7 ms·

Taking a quick look at http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/mileageplus/awards/travel/awardTravel.aspx http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/mileageplus/awards/t

by Tiksi 11y ago

Taking a quick look at http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/mileageplus/awards/travel/awardTravel.aspx http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/mileageplus/awards/trav... it seems 1 million miles ~= $3000-$12000 depending on destination, date, etc. It doesn't seem all that bad of deal, except plenty of people don't fly often enough to even make use of this, and you have to fly united, which for me would kill all the value.

notauser 11y ago
You can use United miles to buy tickets on Thai, Lufthansa and ANA, all of which are superb. (I used my last lot on two first class tickets to Tokyo which would have cost a lot more than $12k each if bought for cash.)
- Tiksi 11y ago
  Well then I suppose it might be worth it, I've had great experiences on Lufthansa the few times I've flown on it, one time the plane was entirely empty except for our group of 5 so we had a 747 to ourselves.
  - jon-wood 11y ago
    I don't know if that's awesome or terrible. I can totally see the appeal of flying in an almost empty 747, but at least according to this source[1] that makes a truly shocking 1MPG between the five of you. I can't help thinking the world would be a bit better off if they'd just apologised, and put you on the next flight. [1] http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/question192.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/que...
    - benaiah 11y ago
      If airlines could do so, they would. It’s very expensive to fly an empty plane. But those planes are on a tight and inflexible schedule - they’d be flying even if no one boarded the plane at all.
    - mseebach 11y ago
      I think the hundreds of passengers waiting the board the aircraft at where ever that flight was going might have a problem with that. Sometimes the sizes of the passenger streams between two destinations aren't perfectly in balance. This is most clearly visible on shuttle services between a small and a large city - busy going to the large city in the morning and to the small city in the evening, and semi empty in the opposite directions. Also seasonal flights - the first flight of the season to depart the destination (and the last to arrive) will often be pretty lightly loaded. When that situation arises, you will need to reposition a less-than-full aircraft, otherwise your operations obviously falls apart. The GP clearly experienced an extreme case of this, but most likely that aircraft was being filled up at its next departure, and so needed to be there. This is obviously expensive for airlines, so they try all they can to fill up these flights - which explains that the cheapest tickets are often on times that will be slightly odd or inconvenient, at least to business travellers.
      - jlittel 11y ago
        My roommate is a flight attendant - he informed me of term for transporting passenger-less commercial planes: "ferrying".
    - Tiksi 11y ago
      The flight attendant told me the plane was fully booked on the next trip, it was replacing one that had to be taken in for maintenance at my destination or something along those lines (Its been a while, I don't remember the details), so it was either flying it empty or flying with us on it.
  - ChrisArchitect 11y ago
    that is crazy ! I find that so hard to believe, it just seems so crazy. Maybe a chunk of the seats were sold but something happened like, airport shuttle buses broke down or got stuck and everyone missed the flight. Cringeworthy for the airline to have to fly that flight anyways heh
    - moondowner 11y ago
      I heard that airlines partner with companies like DHL and FedEx, and in cases like this they load more shipment packages in the storage space. That way they'll compensate the costs.
    - Tiksi 11y ago
      Yeah, I was pretty confused myself at the time. We started to taxi with an empty plane and I asked a flight attendant wtf was going on and if the plane was supposed to be moving. It was nice though, I put up all the arm rests in one of the rows of middle seats and laid down for a nap.
    - ubernostrum 11y ago
      From the sound of it, it was going out to replace a plane that needed maintenance. Which is a thing that happens; just a couple weeks ago, IIRC, Delta had to pull a 747 out of a "boneyard" storage facility and fly it to Seoul to replace one that took a bunch of damage (mostly hailstones) from a thunderstorm. Also, schedules are built around keeping the plane in the air as much of the time as possible, which sometimes means there's a mostly-empty "positioning" flight to get a plane to where it needs to be to carry a full load. I know with US Airways, for example, you can sometimes randomly snag a seat on a widebody international plane between Philadelphia and Charlotte (usually coming out of maintenance and onto transatlantic service, or switching which hub the plane operates from), and on Delta you can occasionally fly a 747 domestically between Atlanta and Detroit (to get the 747 in position to fly from Detroit to destinations in Asia).
      - jrockway 11y ago
        AA does this too and they have a schedule: https://www.aacargo.com/downloads/schedule/widebody_USA_domestic_16jun15.pdf https://www.aacargo.com/downloads/schedule/widebody_USA_dome... I wanted to try first class on the 777 when it first came out, so I just connected in DFW for a PHX-ORD trip, and did the DFW-ORD segment on a 777. As it turns out, domestic flights are GREAT in big aircraft. (Though I do like the smaller A321Ts too. International-class accommodations, but a really small feeling, like a private plane.)
  - matwood 11y ago
    I've had that on a few flights. Not quite as empty as you describe, but enough room where most in coach had 2-3 seats they could lay down in. Most often these have happened when taking vacations/business trips in the off season. Various places in Europe during the winter for example.
- monksy 11y ago
  I'll take your word on Thai, and ANA. But I would purposely avoid flying on LH. They've managed to screw me over so many times its not even funny. (I know they're in the same group) I would take LX (Swiss) over LH any day. When trying to help them in a bad situation on their end, they'll snap at you. (I.e. when they had a plane downgrade in FRA, I offered to be transferred to a UA metal flight on my way back to ORD.. their reaction "WHO TOLD YOU THIS!" [I was trying to help the person avoid involuntary bumping, worse.. I and my travel companion was on an award ticket.. even if it matter anyways]
  - otherusername2 11y ago
    Airlines are like hard disk vendors or car manufacturers. Everybody has their anecdotal evidence that the particular one they hate is indeed the worst.
