UA: MileagePlus program changes

Information Link: http://mileageplusupdates.com/mileageplus/english/miles/

Starting Oct 6, 2016, UA will make some changes on their awards flight booking program.  All awards will be priced on a one-way basis, and two or more one-way awards can be combined to form roundtrip or multi-city itineraries. UA will also introduce the Excursionist Perk and discontinue the current stopover policy and Round the World awards on October 6, 2016.

What is the Excursionist Perk? The Excursionist Perk is a free one-way award within select multi-city itineraries. UA Members who book an itinerary with three or more one-way awards will be eligible to receive one of those one-way awards for free, if it meets all of these conditions:

• The Excursionist Perk cannot be in the MileagePlus defined region where your travel originates. (For example, if your journey begins in North America, you will only receive the Excursionist Perk if travel is within a region outside of North America.)
• Travel must end in the same MileagePlus defined region where travel originates.
• The origin and destination of the Excursionist Perk is within a single MileagePlus defined region.
• The cabin of service and award type of the free one-way award is the same or lower than the one-way award preceding it.
• If two or more one-way awards qualify for this benefit, only the first occurrence will be free.

How is the new Excursionist Perk different from the current stopover policy? The Excursionist Perk is not defined by time, while the stopover policy is. For international itineraries, a break in the journey over 24 hours is considered a stopover; for domestic, the break must be over four hours. Additionally, the stopover policy is based on fare rules with region and routing restrictions that some customers found confusing. UA will also introduce new and enhanced multi-city booking capabilities, which will allow members to easily customize itineraries with multiple breaks on united.com. UA provides some examples on the Excursionist Perk on their website as well.

You know what (I guess you already know it)? Actually, these changes are bad news for most of the UA members...

 BTW, UA will also change their fee structure for changing or cancelling award flights on Oct 6, 2016:
 http://mileageplusupdates.com/mileageplus/english/flight/