What United’s latest MileagePlus changes mean for award seats, ticket prices, and credit card holders
While Southwest has been grabbing all of the headlines lately for their spate of customer-unfriendly changes, United has been tweaking the value proposition of booking their flights over the last few year. I can’t say that United’s changes are all bad… if you know how to work with their system rather than fighting against it.
Here’s why you should care: United flies to more destinations than any other airline in the world. As an example, we have one flight this year for which United is the only carrier that will get us from those locations back to any airport in the U.S. For another route, United is the only carrier that will return us to an east coast hub early enough in the day to catch a connection home rather than forcing an overnight stop. Of course there are plenty of garden variety domestic flights where United may be the most convenient option.
No matter how you slice it, you shouldn’t ignore United even if this behemoth doesn’t factor into your imminent travel plans. I also think that some of the United changes I’ll talk about in this article are likely to be emulated by other U.S. carriers (one was actually copied from Delta) so these should be on the radar of every frequent traveler.
Banking is king, and status is queen
Airline loyalty programs are a huge business (billions in revenue per year), and a lot of that is based on the value airlines get by selling their miles to banks and issuing co-branded credit cards. In United’s case, their deepest financial partnership is with Chase though they now have smaller partnerships with Bilt and Sunrise Banks.
Unless you fly United a dozen times per year, they really really really want you to sign up for one of their Chase-issued credit cards, and United isn’t keeping it a secret. In fact, United is telling you everywhere you look on their website that they’ll give you more value and a better experience if you sign up for one of their credit cards.
You can also get a lot of the benefits provided by United’s credit cards if you have status with the airline – even lowly Silver – but that’s a much more expensive way to get to the same outcome.
Before we get into all of the important changes, I’ll give you a quick rundown of the United credit cards offered by Chase for context:
- United Gateway – No fee, but also basically no benefits; I won’t mention this card again and I’m not including it in any of the discussions in this article
- United Explorer – $150 per year (generally $0 the first year) gets you a free carry-on for your party(even for Basic Economy), free checked bag for you and one companion, priority boarding, two United Club passes and various statement credits
- United Quest – $350 per year gets you free carry-ons, two free checked bags for you and a companion, priority board, $200 in annual Travel Bank credit, a 10,000 mile annual discount, a boost toward status and various statement credits
- United Club – $695 per year gets you United Club membership, free carry-ons, two free checked bags for you and a companion, VIP treatment in the airport and various statement credits
There are also business cards available that mirror the Explorer and Club cards in terms of benefits (though as I’ll show you later they were excluded from one of the most recent United changes).
Right now in our household, we have a United Gateway card (which I downgraded from an Explorer because it’s my oldest card and I don’t want to cancel), United Explorer, United Quest and United Business. That’s certainly more than we need, and I’ll pare the collection back next year.
Unless you fly United all the time, I think the sweet spot is the United Explorer card. As of this writing in February 2026, it has an elevated welcome offer of 70,000 miles after you spend $3,000 in the first three months after opening the card. United will also give you an extra 10,000 when you add an authorized user during that timeframe… even if that user is your toddler!
If you’re a small business owner and think that actual United status might be handy for you to have, you’ll want to take a look at the combination of the United Business card and United Quest card. With the current limited time offers, opening those two would net you 180,000 redeemable points (plus another 20,000 if you add an authorized user/employee to each) and 5,450 Premier Qualifying Points once you hit the spending requirements – $4000 on the Quest and $5000 on the business. That’s basically spitting distance to United Premier Silver status once you fly on four United-operated segments.
Is Silver worth it? Maybe. You have the potential for day-of upgrades, but you’re behind all the other elites. The biggest benefit here is that if you’re booking a lot of paid flights you’ll earn more from that spending.
As I mentioned above, we have a bunch of United credit cards in our household. Beyond the lower annual fee, I find the benefits of the Explorer and Business cards very easy to use to recoup the expense.
First, each card comes with two $50 United Hotels credits per anniversary year. Those can be used for one-night stays and United Hotels uses hotels.com on the backend, so it’s perfect for booking inexpensive stays like on a road trip. Even better, if you need to stay for two nights you can just book two back-to-back one night stays. I actually used the credits from both of those cards to book four consecutive nights and saved $200 on the whole thing.