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  Though Lufthansa is known to severely restrict the ability to redeem Star Alliance partner miles for premium seats. Back when US Airways (which is where I have my status) was in Star, that was a consistent complaint. Now we're in oneworld with the AA merger, the complaint is British Airways' ridiculous "fuel surcharge" which makes a premium-class mileage-award ticket still cost the same amount of cash as an actual economy-class ticket.
  - biggc 11y ago
    I don't think they have any control over that. It's likely to do with Heathrow or UK regulations.
    - ubernostrum 11y ago
      Booking a business-class or first-class award, on a US airline, to Heathrow, does not incur the massive "fuel surcharge". And as far as I'm aware, even booking on other British airlines (like Virgin Atlantic) does not incur the charge. It's only on BA.
pauldino 11y ago
You wouldn't be stuck on United - although it's a lot easier to use them for flights on United itself they can be used to fly on any Star Alliance carrier, including some really nice ones like ANA and Singapore Airlines.
netheril96 11y ago
> except plenty of people don't fly often enough to even make use of this Can this be sold?
- onewaystreet 11y ago
  It's against United's terms to sell your miles.
  - jpatokal 11y ago
    Not that this stops it from happening, Google eg. "sell frequent flyer miles". It's doubly risky though: from what I can tell all the companies in this space are by definition more or less dodgy, plus the airline will catch on pretty quick and confiscate your miles (yes, they can do that) if you start redeeming first-class tickets for a whole bunch of "cousins" with random names and in random places.
- desigooner 11y ago
  They can probably be used for giftcards etc via the MileagePlusX program / app.
briandear 11y ago
So free tickets in United aren't valuable because you would rather sit on the ground than get to travel for free? I fly over 75,000 miles a year with United, mostly international and they aren't any worse than any other American carrier. I travel enough that I'd even be willing to fly AA if it were completely free even though I despise AA and how they used their bankruptcy to avoid paying a judgement I won against them. Free is free though.
- Tiksi 11y ago
  Well like I said, not everyone flies that much. I don't come anywhere near 75000 miles a year, maybe somewhere around there for a lifetime total. After my last flight on United (and Delta), I would flat out refuse except maybe first class, but that seems like a waste. I'm pretty tall and 2 hours in I'm just about in tears from the pain in my knees from sitting in those tiny seats. I'd rather pay full price than do that ever again. I try to stick with Jet Blue or Virgin as much as possible because I actually fit.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    United is a tradeoff: You suffer until you've flown enough to get up a couple of tiers in their frequent fliers program, at which point they're great as their frequent flier programme is quite generous. If you don't fly much, then I'd avoid them too. When you do fly much (and 75k miles a year would get you to Premier Platinum, their second highest tier) it's a very different situation. Not least because you also earn miles at a higher multiple at the higher tiers.
    - ubernostrum 11y ago
      I am happy never to have to board a United flight again, thanks to US Airways exiting Star Alliance in the AA merger. Especially with United's latest performance report indicating less than 1/3 of flights operate on time now. (granted, I still have to avoid AA's hubs like the plague since they shut down for days whenever there's a hint of rain within 500 miles, but at least US Airways is still plenty reliable)
    - 11y ago
jrockway 11y ago
You can get way more than $12000 out of a million miles. I don't fly *A, but a quick glance at UA's award chart shows ~200k miles for a one way "anytime" US-Australia flight in first class. That is currently about $10,000 according to Google Flights. Done 5 times, there's $50,000. (I'm sure you can redeem on one of their better partner airlines, like ANA, if you are willing to be flexible on dates and times.) Of course, this is unhelpful if you don't want to go somewhere far away and expensive in a premium cabin. I've always found the value in frequent flyer miles to be in redeeming tickets that I could never afford with money. Using frequent flyer miles to fly from Chicago to Minneapolis is not getting you much value.
vidarh 11y ago
> and you have to fly united, which for me would kill all the value. I used to love flying United (note: I mostly flown transatlantic flights with them; only one domestic US flight and the difference was stark), for a simple reason: While basic economy in United isn't all that great, their frequent flyer program is (or used to be, been a few years) very good in terms of ease of getting upgrades or perks. Getting up in the tiers enough to always get free upgrades to Premium Economy didn't take much, and the top tiers are actually possible to reach if you travel a bit for business, unlike e.g. British Airlines where you practically have to live in the air to get to their higher tiers. Business on United did not match business on e.g. BA or Virgin, but on the other hand upgrades to business on United was as reliable as clockwork - I got upgrades ca. every 3rd leg once I'd gotten to one of their upper tiers (which includes a multiplier on miles). If you fly now and again for leisure, base it on what you'll pay for, sure. But if travelling for business, how the upgrades stack up makes a huge difference.
cesarb 11y ago
Even if the nominal value of the reward were as low as $100, it also has another positive but unstated value: it's a strong signal that you won't be prosecuted for revealing to them a flaw you've found.
baakss 11y ago
I'd be curious if it also qualifies the person who found the bug for their million mile lifetime membership programs. http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/account/lifetime.aspx http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/account/lifetime.asp...
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  Almost certainly not. Although it was different in the past, all the US carriers now differentiate between miles earned by actually flying (in the industry and the frequent-flyer community referred to as "BIS", or "butt-in-seat" miles), and miles earned from all other associated programs (credit cards, affiliate shopping, etc. etc.). Only the mileage from actual flying counts toward frequent-flyer status, lifetime benefit thresholds and so on.
- SeoxyS 11y ago
  The million mile lifetime status is based on "Lifetime Flown Miles," which is different than EQMs (elite-qualifying miles), and "Award Miles." EQMs reset every year, and are used only to set your frequent flyer status level. Award Miles are equivalent to a currency, and you can accumulate them and spend them on award tickets and other things. The reward for the bug bounty is only in award miles.

