United Mileage Plus Frequent Flyer Program Devaluing Miles.

United Airlines has announced that starting February 1, 2014, they will be raising the award rates for most award bookings.

In addition to raising the award rates on many routes, under the new chart there will also be no more saver awards when booking on any of their 27 Star Alliance partners in business or first for international travel. On the current/old chart, there is no difference in amount of miles needed for an award ticket, no matter what carrier you flew. For example, right now you can book on any of their partner airlines (including the awesome Lufthansa first Class) a First Class ticket from the USA to Israel for 150,000 miles round trip. Under the new chart that same exact ticket will be a whopping 280,000 miles!

The new rates won’t go into effect until February 1, 2014, so you can book under the current rates through January 31, 2014 for travel up-to 1 year later.

There will be no change on most domestic award travel, which is currently 25,000 miles round-trip in coach (or 20,000 for short-haul) 50,000 round-trip in Business and 70,000 round-trip in First. US-Hawaii is going up by 5,000 miles round-trip and US-Alaska is going up by 10,000 points round-trip.

There will also be no change for travel to Mexico, Canada, The Caribbean, Central America and Northern South America. Southern South America is going up by 10,000 miles in Business and 5,000 miles in First. Southern South America countries include, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Reward redemption’s to Europe is going up by 15,000 miles per round-trip in Business class when redeeming on United. When redeeming on any partner airline it jumps to 40,000 additional miles for a round-trip. For First class on united you’ll now need an additional 25,000 miles on United, and for partners an additional 85,000 miles. There is no change for coach class.

Redemption’s to the Middle East/Israel is going up by 5,000 miles per round-trip in coach.In Business when flying United it’s going up by 20,000 miles per round-trip, and redeeming on a partner airline, it’s going up by 40,000 miles. In First class when flying United, it’s going up by 30,000 for a round-trip and for a partner airline it’s going up by a whopping 130,000 per round-trip.

From the Middle East/Israel to Europe on a partner airline, the rates are going up by 15,000 miles per round trip in coach and 35,000 miles in business. Officially it’s only going up 5,000 miles for both coach and business when flying on United, but the “slight” problem is that united doesn’t even fly those routes.

Here is United’s current award chart.

Here is the new award chart.

At this point the US Airways award chart offers way more value. It may be time to racking up some US Airways miles with the easily churnable US Airways Premier World Mastercard. Alternatively, it may be wise to get a high paying cash-back card like the Barclaycard Arrival. This card is the best cash-back credit card around, it offers 2.22% back on Everything, no foreign exchange fees and comes with a 40,000 point sign-up bonus.