United Offering Up to a 100% Bonus When Buying Miles [Targeted]

United Airlines MileagePlus members are being targeted with a promotional offer when purchasing miles. Offers vary depending on the member, but you could be targeted for up to a 100% bonus. This promotion is valid through May 31, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. CST.

Let’s take a closer look at the offer.

Table of Contents

United’s MileagePlus Buy Miles Bonus
Is Buying United Miles Worth It?
Final Thoughts

United’s MileagePlus Buy Miles Bonus

United Polaris interior from rear IFEs — United Polaris business class. Image Credit: United

First, you’ll need to log in to your account with your MileagePlus credentials to check what you’ve been offered. Then, you can work out whether you personally will get value from buying miles with this promotional offer.

Although folks are being targeted for different bonuses with this offer, at best you’ll see the ability to score a 100% bonus on purchased miles. For this promotion, the more miles you buy, the better bonus you’ll receive. Here’s the breakdown:

With United, you only can purchase a maximum of 175,000 miles per calendar year. If you’re targeted with the 100% bonus, you can buy the maximum of 175,000 miles for a total of $3,292 — a discount of nearly 50% on the usual price of $6,125.

There’s plenty you can do with 175,000 United miles in tow. For example, a round-trip business class flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Tokyo (TYO) starts at 140,000 miles.

Is Buying United Miles Worth It?

Let’s do the math.

If you were to max out this promotion, you’d end up snagging the 100% bonus on the purchase of miles. Instead of purchasing miles for the usual 3.5 cents per mile, you’d get them for 1.88 cents apiece.

However, note that this price is still 0.58 cents more expensive than what we value United MileagePlus miles at 1.3 cents apiece.

Hot Tip: Buying miles can be a quick and easy way to boost your MileagePlus account. However, if you’d rather not fork over that kind of cash, there are many more ways you can earn MileagePlus miles without handing over excess cash.

Let’s take, for example, a round-trip flight in business class with United from Los Angeles (LAX) to London (LHR) using miles. This would set you back 120,000 MileagePlus miles.

With the promotion, buying the necessary miles outright would cost you about $2,250. That’s over $1,100 cheaper than the lowest fare we were able to find for a round-trip cash fare in business class.

LAX LHR cash rate — Image Credit: Google

So, if you were sitting on a zero balance in your MileagePlus account and were insistent on flying to London in business class, buying miles using this promotion would save you a lot of money.

Then again, if you have no specific trip in mind and already have miles in your account, it’s probably not a great idea to buy miles just for the sake of it.

Final Thoughts

United is targeting MileagePlus members with promotional rates on buying miles. While there are savings to be had, it’s not always a good idea to purchase miles unless you have a specific trip in mind. If you do opt to purchase miles, consider using a United co-branded credit card to maximize your earnings!