by Tiksi 11y ago

notauser 11y ago

You can use United miles to buy tickets on Thai, Lufthansa and ANA, all of which are superb. (I used my last lot on two first class tickets to Tokyo which would have cost a lot more than $12k each if bought for cash.)

Tiksi 11y ago
Well then I suppose it might be worth it, I've had great experiences on Lufthansa the few times I've flown on it, one time the plane was entirely empty except for our group of 5 so we had a 747 to ourselves.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  I don't know if that's awesome or terrible. I can totally see the appeal of flying in an almost empty 747, but at least according to this source[1] that makes a truly shocking 1MPG between the five of you. I can't help thinking the world would be a bit better off if they'd just apologised, and put you on the next flight. [1] http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/question192.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/que...
  - benaiah 11y ago
    If airlines could do so, they would. It’s very expensive to fly an empty plane. But those planes are on a tight and inflexible schedule - they’d be flying even if no one boarded the plane at all.
  - mseebach 11y ago
    I think the hundreds of passengers waiting the board the aircraft at where ever that flight was going might have a problem with that. Sometimes the sizes of the passenger streams between two destinations aren't perfectly in balance. This is most clearly visible on shuttle services between a small and a large city - busy going to the large city in the morning and to the small city in the evening, and semi empty in the opposite directions. Also seasonal flights - the first flight of the season to depart the destination (and the last to arrive) will often be pretty lightly loaded. When that situation arises, you will need to reposition a less-than-full aircraft, otherwise your operations obviously falls apart. The GP clearly experienced an extreme case of this, but most likely that aircraft was being filled up at its next departure, and so needed to be there. This is obviously expensive for airlines, so they try all they can to fill up these flights - which explains that the cheapest tickets are often on times that will be slightly odd or inconvenient, at least to business travellers.
    - jlittel 11y ago
      My roommate is a flight attendant - he informed me of term for transporting passenger-less commercial planes: "ferrying".
  - Tiksi 11y ago
    The flight attendant told me the plane was fully booked on the next trip, it was replacing one that had to be taken in for maintenance at my destination or something along those lines (Its been a while, I don't remember the details), so it was either flying it empty or flying with us on it.
- ChrisArchitect 11y ago
  that is crazy ! I find that so hard to believe, it just seems so crazy. Maybe a chunk of the seats were sold but something happened like, airport shuttle buses broke down or got stuck and everyone missed the flight. Cringeworthy for the airline to have to fly that flight anyways heh
  - moondowner 11y ago
    I heard that airlines partner with companies like DHL and FedEx, and in cases like this they load more shipment packages in the storage space. That way they'll compensate the costs.
  - Tiksi 11y ago
    Yeah, I was pretty confused myself at the time. We started to taxi with an empty plane and I asked a flight attendant wtf was going on and if the plane was supposed to be moving. It was nice though, I put up all the arm rests in one of the rows of middle seats and laid down for a nap.
  - ubernostrum 11y ago
    From the sound of it, it was going out to replace a plane that needed maintenance. Which is a thing that happens; just a couple weeks ago, IIRC, Delta had to pull a 747 out of a "boneyard" storage facility and fly it to Seoul to replace one that took a bunch of damage (mostly hailstones) from a thunderstorm. Also, schedules are built around keeping the plane in the air as much of the time as possible, which sometimes means there's a mostly-empty "positioning" flight to get a plane to where it needs to be to carry a full load. I know with US Airways, for example, you can sometimes randomly snag a seat on a widebody international plane between Philadelphia and Charlotte (usually coming out of maintenance and onto transatlantic service, or switching which hub the plane operates from), and on Delta you can occasionally fly a 747 domestically between Atlanta and Detroit (to get the 747 in position to fly from Detroit to destinations in Asia).
