United MileagePlus has today announced three negative changes, which will be implemented in the coming months. The good news is that the updates don’t involve the core parts of the program. However, I think many MileagePlus members will still be unhappy about these developments. Let’s cover the three changes, in no particular order…
In this post:
United MileagePlus cuts Excursionist Perk
For tickets issued as of August 21, 2025, United will no longer offer the Excursionist Perk on award tickets. For context, this perk has been around for years, and allows members to add a one-way award or stopover to a multi-city award ticket.
This only impacts new bookings and any changes made to existing bookings. I know this is a perk that many MileagePlus members enjoyed in order to maximize their miles, so this isn’t great.
United MileagePlus ends YBM instant upgrades
As of August 21, 2025, United will no longer offer instant upgrades at the time of ticketing on Y, B, or M fares, for Premier members in eligible markets. Under the current system, the idea is that if you book a full fare ticket and there’s upgrade space available at the time of booking in an eligible market, your upgrade will automatically be confirmed.
After this benefit is cut, Premier members will still enjoy complimentary Premier upgrades when available at the upgrade window, but instant upgrades will no longer be available, unless members redeem MileagePlus miles or PlusPoints.
United MileagePlus eliminates upgrade award charts
As of November 24, 2025, United will no longer display the MileagePlus upgrade award chart on its website. While not explicitly stated, one assumes that this means the airline will start dynamically pricing upgrade awards, just as it dynamically prices award tickets.
Once this change is implemented, here’s the process for determining upgrade pricing:
- Search for a flight
- Select “Advanced search”
- Select “Upgrades, certificates and promotion codes”
- In the “Upgrade type” box, select “MileagePlus® Upgrade Awards”
- Select “Find fights”
- Miles required will display in the “Upgrade” columns
Bottom line
The United MileagePlus program is making a few negative changes in the second half of 2025. As of August 21, we’ll see the Excursionist Perk and Premier instant upgrades on full fare tickets cut. Then as of November 24, we’ll see the airline adopt dynamic pricing for upgrades.
These are all negative changes, no matter how you slice it. However, I think for most members, they’re probably not significant enough to adjust behavior too much.
What do you make of these MileagePlus changes?
Let's be honest, the Y.B.M upgrade was never guaranteed. It was also capacity controlled. And while it was great 10 years ago before they started aggressively selling upgrades, it's virtually non existent in recent years. In fact, so much so that I totally forgot it was a perk.
They basically took away something that had been chipped away recently anyway.
Any chance the dynamic pricing on upgrades will finally make an upgrade confirmable at booking? I have never, ever seen that since I've been flying United.
That's what you get by abusing excursions.
Today, mileage upgrades require PZ availability. With this change, will you be able to upgrade any flight with a dynamic number of miles, just like you can book any flight in JN for an absurd price?
The whole concept of UA upgrades makes me laugh. From 2008 to 2012 I had frequent work trips to Houston and got exemptions from our finance department, whose policy was only AA or OneWorld flights. Every single flight to and from NYC, I was offered a relatively cheap upgrade to F at check-in kiosks. How many 1Ks were let down because I stepped in to pay like $150-200 for the seat. I can't imagine it's gotten better since then but I never fly UA so who knows.
This is still common, and even more prevalent in practice. I very frequently book EWR-ORD flights, and will almost immediately be able to buy up for $100-200 each way. If not right away, I'll keep checking. This has helped me to be able to be first class on nearly all of my flights. Last year, the only two flights I wasn't able to upgrade were in a CRJ2, which has no first class anyway. And...
This is still common, and even more prevalent in practice. I very frequently book EWR-ORD flights, and will almost immediately be able to buy up for $100-200 each way. If not right away, I'll keep checking. This has helped me to be able to be first class on nearly all of my flights. Last year, the only two flights I wasn't able to upgrade were in a CRJ2, which has no first class anyway. And even if it did, it's enough torture just to fly on that piece of junk anyway, first wouldn't help.
What value is left there? I guess no reason to be loyal to united or any US based airlines anymore?
Indeed, taking away a fixed price premium award option like this isn't making me want to spend to accumulate United miles. Will it also end the ability to waitlist mileage upgrade awards?
This on top of devaluing the Million Miler companion benefit.
Bad move to take away incentives like this as they increase their reliance on Chase.
Never-ending devaluations coupled with reduced award availability made loyalty programs worthless. The biggest contributor to all these devaluations is the deluge of convertible points from credit cards. The biggest contributor to reduced award availability is increased monetization of premium seats by airlines.
