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.

New York Air Market Continues to Heat Up: American Offering Double Miles

The highly competitive market in New York continues to just get hotter. Today, American launched a new promotion offering New Yorkers double AAdvantage frequent flyer miles for the rest of the year. On all routes, all fares, worldwide.

This is clearly a response to a similar offer that Delta made a few weeks ago for which was broader in some respects (you don't have to live in NY) but also more targeted because you need to be a Delta American Express card holder.

What is interesting is that American felt the only place they needed to match the offer was the NYC market. The New York area has increasingly become a battle ground between Delta, Continental and American. AA and DL (especially DL) have added extensive new flights from JFK, AA has opened a new terminal at JFK. Continental continues to operate the largest operation of any of the carriers, albeit over at Newark - NY's third airport even though it is in New Jersey. (Which simply allows Delta to claim more flights from New York meaning the state rather than the metropolitan area - funny, they dont make the same claim in Cincinnati where the airport (CVG) is actually in Kentucky!) But we digress.

Complicating the story is Continental's impending move from the Skyteam Alliance (of which Delta is part of) to the Star Alliance which has not had a strong New York presence. Many NY travelers split their loyalty between Delta and Continental and credit their miles on both into one program. This is about to change as consumers will no longer be able to credit CO flights to DL and vice-versa. This change, set to happen this fall, raises the stakes for both carriers to hold on to the other's travelers.

Oh, and if you want those double miles on AA, go here and register....