Buy United MileagePlus Miles With up to a 90% Bonus or 45% Discount [Targeted]

United Airlines MileagePlus members can take advantage of a new promotion when buying miles. Offers vary depending on the number of miles you purchase, but you can purchase miles with up to a 90% bonus or 45% discount.

This promotion is valid through April 25, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. CT.

Let’s take a closer look at the offer.

United’s MileagePlus Buy Miles Promotion

First, you’ll need to log in to your account with your MileagePlus credentials. Then, you can determine whether this promotional offer will give you value from buying miles.

You may be targeted to score up to 90% bonus miles:

• Buy 2,000 to 4,000 miles with no bonus
• Buy 5,000 to 19,000 miles, receive a 25% bonus
• Buy 20,000 to 44,000 miles, receive a 60% bonus
• Buy 45,000 to 100,000 miles, receive a 90% bonus (~1.98 cents per mile)

If you’re targeted for the 90% bonus offer from United, you can receive 190,000 miles for a total of $3,762.50 after taxes.

Alternatively, you may see an offer to buy United miles with up to a 45% discount, depending on how many miles you buy:

• Buy 2,000 to 6,000 miles with no discount
• Buy 7,000 to 39,000 miles, receive a 20% discount
• Buy 40,000 to 69,000 miles, receive a 35% discount
• Buy 70,000 to 200,000 miles, receive a 45% discount (~2.07 cents per mile)

If you have this offer, you can buy 200,000 miles for $4,138.75 after the 45% discount, dropping the price to roughly 2.07 cents per mile. That price isn’t as good as the price when buying miles with a 90% bonus.

Is Buying United Miles Worth It?

Let’s do the math.

If you were to max out this promotion with the best offer, instead of purchasing miles for the usual 3.5 cents per mile, you’d get them for 1.98 or 2.07 cents apiece.

However, note that this price is still significantly more expensive than what we value United MileagePlus miles at: 1.2 cents apiece.

Take, for example, a one-way flight in first class with United from Chicago (ORD) to San Francisco (SFO) using miles. This would set you back 66,100 MileagePlus miles.

With the promotion, buying the necessary miles (at 1.98 cents each) would cost you about $1,309. However, the cash cost of the trip is only $665, meaning purchasing the miles is not a good use case in this scenario.

What does this mean? If you had a zero balance in your MileagePlus account, you’d still want to pay cash for this flight rather than spend far more to purchase miles.

However, there are other times when buying miles can make sense. Consider award flights to Europe that typically cost 80,000 to 88,000 miles per person in business class. You could buy those miles (at 1.98 cents each) for $1,584 to $1,742, yet the cash cost of these flights is typically over $3,000 per person. You’d save a lot buying miles instead of buying the flight outright.

It’s usually not a great idea to buy miles just for the sake of it. If you think it can make sense in your situation, though, check out our current round-up of monthly purchase point promotions.

If you decide to buy United Airlines miles, know that United sells miles through Points.com. This means it won’t count as an airfare or travel purchase on your credit card. You should use a credit card with bonus earnings on everyday spending or a card offering a nice sign-up bonus.

Final Thoughts

United is targeting MileagePlus members with promotional rates on buying miles with up to a 90% bonus or 45% discount. While there are savings to be had, purchasing miles is not always a good idea unless you have a specific trip in mind and the cost of buying miles is less than the cash price of the flight you want to book — or if you need just a few more miles to grab that next great flight redemption.