The best way forward for us is to ignore loyalty and look for deals.
It does appear that UA also followed DL's playbook of "Premiumisation" i.e. improving hard products at the expense of loyalty business. Over the past few years, there is hardly any positive change of the MileagePlus programme. 10-30% redemption cost hikes (maybe once, twice, or multiple times) are more memorable on the loyalty side. Now this. Kirby is an Excel master, after all.
Feels like the perfect time for Smisek to tell us these are changes we will like. TBT
"Death by a thousand cuts ( and an occasional slash ! ) ...
I will miss the Excursionist perk. I live in Mexico, and a couple times I booked Business/First from Mexico to LAX, and from EWR back to Mexico, and would get a free J segment LAX-EWR.
That is a great use of that perk! Nice work
I think it would be a great public service if Lucky or some enterprising travel expert kept a historical chart of devaluation of airlines miles and published it as a standing resource for all to see. So that anyone putting any faith in promises of airlines is clearly able to see their track record.
Airline miles are not a currency and government probably should not have a role in regulating them, but someone should...
I think it would be a great public service if Lucky or some enterprising travel expert kept a historical chart of devaluation of airlines miles and published it as a standing resource for all to see. So that anyone putting any faith in promises of airlines is clearly able to see their track record.
Airline miles are not a currency and government probably should not have a role in regulating them, but someone should expose this devaluation so that consumers are aware of their declining value and broken and frankly, scammy promises of future benefits.
But doesn't anyone with at least half a brain already know this ?
100% on the historical devaluation chart. I just asked Gemini to create a list of United Mileage Plus devaluations over the past ten years. The list looked thorough, but I'm not an expert. Lucky?!?
@bossa should use Gemini to research congeniality. db
ChatGPT generated this, not all is quantifiable but it was quite crazy:
MileagePlus Devaluation Timeline (2015–2025)
Year Key Changes
2015 Introduction of Revenue-Based Earning: Mileage accrual shifted from distance flown to ticket price, reducing miles earned on discounted fares.
2017 Award Chart Adjustments: Business class awards to regions like Europe and Asia increased by 5,000–10,000 miles; premium transcontinental routes rose from 25,000 to 35,000 miles one-way.
2019 Elimination of Award Charts:...
ChatGPT generated this, not all is quantifiable but it was quite crazy:
MileagePlus Devaluation Timeline (2015–2025)
Year Key Changes
2015 Introduction of Revenue-Based Earning: Mileage accrual shifted from distance flown to ticket price, reducing miles earned on discounted fares.
2017 Award Chart Adjustments: Business class awards to regions like Europe and Asia increased by 5,000–10,000 miles; premium transcontinental routes rose from 25,000 to 35,000 miles one-way.
2019 Elimination of Award Charts: United removed published award charts, introducing dynamic pricing for United-operated flights, leading to unpredictable award costs.
2023 Significant Devaluation: Business class awards to Japan increased from 70,000 to 100,000 miles (43% hike); economy awards to Europe rose from 30,000 to 40,000 miles (33% increase).
2024 Partner Award Increases: Short-haul business class flights within Europe and Asia increased by up to 200%; economy awards on partner airlines also saw substantial hikes.
2025 Dynamic Pricing Expansion: Further implementation of dynamic pricing across more routes, leading to increased variability in award costs.
@Eric You can try Archive.org's wayback machine to view the old version of airline's site
@Eric here is a link to the UA award chart saved by Archive.org back in 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20130606002309/http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/news/United_Award_Chart_2012-03-03.pdf
If upgrades are going dynamic, isn't that potentially a mixed bag good/bad? When AC went dynamic, I said it was simply a deval to be dreaded and I was shouted down. Surely United will now make a minority of upgrade opportunities delightfully good value and organize some comms to tell us about it. We all like a spoonful of sugar.
Potentially, yes. In reality dynamic pricing is not good.
Another day. Another UA devaluation. So, what's new?
Damn - the excursionist perk was a significant differentiator for MileagePlus. It could sometimes make it worth it to book through MP versus other programs. Hate to see UA’s efforts to cut back on MP continue.
Award upgrade charts have been gone for ages unfortunately. There hasn't been dynamic pricing, but zero transparency as well. And trying to get fare breakage points (mileage and copays for different fare classes) over the phone has required pulling teeth. Not fun.