United MileagePlus is offering up to a 100% bonus on purchased miles through 11:59PM CT on Thursday, September 6, 2018.
This is as good as bonuses on purchased United miles get, as I don’t ever recall seeing a bigger offer from them (though they have occasionally offered similar bonuses in the past).
The promotion is tiered, and you earn a bigger bonus the more miles you buy, as follows:
- Buy 5,000-14,000 miles, get a 30% bonus
- Buy 15,000-29,000 miles, get a 70% bonus
- Buy 30,000-44,000 miles, get an 85% bonus
- Buy 45,000-75,000 miles, get a 100% bonus
If you max out this promotion you can purchase a total of 150,000 United MileagePlus miles at a cost of $2,821.88, which is ~1.88 cents per mile.
A member can purchase at most 150,000 miles per year (including any bonuses), and it can take up to 48 hours for purchased miles to post to your account. Personally I value MileagePlus miles at ~1.3 cents each, though there are ways to get more value out of them than that. I wouldn’t recommend proactively picking up MileagePlus miles for ~1.88 cents each, but with a specific use in mind it could make sense to buy miles.
You can find the United MileagePlus interactive award chart here, for a sense of how many miles a redemption will cost.
If you’re looking to earn United miles, MileagePlus is a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner, so you can convert Ultimate Rewards points into United miles at a 1:1 ratio.
United mileage purchases are processed by points.com, so buying miles wouldn’t qualify as airfare spend. If you do buy miles, you’ll first want to use a credit card where you’re meeting minimum spend, and then use a card that maximizes your return on everyday, non-bonused spend:
Cards for everyday purchases
Do you plan on buying United miles with a 100% bonus?
United miles is valued at 1.3? Business class saver rate one way to Asia is 80K ( 70K for United metal ) and the availability is fairly good even in summer months. So that redemption gives well above 2 cents valuation. If you want to consider other factors and put it under 2 cents, fine; but 1.3?
Don’t forget Asia Australia sweet spots, at 50/65k!
Wow. Did a bunch of critical comments just get deleted?
Might grab some for one last ride on the Thai 744 from BKK to SYD before they start retiring them. Miss the good old days of the 40K reward for F!!
Lucky, what are the best uses of United miles?
Hi Lucky, I’ve been a big fan of One Mile at a Time for a while, my travel has been so much cheaper the past year or so.
Additionally, I would like to ask your permission to include One Mile at a Time on a new website I am starting, The Bloggers Digest, which will be a curated aggregator.
I would put a headline and the first sentence or two of One Mile at a Time posts, and a thumbnail if applicable, but that little package would link directly to your site for the reader to actually read the post.
Please reply with your permission or any questions you may have. Thanks!
Too Expensive
Sounds good, but too expensive
Argh. I know I’m dumb, but I just bought 62.5 miles 2 days ago (with 75%bonus, giving me 110k total) because I found the exact flight I needed and wanted
(Two Swiss Air BCN to MSP tix in J for 70 k each)
I knew a 100% bonus would come but wasn’t sure when. Thus, I “lost out” on 15k miles (or bought 7.5k more miles than I needed depending upon how you look at it)
Wonder if MileagePlus would give me the other 15 k?
Obviously they are under no obligation but might be an interesting data point
I got 4c/mile booking one way business class on Turkish Airlines (DYU to BHX) – this rate makes no sense for economy but easy to get ahead with business class.
So this means I can buy enough miles for a RT business ticket to Europe for about $2,100 on UA metal or $2,400 on partners….since I would jump on fares like that, this seems like a good deal to me.
@tmkls
Yes. You can buy 70k mikes , get bonus of 70k miles , and then buy a round trip business class trip to Europe
However, you should make sure there are tickets available first
I just did this a few days ago.
Technically it can take up to 48 hours for your miles to post. Mine posted immediately
So I found a flight I wanted
Bought miles
Bought flight
Do you happen to know the frequency of these bonus specials? I recently signed up for MileagePlus and could not take advantage of an 85% bonus special that would have been perfect to upgrade my seats, and it would be a bummer if I can’t take advantage of a similar promotion before my upcoming trip.