The other day I saw a tweet from saianel who said that he had less award availability now that he canceled the credit card. It also seems that every year Star Alliance award availability to Europe gets worse and worse. Finding a ticket in the summer requires advance notice or some flexibility.
Since I have one account with the card and one account without the card, I figured it would be pretty easy for me to test. So here’s what I found.
First, I just picked what I figured would be a popular route most people are struggling with, Chicago to Paris. Logged in, this was the result I got:
Then I logged out and back into an account without the credit card, this is what I saw:
But the surprising thing was what I saw when I clicked on April 11th, a day with no availability when I logged out. Logged out there was zero saver availability. But when I logged in I saw this:
An Air Canada flight. I would have thought it would have been United availability held back, but no, it was Air Canada. And checking other dates for this route, I continually saw that Air Canada flights to Paris weren’t available when logged out, but were available when logged in.
As you can see from the pictures, the difference isn’t terribly huge. Looking at May, I see economy seats that aren’t showing up when logged out on the following dates: 15, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, and 29. And for Business class I see a difference on May 11 and 18.
Overall, these aren’t terribly large differences. A few dates here and a few dates there. And many times the little calendar view isn’t accurate and it shows less availability than there actually is, but in this example, I think it’s a good representation.
Also, I don’t just want to give the impression that availability is only given to partners, most of the time it appears to be United. Here’s an example of a United flight. LA to London logged into an account with a credit card:
And here’s the same flight without the credit card:
Anyways, it’s just a general restriction on regular accounts, and isn’t a thing with Air Canada. Don’t want to give the wrong impression.
Looking for Awards with 4 People
The next thing I decide to test out is the difference between finding awards for 4 people when logged in and logged out… or rather logged into an account that doesn’t have the credit card. And for the record, I don’t actually see any difference for award availability logged in to a standard account without a credit card, and not being logged in at all. Logging in only helps if you have some perks, like a credit card or status.
So I decided to do the same route, why not? Chicago to Paris oneway for 4 people. Here are the results with the credit card:
And here are the results logged out, or for a non-credit card account:
Again, the difference isn’t huge. There aren’t a ton more days, but when you get into summer, it’s actually a large percentage.
Look. Logged out in June, there are only 3 days with any saver award availability. 3 possible days, June 7, 16, and 30.
Logged in you add June 9, 17, 22, 23, and 29. You go from 3 possible days to a total of 8 possible days. For summer to Europe, that’s nearly triple the award availability.
And just for the sake of fully explaining what I found, here is an example of a specific flight. Here is a flight logged in and searching for 4 people:
Then logged out, or without the United Explorer credit card:
Conclusion
The big question is whether or not one should keep the United Explorer card?
My personal opinion is no. I am spread out enough between mileage accounts that if there’s no UA availability I can use AA or something. Plus, I’m flexible, but probably more so than most. And honestly, the difference isn’t huge. A few days on most months.
However, during peak times when there is almost no availability (like summer to Europe) a couple of days is a huge difference.
Instead, my advise might be to check availability for routes you might need before you cancel the card. If the availability is great anyways, or if the card doesn’t help, there’s no need to worry. However, you may find that you need to book a flight before canceling the card.
While it’s not my favorite card to keep, United is a great program in many ways. And it’s not a bad card to get. It’s also unique in that it allows people to signup for the card again if you last applied more than 24 months ago. So if you’re a previous card holder and are swayed back to the card, you may be eligible to get the card again.
To sum it all up, it’s not a big difference in numbers, but there is a difference in award availability for those who have the United credit card and those who don’t.
The problem is it’s really hard to find in-bound flight with Saver Award seats make most of the time.
In-bound from where?
The difference is usually most pronounced on domestic routes from smaller airports to *A gateways and hubs.
Yea, turns out with the first example with Air Canada, the problem is actually the award availability to Montreal, not the international AC flight. Gotta have both to leave Chicago I guess.
Interesting. Next logical thing to check is ANA space, which shows the true StarNet availability.
Don’t know why I didn’t do that. For whatever reason I did check with AC, which is unfair because I use AC as the example. But anyways…
I found that Aeroplan did not show the UA flight from LAX to LHR. In this case, UA was giving extra award space, but only to their card members.
With the ORD-YUL-CDG example, Aeroplan of course showed the same award. Which either means UA is withholding award space from regular members, or they are tapping into the award space AC reserves for their members.
Actually, I just checked ANA. And they don’t show the same flight.
This means…
*Believe it or not*
United is actually providing a benefit.
Except kind of. Because as it turns out, the AC flight actually does have availability. And if I was smart enough to search the first time on UA (while logged out) I would have seen AC availability from YUL to Paris.
So United only gives extra inventory in these cases to it’s card holders and not to regular members.
I think this is what you are experiencing. With UA Explorer Card you can see United XN fare class. XN is an economy saver award for elites and provides additional availability over fare class X which is the economy saver award for non-elites. I’m thinking in your example that the UA leg to connect to the AC flight was causing the award inventory to become unavailable. BTW Explorer card does not provide the expanded IN fare class saver business/first award that high level elites can see. Love your blog, Drew! Appreciate all the great posts!
Definitely is the UA leg on the AC example, I checked on ANA and that was the leg not available.
Yea, I didn’t notice much of a change in Business/First and I wonder if the little I did notice on the calendar was because small connecting flights were unavailable, making the entire route disappear.
Thanks, and thanks for commenting!
Drew
CC also seems to open up availability for standard y awards as well. Looking at peak season from CUN only standard business first awards show up when logged out.
Glad to hear it helps find awards during peak season to hot spots.
I might go purgatory for this, but I did an affiliate link app for the Ink through one of TIF’s links, and got approved.
Thanks for yours (and Mrs TIFs) posts.
Well thank you. I may be biased, but I can’t imagine why it would warrant purgatory.
Thanks for the support and reading and commenting.