Loyalty Update

Airline and hotel rewards programs news and promotions

Beginning in March, United Airlines is changing how frequent flyer miles in its MileagePlus program are earned. Following the lead of Delta Air Lines, United has announced that reward miles will be based on ticket price rather than miles flown.

Regular members of MileagePlus – those who fly less than 25,000 miles and spend less than $2,500 a year – will get five miles per dollar. Elite members will earn between seven and 11 miles based on their status. Miles are earned for every dollar spent on base fares and other airline surcharges. Taxes, bag fees and other amenities will not count.

United did not change the number of miles required to earn a free flight. There is a maximum of 75,000 award miles per ticket and no minimum number of award miles earned per flight.

The new award miles plan will apply to most tickets for flights operated by United and United Express. It will also apply to flights operated by a Star Alliance or MileagePlus partner airline when the ticket is issued by United (ticket number starts with“016.”) Tickets not issued by United for flights operated by partner airlines will still earn award miles based on distance flown and the purchased fare class.

Miles earned for the use of MileagePlus cobranded credit cards will remain the same. Premier qualifying miles (PQM) will still be based on the distance flown, and Premier members will still earn a minimum of 500 PQM on United and United Express flights shorter than 500 miles.

Visit united.com for more information.