Fearing that United Airlines had further tightened up award routing rules to Asia based on a new and restrictive revision of the fine print, I warned in May that if enforced, United’s draconian new routing rules would mark a stealth devaluation of the MileagePlus program. Though the new rules remain in effect (published), they have thankfully been not enforced. Even better, award rules to Southern Africa from North America have loosened up, making United points much more versatile to get you to Africa.
South African Airways runs service from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Johannesburg and the award space is good – very good. Securing this routing via Aeroplan or US Airways (when it was part of Star Alliance) was never a problem – it is actually more direct than flying via Europe. But about a year and a half ago, United restricted routing rules to Africa and prohibited connections in South America or Asia for travel between Africa and North America.
That not only knocked out the Sao Paulo option I mentioned above but a reliable west coast option of traveling via Beijing. With generous space to Beijing from LAX or SFO on Air China and generous space from Beijing to Johannesburg on South African, west coast travelers could book business class to South Africa with just a single connection.
But something has changed. While doing an award search on united.com today, I was pleasantly surprised to see this routing on offer for travel between Pittsburgh and Johannesburg–
130K miles is the Star Alliance saver first class rate. Thinking this was just a glitch I pulled up the routing rules and they have indeed changed for the better—
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS HAWAII/ALASKA.
AND
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 BOLIVIA/COLOMBIA/ECUADOR/PANAMA/PERU/VENEZUELA/
MEXICO.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS ARGENTINA/CHILE/PARAGUAY/URUGUAY.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS SOUTHEAST ASIA/S.W. PACIFIC/MICRONESIA/JAPAN/KOREA,
REP. OF/KOREA, DEM. PEOPLE’S REP. O.
Note that while most of Asia and South America is still blocked, Brazil and China are no longer blocked. What that means – if it sticks – is two new opportunities to use your United miles to get to Africa and more importantly, a positive enhancement by United.
After painful devaluations on both the mileage earning and redemption sides, this little reversion to a previous more generous rule does nothing to redeem United, but I give UA credit for making a common-sense change to the routing rules. I was one who expressed strong feedback questioning the change in routing rules in the first place and it appears United has listened to its customers for a change.
Based on my (one and only) experience with SAA business class, it’s barely worth more than coach.
South African also flies EZE-JNB. Unfortunately the routing rules restrict connecting in Argentina for some reason.
@Chris, based on several 18 hr trips on SAA, in both coach and business, biz is significantly better.
Nice to see some changes for the good. SO used to it being the other way these days!
@Mason: Correct, Argentina is blocked.
@Chris: I loved the seat in SA Business (JNB-MUC). Slept like a baby. Food was average, IFE poor and service was horrible. But the seat wins.
130K UA to fly UA F and SAA J?
Wouldn’t I be better off using AC on this route? It’s 75K AC and $27.60 in tax (IAD-GRU-JNB)
It’s great UA is allowing passage via brazil but the numbers compel us to do AC instead.
Good news indeed. But looks like they still don’t allow transit through Panama, which is bad. COPA usually has decent award availability back to the US, did JNB-GRU-PTY-IAD-SFO when they used to allow routing through Brazil (much thanks to your help !) and it was a blast !
@Jeremy:AC is 75K for C while UA is 80K for C. There are no fuel surcharges on SA/UA, so it is a wash for business.