United MileagePlus is currently offering a promotion on purchased miles. While different members will be eligible for different offers, the best version is for up to a 100% bonus, which gets you a cost of 1.88 cents per mile. Is this a good deal?
While I wouldn’t recommend buying miles without a specific use in mind, there are absolutely ways to get outsized value, especially for long haul business class travel on United or its Star Alliance partners. Let’s go over all the details of this offer.
Link: Buy United MileagePlus miles with this promotion with up to a 100% bonus
Buy United MileagePlus miles with a promotion
Through 11:59PM CT on Saturday, October 31, 2026, United MileagePlus is offering a bonus on purchased miles. Different members are eligible for different offers, though the best version of the promotion is for a 100% bonus, structured as follows:
- Buy 2,000-4,000 miles, receive no bonus
- Buy 5,000-19,000 miles, receive a 75% bonus
- Buy 20,000-25,000 miles, receive a 100% bonus
You can typically buy a minimum of 2,000 MileagePlus miles, and from there, you can buy miles in increments of 1,000 miles. However, let me emphasize that not everyone is eligible for this 100% bonus, and other members are eligible for a 95% bonus, or even 80% bonus. So you’ll want to log into your account and see what you’re eligible for.
How much does it cost to purchase United MileagePlus miles?
United MileagePlus ordinarily charges 3.5 cents per purchased mile, plus a 7.5% federal excise tax, for an all-in cost of 3.76 cents per mile. If you were eligible for the 100% bonus and purchased 50,000 miles (including the 100% bonus), you’d end up paying a total of $940.63 including all taxes, which comes out to a rate of 1.88 cents per mile.
Just in the interest of being thorough, let me recap the cost per purchased mile depending on the type of offer you’re eligible for, factoring in the 7.5% federal excise tax:
- With a 100% bonus (or 50% discount), you can buy miles for 1.88 cents each
- With a 95% bonus (or 42.5% discount), you can buy miles for 1.93 cents each
- With a 90% bonus (or 45% discount), you can buy miles for 1.98 cents each
- With an 80% bonus (or 40% discount), you can buy miles for 2.09 cents each
How many United MileagePlus miles can you purchase?
United MileagePlus limits members to purchasing 200,000 MileagePlus miles per account per calendar year. However, more specifically, the program limits members to purchasing up to 50,000 MileagePlus miles per any rolling 90-day period.
Note that these limits apply after factoring in any bonuses, so even when United offers a bonus on purchased miles, you can still only purchase a maximum of 50,000 miles over the course of 90 days, or 200,000 miles per calendar year.
One potential workaround worth highlighting is that MileagePlus also lets members pool miles with certain conditions, so you could potentially buy miles in multiple accounts, and then combine your balances.
If you do buy United miles, it can take up to 72 hours for them to post to your account. Note that any purchased miles only qualify as redeemable miles, and don’t count toward MileagePlus elite status.
How does this compare to other United buy miles promotions?
When United MileagePlus offers a promotion on purchased miles, it’s common for a 100% bonus or 50% discount to be the highest version of the offer. That ultimately gets you the same price per mile, so they’re the same offers, for all practical purposes.
The one thing to understand is that United generally has targeted promotions, meaning not all members will be eligible for the same offers. That being said, below is a chart with some of the recent promotions we saw from the program, before this one, with the highest bonus amounts offered.
| Buy points offer | Start date | End date | Cost per mile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 100% bonus | September 8, 2026 | September 30, 2026 | 1.88 cents |
| Up to 100% bonus | July 14, 2026 | August 20, 2026 | 1.88 cents |
| Up to 100% bonus | May 13, 2026 | June 24, 2026 | 1.88 cents |
| Up to 100% bonus | April 8, 2026 | April 30, 2026 | 1.88 cents |
| Up to 100% bonus | February 12, 2026 | March 31, 2026 | 1.88 cents |
| 100% bonus | January 8, 2026 | January 26, 2026 | 1.88 cents |
Which credit card should you buy United MileagePlus miles with?
United MileagePlus mileage purchases are processed by points.com, meaning they don’t count as an airfare purchase for the purposes of credit card spending. That means if you pay with a United credit card, you wouldn’t earn any bonus rewards, so it’s not treated as if it’s United spending.
Therefore I’d recommend using a card on which you’re trying to reach a minimum spending requirement, or otherwise, a credit card that maximizes your return on everyday spending.
- Earn 1% cash back when you make a purchase, earn 1% cash back when you pay for that purchase
- $0
- Earn 3% Cash Back on Dining
- Earn 3% Cash Back at Drugstores
- Earn 1.5% Cash Back On All Other Purchases
- $0
- Earn 2x miles per dollar on every purchase
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- 10,000 bonus miles every account anniversary
- $395
- Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check Credit
- $95
- 2x points on purchases up to $50k then 1x
- Access to Amex Offers
- No annual fee
Is buying United MileagePlus miles worth it?