The United Quest and Club cards technically comes with bigger hotel credits, but they can only be used on the very small list of ultra-pricey Renowned Hotels. I’ve never found this program worthwhile.
Second, the United Club passes that come with the $150 cards can come in handy for a family like ours. One of our flights later this year will require a four hour stop in Newark – that’s the fastest itinerary available – and we’ll be able to spend three of those hours relaxing in the lounge. United basically owns that airport and there would be no other lounge available to us.
On a smaller scale, I also take advantage of the monthly Instacart and ride share credits from time to time. From a quick check I can see that in the last six months I recouped $36 of my United Business card annual fee from Lyft rides that I would have taken anyway. The various credits on all of my travel credit cards can get overwhelming so I track them with CardPointers+.
If you don’t have CLEAR+ for free through an Amex Platinum or Hilton Aspire card, holding any United credit card – even the no-fee Gateway – gets you a $40 discount when you sign up here.
Now that you understand the basics of the United credit cards, here are the ways United is making life easier if you hold one (and harder if you don’t).
Better (and cheaper) award availability
Historically, one of the cheapest ways to book United flights on points was to transfer from Chase or American Express to a non-US carrier like Air Canada or Avianca and use those points to book a United-operated flight. The same premise holds within other airline alliances – using Virgin Atlantic to book domestic Delta flights or British Airways to book domestic American flights. We’ve been doing this for years.
But taking advantage of those opportunities requires the operating airline – United in this case – to release “saver” level awards to its partners. All the way back in 2024, United began quietly limiting that partner space.
Instead, United began keeping a lot of saver space for Premier members and credit card holders redeeming United miles directly. While it’s not always the case, there are plenty of flights you just can’t book using partner miles at all. For example, we’re excited to try out United’s new non-stop service between Columbus and LAX later this year… but it’s just not available through partners at all.
Another example is flying from the U.S. to Lisbon, a route we’ll be on for spring break this year. This isn’t the date we’re flying but the same basic itinerary. I’m logged into my daughter’s United account here (more on that in a second) and you can see that the tickets are 70,000 miles each… but if she were a credit card holder it would only be 40,000. Other airlines don’t offer this particular award flight for any amount of points.
About this being my daughter’s account… one of the changes United announced in February 2026 is that beginning in April, linked kids will see the same award pricing as their parents. That’s good news, although in practice I don’t think it will make a huge difference to families – the other benefit of linking I’ll get to shortly is more meaningful.
Another discount is coming your way in April if you hold a United credit card: you’ll get at least 10% off all award tickets. So if that Saver ticket above is 40,000 miles for everyone, it’ll be 36,000 for card holders without any elite status. Delta has been giving 15% off to its card holders for a few years so this isn’t quite as good.
Let’s say you just fly a 30,000 mile domestic roundtrip in Economy each year. The 10% discount is worth around $35. For a family of four? That ~$145 savings basically offsets the annual fee of the United Explorer card. And – critically – you might not have even seen availability for that flight without holding the card.
For those of you who like to fly up front, United promises that they’ll show more saver awards for their ultra-comfortable Polaris cabins. To date it’s often been tough to find on the routes we need. I’m definitely looking forward to giving it a whirl!
My take: While it would be nice to use my huge bank of Amex points to book United flights through partner airlines, I’m hopeful that those of us who do engage meaningfully with United’s program will see more award inventory for premium economy and business at reasonable rates.
You’ll earn (a lot) more with United cards
Getting access to that expanded award availability and discount just requires you to hold a United credit card, but you don’t actually have to use it. In fact, very often when we book United award flights I pay for the taxes using my Chase Ink Preferred credit card – it earns 3 flexible use points per dollar on all travel (compared with 2 points per dollar on the Explorer or 3 on the Quest when buying a United flight) and has better travel insurance coverage.
But I think that might change now.
Up until now, we’ve earned 7 points per dollar for Economy flights purchased on the United Explorer card and 8 points per dollar on the Quest card – 5 of those from the fare itself and then 2 or 3 as a category bonus on credit card.
Under the updated earnings rates that take effect in April 2026, if you’re a card holder and you purchase a ticket using your United personal card, you’ll earn a total of 9 points per dollar with the Explorer and 10 with the Quest – in both cases, 6 points are from the fare and the rest is a category bonus on the credit card. This is where linking your kids to your United account will actually make a difference: they’ll earn at the card holder rate, just like you.
