The image shows a well-lit hotel room with a large bed covered in white linens. There is a wooden desk with a chair on the left side, and a flat-screen TV on top of a wooden dresser. A small round table with two chairs is positioned near a large window with green curtains, offering a view of a lush, green landscape outside. The walls are painted a light beige color, and there is a piece of framed artwork hanging on the wall. A bedside table with a lamp is next to the bed.

Why Did US Airways Off-Peak South America Awards Disappear?

ByThe Miles Professor

The US Airways award chart suddenly has a former great deal missing: gone are the off-peak awards to South America that cost 35,000 miles round-trip in economy and 60,000 miles round-trip in business class. The deal to book round-trip awards to Europe for 35,000 miles that I wrote about a few days ago is still intact, but South America off-peak award dates are nowhere to be seen. So what happened? Did US Airways make an award chart change without notice?

US Airways off-peak award dates
US Airways off-peak award dates

It turns out there’s a very good explanation. While US Airways miles can be used for award flights across all its new oneworld partners, the off-peak award chart only applies to awards on US Airways operated flights. Off-peak pricing would also only apply on certain dates for a few weeks in the Spring so the next time these awards would even be possible would be spring of 2015.

US Airways is currently running flights from Charlotte to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo, but it decided a while back to cut service to these two cities in consolidation of its routes with American Airlines. So the simple explanation for this award chart change is those US Airways flights will no longer exist and it would actually be impossible to book them. So US Airways removing its South America off-peak dates from the chart is a move toward honesty… as it would be completely dishonest to have a chart and advertise off-peak award pricing for award where service does not even exist. The change, in other words, is really nothing new that we didn’t know before, as announced earlier this year:

(Hat Tip to The Flight Deal)

So now the US Airways off-peak pricing is down to just two destinations: Europe and the Caribbean. Europe really does remain a great deal for 35,000 miles round-trip between January 15 and February 28.  The Caribbean off-peak price of 25,000 miles round-trip for September is too late to use this year, but the schedule for next year is going to be opening up in a few weeks.

Other posts you may like about US Airways miles:

3 Comments

  1. Dear professor.

    I am writing from Chile. Congratulations for your exciting and successful work.
    About South america. would you be so kind to have in mind this part of the world for futures posts.

    Thank you very much.

    Guillermo

  3. Pingback: Weekly Travel News Roundup: Friday 19 September 2014 – Tagging Miles

Comments are closed.