How much value can you really get when redeeming redeeming United MileagePlus miles? In general, I’d say the single best use of United miles is to redeem for Polaris business class on long haul flights. This is for a few reasons:
- United makes a vast majority of Polaris business class award seats available exclusively to MileagePlus members, and not to members of partner frequent flyer programs
- United has a massive global route network, so being able to redeem on United is useful, especially if you want to fly direct to international destinations
- Nowadays MileagePlus members who have Premier elite status and/or a co-branded MileagePlus credit card get significantly better award pricing, so there’s lots of value to that
Beyond that, United potentially has attractive award pricing on some partner airlines, though the value does vary considerably. For example, I’d consider it a real sweet spot how you can redeem 88,000 MileagePlus miles for business class to Africa, given the amount of travel that entails.
Admittedly limits come into play here, but at an acquisition cost as low as 1.88 cents per mile, you could potentially get way outsized value here. Being able to book a one-way United business class ticket from San Francisco to Singapore for around $1,880 is a great deal compared to the retail cost, as is spending $1,654 on a one-way Star Alliance business class ticket from the United States to South Africa.
Of course I should also point out that there are endless situations where this wouldn’t represent a great deal. Just to give one example, say you wanted to book a one-way United first class ticket from Boston to San Francisco, where the cash fare is $764, and the redemption rate is 77,300 miles. There would be no reason to buy miles for close to two cents each, when the redemption only gets you around one cent per mile of value.
On what airlines can you redeem United MileagePlus miles?
United Airlines belongs to the Star Alliance, so you can redeem MileagePlus miles on all Star Alliance airlines.
On top of that, you can redeem miles on some of United’s other partner airlines, including Aer Lingus, Azul, Discover Airlines, and more.
How much are United MileagePlus miles worth?
Everyone will value mileage currencies differently. Based on my latest miles & points valuations, I consider MileagePlus miles to be worth 1.3 cents each. I tend to value points pretty conservatively, and there are many ways to get more value from MileagePlus miles than that.
Do United MileagePlus miles expire?
United MileagePlus miles don’t expire. There’s no activity required to keep your account mileage balance alive, but rather you can keep your miles no matter what.
What other ways can you earn United MileagePlus miles?
If you’re looking to earn United MileagePlus miles, there are plenty of ways to rack up this currency with credit card rewards:
- Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be moved to United MileagePlus at a 1:1 ratio, so you can move over points earned on cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card (learn more), Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ (learn more), Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (learn more), and Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card (learn more)
- Bilt Rewards points can be moved to United MileagePlus at a 1:1 ratio, including points earned on cards like the Bilt Palladium Card (learn more), Bilt Obsidian Card (learn more), and Bilt Blue Card (learn more) (Rates & Fees)
On top of that, MileagePlus has a variety of co-branded Chase credit cards, which can be a great way to rack up rewards. This includes cards like the United Club℠ Card (learn more), United Quest℠ Card (learn more), United℠ Explorer Card (learn more), United Gateway℠ Card (learn more), etc.
Bottom line
United MileagePlus is offering a promotion on purchased miles, and different members may be targeted for different offers. In this case, it appears that the best offer is for up to a 100% bonus (or 50% discount), which is an opportunity to buy miles for 1.88 cents each. However, not everyone is targeted for such an offer, so some people are only eligible for a smaller discount or bonus.
This could be a chance to acquire MileagePlus miles at a reasonable cost. However, I’d only buy miles with a specific and immediate redemption in mind.
Do you plan on buying United miles with this offer?
You left off a couple additional option right now. Marriott points are currently on sale for as low as .81 cents per point. So if you have that deal in your Marriott account, you could pay just 1.62 CPP by buying Marriott points if you transfer Marriott to United at the correct ratio.
Additionally, Wyndham has a higher than normal transfer ratio to United at the moment so you can convert Wyndham 2.5 Wyndham points...
You left off a couple additional option right now. Marriott points are currently on sale for as low as .81 cents per point. So if you have that deal in your Marriott account, you could pay just 1.62 CPP by buying Marriott points if you transfer Marriott to United at the correct ratio.
Additionally, Wyndham has a higher than normal transfer ratio to United at the moment so you can convert Wyndham 2.5 Wyndham points to 1 United point. If you took advantage of the recent Wyndham points sale, this also would have been a decent way to acquire United points at a low cost.
This is absolutely positively not worth it. It arguably is NEVER worth it.
No one should speculatively acquire airline points as they are all de facto dynamic price currencies. If by some odd miracle you are looking an award in the face, need a few points you don't have, and the sale is going on? Then maybe, buy the few points.
Otherwise, absolutely do not do this. You wouldn't buy dimes for a quarter. You should buy airline miles.