United Airlines recently revamped its frequent-flier award chart bringing changes to number of miles requirements needed for some of its most popular awards. Media reports quoted Rahsaan Johnson, a spokesman of United Airlines, as saying that the airline is increasing miles requirement in some of the markets for the first time in several years. This was being done to cope up with the increased cost of providing transportation, particularly in the premium cabin and especially on the Mileage Plus partner carriers.

Johnson said that the airline was confronted with a hard decision that was also being faced by other airlines. A piquant situation had arisen before United Airlines and tough choices remained whether to increase the number of miles required for partner awards or to eliminate them altogether. He said that the airline finally arrived at a decision and concluded that its frequent-fliers would prefer to keep those options at an increased cost instead of eliminating them.

United Airlines said that it is changing the number of miles required for both its “Saver” and “Standard” level frequent-flier tickets, including those needed for domestic “stopovers”. The airline further stated that it is changing the amount of miles required to redeem awards for First and Business Class tickets on its Star Alliance partners, including Air Canada, Thai Airways, All Nippon Airways, Lufthansa and many others.