Why are United round trip tickets awarded at 50,000 miles and USAir 25000 miles?

Question

I was looking at the award summary for United and USAir. I noticed that United awards a round trip ticket for 50,000 miles and USAir awards a round trip ticket for half the miles, 25,000 miles. How can this be?

Answer 1

United has a new promotion/policy that you can redeem your miles for a seat on any flight, any time. I have not tried this yet and I don't know for sure that there are no strings attached but that's their big advertizing campaign right now. Most (if not all) other airlines have two levels of redemption for a ticket. When redeeming a lower level award, there are a very limited number of seats per flight that are available using the award, and other restrictions apply (Saturday night stay, award seat not upgradeable, etc depening on the flight). You can also opt to redeem a higher number of miles (50,000 on USAir, same as United) and get a less restricted award; apply it to any coach fare on any flight, no Saturday night stay, etc.

So while it seems like USAir is more generous, we're not comparing the same thing. Often, when you want to redeem those miles (on any airline, not just USAir) you need to step up to the higher point level anyway because the one or two award seats on your desired flight have already been booked by someone else. United has just done away with the option to fight for that one award seat.

The advantage for USAir travellers is you can still get a free flight at 25k miles but the disadvantage is, it can be very difficult to actually claim the award. For United, doing away with the lesser award ensures they are getting the maximum revenue before they award people, and makes the consumers happy because nothing is worse than trying to book an award flight and being told there's no seats available, even if you're booking 5 months in advance, but for consumers, you have to earn a lot more miles before you get your freebie.

Answer 2

I am looking at the United award summary, and the 25,000 saver award is still in existence.