For a while now United has been slowly chipping away at the value of their MileagePlus program for low price, budget fliers in an attempt to cull the ranks and (ostensibly) provide better service, and more perks, to what they consider high-value fliers (or, those who frequently travel in business/first often paying full fare on the company dime).
Yesterday the travel internets went all akimbo over United's announcement that they're changing the model to a purely revenue based one in imitation of Delta an it's SkyMiles program. As is usual, the jokes were ever present. As was the opining that United has lost it's way. Both are valid points. It does appear that United has no current strategy other than "me too!" allowing Delta (and soon, American) to become a market leader while the blue and gold tailed planes fall further and further behind.
A summary of the changes can be found here.
A run-down of just how bad the changes are (for all levels of Premier status) look here.
So, in the past year United has made it more expensive to redeem miles and now it has cut in half the number of miles you can earn, taken away the benefits of purchasing Business/First, but kept the miles requirement for qualification regardless of how much you spend.
Considering where United (and MileagePlus) is currently, this is just another logical step. United needs to do something to cull the ranks of their Premier members. Since the merger it's been very clear that they have too many. Getting an upgrade on several routes is almost impossible. On several occasions I've spoken with upper-tier (Platinum and 1K) Premier passengers who are experiencing upgrade success rates around 25%. If you're spending a lot of money flying an airline, that type of rate is unacceptable.
I still stand by my theory that the lower tiers (Silver and Gold) are soon to be no more. United is working desperately to move many perks to reward their profitable credit card partners. I predict that those changes will be announced in 2016 or 17 at the latest.
Does it matter? In short. No.
Unless you are a traveler who hyper-leveraged low/mistake fares for Premier status then it won't affect you much at all. In crap-class, air travel is a commodity and increasingly fliers are going to treat it that way. There are plenty of good seats available in crap-class for cheap rates that will allow recreational travelers to move around the globe. Quite often, these are on carriers offering better service/amenities than United.
Ancillary to all of this is the fact that United is currently a ship without a rudder or, seemingly, anything involving a long-term strategy. They make noises that they want to improve the in-flight experience and then move slowly on the roll-outs, equip planes with seats that are about as comfortable as traction and offer service not with a smile but, quite often, with a shrug of the shoulders.
United is leaking money, still having operational issues, struggling with the very technologies that will help them implement these changes and is linking itself to the 787, a plane that has spotty reliability at best. There are calls for President and CEO Jeff Smisek to resign and it's past time that he should.
As the largest airline in the world, before the AA/USAir merger that is, United failed in execution on the simplest of issues namely, getting planes into gates on-time. Now that they've lost their market advantage, there's little evidence that they can compete long-term. This is an airline that needs new leadership and a new strategy. It's going to take more to turn United around than continuing to try and beat additional value out of the dead horse that is MileagePlus.