    - jrockway 11y ago
      AA does this too and they have a schedule: https://www.aacargo.com/downloads/schedule/widebody_USA_domestic_16jun15.pdf https://www.aacargo.com/downloads/schedule/widebody_USA_dome... I wanted to try first class on the 777 when it first came out, so I just connected in DFW for a PHX-ORD trip, and did the DFW-ORD segment on a 777. As it turns out, domestic flights are GREAT in big aircraft. (Though I do like the smaller A321Ts too. International-class accommodations, but a really small feeling, like a private plane.)
- matwood 11y ago
  I've had that on a few flights. Not quite as empty as you describe, but enough room where most in coach had 2-3 seats they could lay down in. Most often these have happened when taking vacations/business trips in the off season. Various places in Europe during the winter for example.
monksy 11y ago
I'll take your word on Thai, and ANA. But I would purposely avoid flying on LH. They've managed to screw me over so many times its not even funny. (I know they're in the same group) I would take LX (Swiss) over LH any day. When trying to help them in a bad situation on their end, they'll snap at you. (I.e. when they had a plane downgrade in FRA, I offered to be transferred to a UA metal flight on my way back to ORD.. their reaction "WHO TOLD YOU THIS!" [I was trying to help the person avoid involuntary bumping, worse.. I and my travel companion was on an award ticket.. even if it matter anyways]
- otherusername2 11y ago
  Airlines are like hard disk vendors or car manufacturers. Everybody has their anecdotal evidence that the particular one they hate is indeed the worst.
ubernostrum 11y ago
Though Lufthansa is known to severely restrict the ability to redeem Star Alliance partner miles for premium seats. Back when US Airways (which is where I have my status) was in Star, that was a consistent complaint. Now we're in oneworld with the AA merger, the complaint is British Airways' ridiculous "fuel surcharge" which makes a premium-class mileage-award ticket still cost the same amount of cash as an actual economy-class ticket.
- biggc 11y ago
  I don't think they have any control over that. It's likely to do with Heathrow or UK regulations.
  - ubernostrum 11y ago
    Booking a business-class or first-class award, on a US airline, to Heathrow, does not incur the massive "fuel surcharge". And as far as I'm aware, even booking on other British airlines (like Virgin Atlantic) does not incur the charge. It's only on BA.

pauldino 11y ago

You wouldn't be stuck on United - although it's a lot easier to use them for flights on United itself they can be used to fly on any Star Alliance carrier, including some really nice ones like ANA and Singapore Airlines.

netheril96 11y ago

> except plenty of people don't fly often enough to even make use of this Can this be sold?

onewaystreet 11y ago
It's against United's terms to sell your miles.
- jpatokal 11y ago
  Not that this stops it from happening, Google eg. "sell frequent flyer miles". It's doubly risky though: from what I can tell all the companies in this space are by definition more or less dodgy, plus the airline will catch on pretty quick and confiscate your miles (yes, they can do that) if you start redeeming first-class tickets for a whole bunch of "cousins" with random names and in random places.
desigooner 11y ago
They can probably be used for giftcards etc via the MileagePlusX program / app.

briandear 11y ago

So free tickets in United aren't valuable because you would rather sit on the ground than get to travel for free? I fly over 75,000 miles a year with United, mostly international and they aren't any worse than any other American carrier. I travel enough that I'd even be willing to fly AA if it were completely free even though I despise AA and how they used their bankruptcy to avoid paying a judgement I won against them. Free is free though.

