Airlines don’t just devalue or remove award charts, they also devalue or remove award calendars. American killed off their excellent award calendar and now United appears poised to as well.
Continental used to have an excellent award calendar (and award pricing):
When United first started tinkering with Continental.com, they kept the same general format:
However when they were first beta testing the new site I asked for DansDeals readers to provide them feedback about the award calendar, because it initially didn’t allow you to use the calendar to filter for nonstop flights only.
United listened to that feedback and made a nonstop filter for the calendar.
United then changed the easy to read color coding for dots and lines, but it was still an easy calendar to use.
United also created an alternate award calendar with award pricing, though they allowed you to choose which calendar you wanted to use.
They still offered the ability to select which calendar you wanted to use last year, but then they removed the calendar with the dots and lines in favor of the calendar with pricing.
OK, I can live with that.
But now United is changing to an awful new award calendar, though it appears that they are doing A/B testing as I sometimes get the old one and sometime get the new one.
On the old one, you can search for connecting and nonstop flights in every class of service.
You can see prices for Newark to LA in coach with stopovers:
You can see prices for Newark to LA in coach with nonstops only:
You can see prices for Newark to LA in business with connections:
You can see prices for Newark to LA in business with nonstops only:
However on the new calendar, the filters only change the actual flights shown, it doesn’t change the prices in the award calendar, making it worthless:
None of the filters for class of service or nonstop flights do a thing to the actual calendar pricing:
When I switch browsers between Chrome and Firefox or regular or incognito browsers, I get different calendars, so try that if you want to reach the old calendar.
In the meantime, if you get the old calendar, be sure to click on site feedback on the right to let them know what you like about it.
Old calendar feedback:
New calendar feedback:
In addition to giving site feedback, you can also Tweet to @United, like and retweet the post below, or contact United Customer care about this change and let them know that you want an award calendar that can be filtered to show rates for class of service and for nonstop flights.
Send Feedback To @United On Their Awful New Award Calendarhttps://t.co/bo49NWZQwM
— DansDeals (@DansDeals) February 28, 2022
Is United’s goal to sell more expensive awards to customers or just have them waste more time trying to find better deals? Either way, it’s insulting to waste customers’ time like this and United should fix the new calendar or ditch it.
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13 Comments On "Send Feedback To United On Their Awful New Award Calendar"
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The race to the bottom continues
Yes, but perhaps this can be salvaged.
United pays close attention to feedback.
I can’t stand United. The website is crap. Everything is extra. I cannot stand the “Preferred” economy. Sure if you fly all the time and obtain status, they treat you like a king. But it’s either that or you are a piece of dust.
At least if you are a regular rider on JetBlue, for example, you still get a nice amount of legroom and you can choose from any economy seat. Can’t say the same for United.
JetBlue?
They have the worst website and IT of any US airline, they are the only non-ULCC that doesn’t give a free carry-on to cardholders on basic fares, and their operational performance is the worst among any US airline these days.
They have fallen a long way from their good old days when David Neeleman ran the place.
I hear that. I’m speaking as someone who has been taking many domestic flights on the cheap using my TrueBlue points. I never had an issue with a carry-on – that was always free…
I just always have a good experience on their flights. Their website ain’t great either, that’s true. But I just really appreciate that they provide decent economy seats with decent legroom. On United flights I find myself unable to move even an inch in an economy seat.
Don’t say that too loudly, they don’t offer nearly what they used to offer and I’m sure they’ll make it tighter yet again.
As far as TrueBlue, true that they don’t have basic restrictions, but that’s because they’re priced as regular tickets. The value is much poorer than it used to be before basic came around.
Could just be that I still have a lot of TrueBlue points remaining from various signup bonuses. Perhaps my view will change once I’m finally out of TrueBlue points LOL.
Is there an airline you find that provides the best value on domestic flights when it comes to points? You usually post about cheap United flights. I guess it’s United?
I just always like taking advantage of the 2-6k flights to/from FL for a nice break from NYC winter. Or maybe head somewhere I haven’t visited yet, like Puerto Rico.
Within 3- 5 years Jetblue will hardly be different than what Spirit and Frontier look like. I anticipate JB charging for snacks and beverages, decreasing their legroom, continuing to increase baggage fees, lowering the 50lb bag allowance down to 40lbs (in order to “combat” climate change). The baggage weight allowance thing is a topic in-and-of-itself, as I imagine that will become more widespread among domestic carriers. At least Spirit has better on-time performance.
How bad is their web dev team? Here’s an example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442529
I have found that if you search a specific day and click on the non-stop checkmark for that day, and then open the calendar, it will only show you non-stop flights. Not as convenient, but still workable.
Wow thanks for the nostalgia. I miss that old continental calendar and the blue waiting screen:)
This makes the improbable very nearly impossible. We are sitting on a warchest of 380K C1 points earned by spending 40,000 on 3 capitol one cards since august (more than half MS sales tax free). We were naively hoping to parlay that into Polaris flights to tel aviv through Miles & Smiles this summer. I have found some economy saver space, but economy does not seem worth the risk and headaches of Turkish.
…would love to fly United again but Quantas does seem to offer award itineraries with a very versatile mix of cabins and airlines. I found an itinerary with nonstop business on EL Al the way there for under 140K per person which I value at $1400 given the marginal value of C1 miles. Just a bit over the 1100 it would cost to fly direct in economy on United (before Capital1 portal credits and 5X points)
@Dan Should I hold out for Polaris award space on United through AeroPlan or Miles and Smiles? Or is that a pipedream?
TIA
Off topic do you have any more info on the email that was sent to all united employees in regards to no exemptions whatsoever for flights to or from tlv?