Award tickets with United

You need to tell us your origin and desired destination(s).

Are you looking at the exact same flights that you were 3 weeks ago? Same flight numbers and dates? Award amounts do change and get higher as time nears the departure, so perhaps that's it. Without knowing any more specifics, it's really hard to guess.

Hi kahtravg. Are you signed in to your United account? If so, it's because, just like regular airfares, those member award discounts can change every day with supply and demand. Likely on the route and dates you were checking, they no longer have as many unsold seats, so they no longer have the incentive to offer the discounts.

United keeps track of your searches and your viewing activity, especially when logged in to your account. After I've purchased a fare, I take close note of the price for any seat upgrades. After checking back a few times, I will often see an "offer" for that seat upgrade at a reduced price. The "offer" will be there for a few days or even a week or two, probably dependent on my viewing activity.

After some time that their algorithm thinks that I have had "enough time to think about it" they will withdraw the offer and the seat upgrade goes back to market price.

It sounds like they may have made you an "offer" for a fare at reduced miles.

I can't recall whether I've seen an offer come back around, but it's worth checking. And sometimes you have to play "coy" - act like you're not interested for a while. It's definitely a pricing "game."

I've been tracking this very closely this year with several flights. So here are 2 examples of United offers on seat upgrades, both after having bought an economy ticket. (Not basic economy.)

Example 1: I was checking prices for 2 seat upgrades, which were in the thousands of dollars, which I had no intention of paying. So I kept checking. One day I saw offers on those 2 seat upgrades for $500 each. I bought one, but not the other. Two days later, they offered that other upgrade for $375, which I paid.

Example 2: in one sequence (different flight from Example 1) I watched an upgrade to Polaris (lie-flat seating) go from over $2000 to $2853. Immediately after upgrading the flight in Example 1 (for $375) the price of the Polaris upgrade on this flight jumped to over $5000. And I mean immediately after the upgrade on the other flight, because I checked immediately. A few days later, it dropped to $2200. After ignoring it for 3 weeks, I checked back and the offer to upgrade this 2nd flight was offered at $953.

Assuming you have time to play the waiting game, it pays to keep very close track of these offers and then act disinterested for a while to see what they offer. And then jump on it when they do, because it may not last long.

I'm trying to be very flexible and using the 30 day calendar. I've booked 4 tickets (May 13 and May 27) for different family members. I've been on the booking site a lot (watching for about a year, just waiting for the booking windows to open). Availability is definitely more limited now than in the past but to suddenly have nothing in the economy saver award range below 125 K for the trip seems more deliberate or a policy change.

This trip is from Colorado to South Africa in June 2024.

It's also possible the lower mileage fares were bought by other travelers.

And, as you said in your original post, there's this:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thepointsguy.com/news/united-worldwide-devaluations/amp/

Availability is definitely more limited now than in the past but to suddenly have nothing in the economy saver award range below 125 K for the trip seems more deliberate or a policy change.
This trip is from Colorado to South Africa in June 2024.

Are you looking from DEN>JNB? I just did a quick search for June 2024 and I'm seeing the saver award of 49.5k pts available for departure on June 2, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 & 16. Return flights for 45.2k pts available on June 8-13 & 20.

Just did another quick scan of the 30 day calendar and all the amounts were in the 45-49.5k range for departure from now through June 2024. The only dates showing 100k or more awards were May/June 2024. I suspect you are looking too far out and will see better deals pop up in the months ahead, if you can wait to purchase.

I'm going to try and be patient. I'm looking at mid Jun into July. I've been bouncing around trying different options, and it looks like maybe I'm a week too early for Airlink to get their flights out there. If I need to, I'll fly my family into JNB on award miles, then separately book a flight to Skukuza with cash (they are less expensive than when we took ours a few years back).

Thanks for taking the time to give me ideas (I was once able to use ANA to find lots of options, but it will work out)