An improvement from 5 points to 6 points doesn’t sound huge, right? The flipside is that they’re making things worse for people who refuse to get a card. Beginning in April, if you don’t have a United credit card you’ll only earn 3 points per dollar on Economy fares. Furthermore, Basic Economy tickets will earn nothing unless you have a card; cardholders will earn 3 points per dollar on Basic Economy. So the gap between card holders and non card holders will actually be 3 points per dollar plus whatever extra you get from purchasing on the card.
This table shows you the full breakdown:
| Member | Paying with Explorer | Paying with Quest | Paying with Business | |
| Basic Economy | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Economy | 3 | 9 | 10 | 8 |
I know that was a lot of numbers, so let’s use a practical example. Say a family spending $1000 on Economy flights for summer break. If they don’t hold a United credit card, they’ll be earning 3,000 miles (plus let’s say another 2,000 miles on a Chase Sapphire Preferred). If both adults in the family hold a United Explorer card and they use either card that to book the flight, the family will collectively earn 9,000 miles. The extra 4,000 miles can easily be redeemed for around $50 in value on a future flight, which is a meaningful chunk of the Explorer’s $150 per card annual fee (after the free first year).
In case you missed that important distinction, you each adult needs their own card to earn at the cardmember rate – being an authorized user doesn’t count!
My take: It certainly hurts to earn nothing on Basic Economy fares and a measly 3 points per dollar on Economy fares, but United is giving an extra 2 points per dollar if you pay using an Explorer card than what that card earns now on flights. That’s pretty solid for a card that costs nothing in the first year.
I think it’s really lame that United didn’t improve earnings for travelers paying with a United Business card.
Bags fly free
This isn’t a recent United change, but a good reminder: if you book Basic Economy on United within North America, you really need an Explorer card. Without it you’ll pay for anything you want to bring that isn’t a small personal item!
Just last week there was a post over in my Facebook group in which a traveler was shocked (even indignant) that her family would have spend nearly $300 for their carry-on suitcases. For better or worse, United has had this rule in place ever since they introduced Basic Economy back in 2017. If you book your flight on any United credit card (other than the free Gateway) you and up to 7 companions on the same itinerary can each bring a carry-on.
Thankfully United award tickets book into regular Economy and are entitled to a free carry-on. Basic Economy tickets that leave North America also get a free carry-on.
What if you want to check a bag? Then you’ll definitely want a card! To take advantage of this benefit you do need to charge at least part of the ticket to your United card – in the case of an award ticket, that could be as little as the $5.60 mandatory security fee. I can confirm that this works exactly as advertised, because this is how my mom and her very heavy suitcase get to us. She doesn’t use any of the Explorer’s other benefits (yet) but the card more than pays for itself through luggage alone.
My take: If you only book United on points and never check a bag, this won’t be important to you. But if you want the flexibility to take advantage of a cheap Basic Economy ticket or sometimes need to pack an extra suitcase full of presents, holding one of these cards is a no-brainer.
What should you do?
Clearly United really really really wants you to open one of their credit cards. But should you?
I know it probably sounds from this article like I’m going to give everyone out there a resounding “YES!” But as with all things, it depends on your travel needs.
If you live in a Delta or American hub and can’t remember the last time you boarded a United flight, then none of these changes will matter to you. Within the Chase ecosystem you’d be better off grabbing a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred. Even the most loyal United flyers should probably grab those cards first, as the flexible points they earn can be transferred to United or another partner depending on your needs at the moment.
But if you’re like our family and wind up flying United at least once or twice per year, holding one of these credit cards is almost certainly a good value proposition. Unlike a lot of the ultra-premium credit cards out there today, the United Explorer or United Business card’s reasonable $150 annual fee is pretty easy to recoup when you consider the better and cheaper award availability, baggage benefit, easy hotel credits and more. The Explorer even gives you a year to test drive it for free, and with the current elevated offers that’s a hard deal to pass up.
For families focused on award travel (aka booking on miles), it’s enough to have one Explorer card in the house. But if you plan to book a lot of pricey cash tickets and care about earning more points, it can be worth crunching the numbers on each adult getting their own. You’ll just have to work harder with those credits to offset the annual fees!
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