United Airlines (UA) is making some big changes to the benefits of its partner cards.

The UA partner cards are issued by Chase and include four personal cards and two business cards.

All of these cards have been renamed with the adjective The New, and the card benefits have been updated accordingly.

In today's post, we'll briefly summarize the overall changes, and then pick a featured card to explain.

Basic tiers of cards

Before we summarize the overall changes, let's explain the basic tiers of cards.

For personal cards, there are four types of cards.

• The lowest tier card with no annual fee is The New United Gateway℠ Card (the Gateway).
• The card we've been talking about as a must-have in the Magic circle is The New United℠ Explorer Card (Explorer).
• The mid-tier card is The New United Quest℠ Card (Quest)
• Finally, the card with the highest annual fee and lounge access is The New United Club℠ Card (Club Card)

There are two types of business cards.

• The card equivalent of the Personal Explorer Card is The New United℠ Business Card (hereafter referred to as the General Business Card).
• The equivalent of the Personal Club Card is The New United Club℠ Business Card (the Business Club Card).

Four personal cards and two business cards, if you remember correctly.

Let's describe the common characteristics.

Feature 1: Couponbooking

The biggest feature of this update is that offers have been couponized.

Coupon bookmarking refers to the practice of spreading out the benefits over a period of time, such as monthly or quarterly, rather than all at once.

• Prevent cardmembers from taking the card's sign-up bonus and putting it in a drawer, while also ensuring that the
• Encourage regular card use and
• It's a marketing tactic that card companies continue to employ, as it means that card use becomes second nature.

So far, Amex has been leading the way, but with this UA card revamp, Chase is starting to adopt it in earnest.

Let's take a look at the specifics.

Let's use the Explorer card as an example, which is probably the most familiar of the personal cards.

• When you register/use your Explorer card for rideshare like Uber, you get a statement credit of $5 per month up to $60 per year.
• For Instacart, you get a $10 statement credit every month, up to a maximum of $120 in a year.
• Similar to the Amex Delta card, they've introduced a hotel credit, but instead of a lump sum, it's $50 per booking, split into two payments of up to $100, and a statement credit.

The regular business card is similar.

• It says up to $100 for Rideshare, but I get $8 per month from January through November, then $12 in December, so that's up to $100.
• Instacart is the same, $10 per month up to $120 per year
• Same for hotel credit, 2 $50 increments, up to $100 statement credit
• I get $25 for each Avis or Budget rental (booking directly on cars.united.com + using my business card), up to 2 times, and $50, but it's not a statement credit like cash, it's United® TravelBank cash that I have to use at UA ;);

In my opinion, it's a waste of time and money to try to chase every benefit.

We recommend that you only take advantage of the benefits that apply directly to you.

For example, for Instacart, unless you're already a frequent user, I think it's better to just give up on it, and for Rideshare and car rentals, I think it's going to be a huge hassle to use.

My milegaming credo is "eat the big chunk, throw away the good 20%," but in this case, I'd rather just use the hotel credit.

Feature 2: Increased annual fee

At the same time that these goodies have increased, the annual fee has also increased.

• The Explorer card increased by $55, from $95 to $150 (the first year's annual fee is waived for this offer)
• Quest Cards increased by $100, from $250 to $350
• The Club Card went from $525 to $695, a $170 increase.

The good news is.

• For those of you who are magical The Explorer Card's first-year annual fee is still waivedin the file.
• And I would say that with the benefits I mentioned, like the hotel credit, the Explorer card can be worth the annual fee, so it can be a good option to keep it.

Feature 3: Benefit differentiation

The final major feature of this change is that the benefits are now tiered.

Earlier, we mentioned that the Personal Explorer card can earn $5 per month for rideshare and $10 per month for Instacart.

For the Club Card, which has the highest annual fee of any personal card, you can earn up to $100 United® TravelBank cash for rideshare every month for $12 ($18 in December), Instacart two times for $10 per month, and car rentals up to two times for $50 each.

In other words, if you pay more for an annual fee, we'll give you more goodies for paying more.

In this regard, there is one major change: XN Accessibility. 

The reason we've been explaining why a UA partner card is a must-have is because it gives you access to a special fare class called XN.

Let's look at an example, say you're looking for an SFO-ICN ticket for May 28th.

For Affiliate card members, XN fare class access makes it possible to ticket an economy one-way for 55,000 miles.

However, if you're not a cardmember, you don't have access to XNs, and as a result, you can only ticket with the more expensive YNs, which means you have to spend 100,000 miles, which is 45,000 miles more, to get the same economy seat.

It's not just about being able to access XN, it's about being able to access XN.

Okay, so the question is.

The catch is that this XN access benefit will be removed from the no-annual-fee Gateway card on August 1 (I'm told you have to spend $10,000 on the card in a calendar year to keep it).

Right now, many people are using

• Get an Explorer card, use it for a year, and then enjoy the
• You downgraded to a gateway card when the annual fee came due, and have been using XN fare access ever since.

Now, the This means that Explorer cards need to be maintained annually to maintain XN functionalityin the following example.

Card recommendations based on travel patterns 

So, which of the six cards should you create?

Let me ask you a few questions.

1. Are you a frequent business traveler? Do you fly UA domestic almost every month and therefore need airport lounge access?

If the answer to this question is no, then you can remove the club card, whether personal or business, from your options right away.

Since lounge access is the most important benefit of these cards, making these cards for people who don't need to fly UA every month is like buying carbon shoes for marathon runners when you're a local jogger once or twice a week.

Image Credit, Depositphotos: 121336872

2. Do you fly UA 3-4 times a year on a regular basis, but not for business?

If you answered yes to this question, then Personalized Quest Cards might be an option for you.

The Quest Card has a $350 annual fee, but the

• 200 automatically when you create a card You'll receive United® TravelBank cash, and you'll continue to receive $200 for each card membership year. That's effectively a $150 annual fee.
• Plus, starting in your second year of card issuance, you'll receive a 10,000 mile discount on UA miles redeemed annually ("10,000 mile anniversary award flight discount").
• Another perk of using this card to buy UA tickets is that there's no baggage fee for up to two bags.
• Of course, the sign-up bonus is also honored at 90,000 miles (after spending $4,000 in 3 months)

3. do you travel to Korea once every 1-2 years, if at all?

This is probably the case for most of you, in which case a private explorer is the answer.

With this card overhaul Sign-up bonus is at an all-time high of 80,000 miles(after 3 months of $3000 usage).

As I mentioned, the first year's annual fee is free, and you can offset it with perks like hotel credits and one-time lounge access.

4. Can I apply for a business card?

If you're eligible to apply for business The sign-up bonus on the regular business card is the highest ever.

125,000 miles after spending $5,000 for 3 monthsEven considering the $150 annual fee, this is a steal.

Plus, if you have a UA personal card and also have a business card, you'll get a Better-together bonus of 5,000 miles each year when you renew your business card, which is a nice perk.

Let's wrap up today's post.

Overall, I'd have to say that the UA Affiliate card being couponbooked is a bit of an annoying change.

However, if you think of it as a big-picture, don't-pay-attention-to-everything kind of thing, I think it's fair to say that there are some positive aspects to this change.

Miles are earned by signing up, first and foremost because the sign-up bonus is better.

We hope you have a great day.