United Matches American With One-Way Mileage Awards

United has announced that Mileage Plus members may now redeem awards on a one-way basis rather than the previous round-trip requirement. Best of all, there is no premium for a one-way redemption - it is a simple 50% of the miles required for a round-trip award. This new structure matches that of American, Alaska and British Airways, among others.

For members, it greatly simplifies award redemption. Now consumers can make an informed choice about to earn vs. burn based on the price in miles or money based on each direction of their travels. In addition, given the scarcity of frequent-flyer award seats these days, consumers can redeem the higher peak level one direction while taking advantage of the lower off-peak award in the other direction - previously, the higher mileage level applied round trip, even if the low mileage level was actually available.

One possible downside for consumers is that if they are booking these awards separately on the phone, they may get nailed with more phone booking fees - one for each direction of the trip.

And, alas, the new structure only works for United/United Express flights - no one-ways on Star Alliance partners. At least yet anyway - one Star carrier, BMI does allow one-way awards on all Star Alliance partners - we only hope United will do the same in time. And American and BA already allow one-ways on their partners.

United also announced that users can now combine "miles and money" if they are short on miles. While I like the flexibility this offers, I've never found combining miles and money to be in anyone's interest except the airlines....

Overall, however, greater flexibility is always a plus. Or a Mileage Plus in this case.

BA Gives all-Business Class Flights to London Another GO

Today, British Airways (BA) announced schedules for their newest entry into the competitive New York to London market. Starting on September 29th, BA will operate one daily flight from close-in London City airport to JFK using an Airbus 318 configured with just 32 lay-flat business class seats.

The route was originally launched when upstart all Business Class carriers such as Eos, MaxJet and SilverJet were making waves in the New York - London market. Eos, in particular achieved success with the banking and legal set due to the close proximity of London Stansted to the City of London - the heart of the banking sector. BA decided to go one better and offer flights from an even closer airport - London City.

Since then, the financial markets have obviously cooled even further and Eos, MaxJet and SilverJet have all gone the way of the Do-Do. But even in these difficult times, BA is set to launch with one daily flight, climbing to two daily flights later in the year. (The flights will not operate on Saturdays and will stop for fuel in Shannon, Ireland on the way back from London due to the short runways at London City)

Interestingly, BA has decided to run this operation completely separate from their other up-start operation, OpenSkies. OpenSkies operates from JFK to Amsterdam and Paris along with Newark - Paris in an all-premium economy and business format. How many different business units and brands does BA really need? And do all these different brands and products fragment the market or segment it? Time will tell....