Tiksi 11y ago
Well like I said, not everyone flies that much. I don't come anywhere near 75000 miles a year, maybe somewhere around there for a lifetime total. After my last flight on United (and Delta), I would flat out refuse except maybe first class, but that seems like a waste. I'm pretty tall and 2 hours in I'm just about in tears from the pain in my knees from sitting in those tiny seats. I'd rather pay full price than do that ever again. I try to stick with Jet Blue or Virgin as much as possible because I actually fit.
- vidarh 11y ago
  United is a tradeoff: You suffer until you've flown enough to get up a couple of tiers in their frequent fliers program, at which point they're great as their frequent flier programme is quite generous. If you don't fly much, then I'd avoid them too. When you do fly much (and 75k miles a year would get you to Premier Platinum, their second highest tier) it's a very different situation. Not least because you also earn miles at a higher multiple at the higher tiers.
  - ubernostrum 11y ago
    I am happy never to have to board a United flight again, thanks to US Airways exiting Star Alliance in the AA merger. Especially with United's latest performance report indicating less than 1/3 of flights operate on time now. (granted, I still have to avoid AA's hubs like the plague since they shut down for days whenever there's a hint of rain within 500 miles, but at least US Airways is still plenty reliable)
  - 11y ago

jrockway 11y ago

You can get way more than $12000 out of a million miles. I don't fly *A, but a quick glance at UA's award chart shows ~200k miles for a one way "anytime" US-Australia flight in first class. That is currently about $10,000 according to Google Flights. Done 5 times, there's $50,000. (I'm sure you can redeem on one of their better partner airlines, like ANA, if you are willing to be flexible on dates and times.) Of course, this is unhelpful if you don't want to go somewhere far away and expensive in a premium cabin. I've always found the value in frequent flyer miles to be in redeeming tickets that I could never afford with money. Using frequent flyer miles to fly from Chicago to Minneapolis is not getting you much value.

vidarh 11y ago

> and you have to fly united, which for me would kill all the value. I used to love flying United (note: I mostly flown transatlantic flights with them; only one domestic US flight and the difference was stark), for a simple reason: While basic economy in United isn't all that great, their frequent flyer program is (or used to be, been a few years) very good in terms of ease of getting upgrades or perks. Getting up in the tiers enough to always get free upgrades to Premium Economy didn't take much, and the top tiers are actually possible to reach if you travel a bit for business, unlike e.g. British Airlines where you practically have to live in the air to get to their higher tiers. Business on United did not match business on e.g. BA or Virgin, but on the other hand upgrades to business on United was as reliable as clockwork - I got upgrades ca. every 3rd leg once I'd gotten to one of their upper tiers (which includes a multiplier on miles). If you fly now and again for leisure, base it on what you'll pay for, sure. But if travelling for business, how the upgrades stack up makes a huge difference.

cesarb 11y ago

Even if the nominal value of the reward were as low as $100, it also has another positive but unstated value: it's a strong signal that you won't be prosecuted for revealing to them a flaw you've found.

baakss 11y ago

I'd be curious if it also qualifies the person who found the bug for their million mile lifetime membership programs. http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/account/lifetime.aspx http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/account/lifetime.asp...

ubernostrum 11y ago
Almost certainly not. Although it was different in the past, all the US carriers now differentiate between miles earned by actually flying (in the industry and the frequent-flyer community referred to as "BIS", or "butt-in-seat" miles), and miles earned from all other associated programs (credit cards, affiliate shopping, etc. etc.). Only the mileage from actual flying counts toward frequent-flyer status, lifetime benefit thresholds and so on.
SeoxyS 11y ago
The million mile lifetime status is based on "Lifetime Flown Miles," which is different than EQMs (elite-qualifying miles), and "Award Miles." EQMs reset every year, and are used only to set your frequent flyer status level. Award Miles are equivalent to a currency, and you can accumulate them and spend them on award tickets and other things. The reward for the bug bounty is only in award miles.