United Mileage Plus Frequent Flyer Program Devaluing Miles.

United Airlines has announced that starting February 1, 2014, they will be raising the award rates for most award bookings.

In addition to raising the award rates on many routes, under the new chart there will also be no more saver awards when booking on any of their 27 Star Alliance partners in business or first for international travel. On the current/old chart, there is no difference in amount of miles needed for an award ticket, no matter what carrier you flew. For example, right now you can book on any of their partner airlines (including the awesome Lufthansa first Class) a First Class ticket from the USA to Israel for 150,000 miles round trip. Under the new chart that same exact ticket will be a whopping 280,000 miles!

The new rates won’t go into effect until February 1, 2014, so you can book under the current rates through January 31, 2014 for travel up-to 1 year later.

There will be no change on most domestic award travel, which is currently 25,000 miles round-trip in coach (or 20,000 for short-haul) 50,000 round-trip in Business and 70,000 round-trip in First. US-Hawaii is going up by 5,000 miles round-trip and US-Alaska is going up by 10,000 points round-trip.

There will also be no change for travel to Mexico, Canada, The Caribbean, Central America and Northern South America. Southern South America is going up by 10,000 miles in Business and 5,000 miles in First. Southern South America countries include, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Reward redemption’s to Europe is going up by 15,000 miles per round-trip in Business class when redeeming on United. When redeeming on any partner airline it jumps to 40,000 additional miles for a round-trip. For First class on united you’ll now need an additional 25,000 miles on United, and for partners an additional 85,000 miles. There is no change for coach class.

Redemption’s to the Middle East/Israel is going up by 5,000 miles per round-trip in coach.In Business when flying United it’s going up by 20,000 miles per round-trip, and redeeming on a partner airline, it’s going up by 40,000 miles. In First class when flying United, it’s going up by 30,000 for a round-trip and for a partner airline it’s going up by a whopping 130,000 per round-trip.

From the Middle East/Israel to Europe on a partner airline, the rates are going up by 15,000 miles per round trip in coach and 35,000 miles in business. Officially it’s only going up 5,000 miles for both coach and business when flying on United, but the “slight” problem is that united doesn’t even fly those routes.

Here is United’s current award chart.

Here is the new award chart.

At this point the US Airways award chart offers way more value. It may be time to racking up some US Airways miles with the easily churnable US Airways Premier World Mastercard. Alternatively, it may be wise to get a high paying cash-back card like the Barclaycard Arrival. This card is the best cash-back credit card around, it offers 2.22% back on Everything, no foreign exchange fees and comes with a 40,000 point sign-up bonus.

The new Flying Blue promo award chart is out. With promo awards you get 25%-50% off the normal award redemption rates. These promos run all year long, but the gateway cities generally change every 2 months. The discounted awards are from/to various locations from all around the world. For example From North America to South America, From Israel To Europe, From Europe to Africa etc; so be sure to look around as you can find many deals.

Flying Blue is the joint awards program of KLM, Air France and Air Europa.

Booking dates for this promo – 30/10/13 – 30/11/13
Travel dates for this promo – 01/11/13 – 31/03/14

Click here for the promo award chart.

Using Promo Awards, you can get award tickets from North America to Europe and Israel for as low as 25,000 miles round-trip in coach class! Flying Blue treats Israel as Europe, which means you’ll need just 25,000 miles or 37,500 miles respectively for a round-trip ticket + the fuel charges, which should be roughly $300 or less. Normally, Flying Blue charges 50,000 miles round-trip in coach to Israel. There are also discounted business class tickets available to Israel etc;

Award tickets to Israel discounted by 50%, which is 25,000 miles round-trip + the fuel charges, include Houston – TLV, Los Angeles – TLV, Toronto – TLV and Washington D.C. – TLV.

Award tickets to Israel discounted by 25%, which is 37,500 miles round-trip + the fuel charges, include  Atlanta – TLV, Boston – TLV Detroit – TLV, New York’s JFK – TLV and Montreal – TLV.

Flying Blue allows for one way award redemption’s for half the price of a round-trip, so if you can’t find a return flight available for a reward redemption, you can just book a one way with miles.

These awards are all subject to availability and not all dates will be available. If you are planning on booking a ticket, you may want to do so before award availability gets snatched up.

Flying Blue is an instant 1:1 transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, and a 1:1 transfer of SPG or if you transfer 20,000 SPG points you’ll get a 25% bonus netting you 25,000 miles – enough for a round-trip ticket.

For Membership Rewards points, you can get the American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card or The Platinum Card from American Express (or the business versions) with each of these cards coming with nice sign-up bonuses. Membership Reward points transfer over to Flying Blue instantly.

For SPG points you can get the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. This card comes with a 25,000 point signup bonus, with no fee for the first year. Transfers can take anywhere from 2-9 days.

You can also use Hyatt points as a transfer option to Flying Blue. You can transfer UR points from your Chase Sapphire Preferred card to Hyatt, and then from Hyatt to Flying Blue. Though you’ll get a bad ratio as Hyatt transfers to Flying Blue at a rate of 1,250 Hyatt points to just 500 Flying Blue miles.