoop this low. Here’s the new routing rules to North Asia–

THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS PUERTO RICO/US VIRGIN ISLANDS/INTL. POINTS IN THE
CARIBBEAN AREA/CENTRAL AMERICA.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS SOUTH AMERICA/MEXICO.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS SOUTH ASIAN SUBCONTINENT.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS S.W. PACIFIC/U.S. PACIFIC TRUST TERRITORIES.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS HONG KONG SAR/INDONESIA/PHILIPPINES/SINGAPORE.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS VIET NAM/THAILAND/MYANMAR/MALAYSIA.

Whoa! Talk about some heavy restrictions.

No routing through Hong Kong is a huge blow – it means Chicago-Hong Kong-Tokyo is no longer a valid routing and would price at 60K miles for the two segments in economy class rather than 35K. No routing through Singapore also eliminates a host of connecting flights choices. Eliminating the ability to route through Europe or Africa eliminates not just the ability to add free stopovers in Europe onto your award reservation, but the ability to find saver routings often available on airlines including Swiss, Turkish, Lufthansa, Austrian, SAS and Asian carriers like Singapore, Air China, Thai, EVA, ANA, and Asiana who offer saver award sapce from Europe to North Asia. Even Guam is out!

Here’s the even worse news–check out the new routing restrictions for North America to South Asia–

THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS PUERTO RICO/US VIRGIN ISLANDS/INTL. POINTS IN THE
CARIBBEAN AREA/CENTRAL AMERICA.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS SOUTH AMERICA/MEXICO.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS INDIA.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS S.W. PACIFIC/U.S. PACIFIC TRUST TERRITORIES.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA.

Not being able to route to South Asia via Europe does align United with American and Delta but makes no sense based on its Star Alliance partners and the conventional routings to reach points in SE Asia, especially from the U.S. East Coast.

The practical effect of this change is another stealth devaluation of the MileagePlus program–a devious change that essentially forces you to spend more miles by imposing such draconian routing restrictions that “usual” routes like the ones I highlight above now cost significantly more miles.

United has already tightened routing rules to Africa, eliminating routing via Asia and South America. So while Washington-London-Zurich-Istanbul-Nairobi-Johannesburg is a valid routing, Washington-Beijing-Johannesburg or Washington-Sao Paulo-Johannesburg is an illegal routing. Routing via GRU is even less than miles than routing via Europe!

And that’s not all. Previously, four transfers were permitted in each direction, meaning four connections and up to five segments were allowed. New rules now limit routing to three connections–

NOTE –
– 3 TRANSFERS PERMITTED ON THE PRICING UNIT
– FARE BREAK AND EMBEDDED SURFACE SECTORS NOT
PERMITTED ON THE FARE COMPONENT.

The (good) thing is that united.com is not enforcing these harsh rules on all routes–at least not yet. United still turns up routings via Europe and will still price out routings via Hong Kong to North Asia without breaking the fare.

But, this works on fewer and fewer routes and the multi-city search on united.com will not accept manual routings via Europe. Hopefully United will clarify these routing rules and prove me wrong, but I bring this matter to your attention now because if this is indeed the new policy, you should strongly consider booking an award trip now if you wish to transit Europe or South Asia.

Draconian routing restrictions are just as bad as points devaluations and can have an even greater effect on the value and use of miles. If United continues to implement unreasonable routing restrictions–without notice–the value of the MileagePlus program will severely erode (further).

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