United MileagePlus

I'm going to have to hold my hands up and admit that I had no idea that United Airlines had a program that allows MileagePlus members to subscribe to a monthly purchase of miles. Now, however, I'm all caught up, as United has been emailing the various accounts that I control to see if anyone behind them is uninformed enough to think that what's on offer is anything but terrible value for money.

United Airlines is back with what appears to be another targeted mileage sale in which it's offering select MileagePlus members a 100% bonus when they purchase a minimum of 50,000 miles. This sale sees United selling its miles from approximately 1.88 cents each so if you have a need to top up an account, that may not be a bad price point at which to do that.

United Airlines has launched a Cyber Monday award sale in which it's offering up to 50% off Economy Class awards to Europe, Asia and Australia for holders of its co-branded credit cards and its premier elite members.

As of next year, United's MileagePlus program will be bringing in the elite qualification criteria that it had promised to introduce before the pandemic put a halt to the program's plans. Unfortunately, that means that the lower elite status thresholds that flyers have been enjoying for the past few years will soon be nothing more than a pleasant memory but on the upside, there is at least a little bit of good news coming out of MileagePlus today.

United MileagePlus has launched a new flash sale ahead of Black Friday in which it's offering a discount on the cost of miles rather than a bonus. The discount being offered is 50% and while this reduces the cost/mile to levels that may tempt quite a few people, you should think carefully about how many miles you'd like to buy before participating in this sale.

Earlier, I reported that United's latest mileage sale ends later today but it was something that I noticed in the terms and conditions that stuck out a lot more than the sale itself. According to United, purchases of Mileage Plus miles will now be recognized as United Airlines purchases and code as such with the credit card companies.

United Airlines is currently offering its flyers a 30% bonus when they transfer various hotel currencies across to their MileagePlus account and while I wouldn't recommend that readers transfer over points from programs like Hilton Honors, the World of Hyatt, or IHG Rewards, a transfer from Marriott Bonvoy can make a lot of sense.

When United Airlines sells its miles with a 100% bonus (the best bonus the airline offers) the cost per mile usually comes to somewhere around 1.88 cents. Unfortunately, anyone wishing to buy miles at that price usually has to buy at least 40,000 miles - smaller purchases come at a higher cost/mile - but, for a limited time, there's now a way to generate as few as 8,000 United Miles at just 1.86 cents each.

United has announced that it has launched three new promotions and that it's giving MileagePlus elites the choice of which one promotion they'd like to participate in. Two of the promotions give flyers a chance to boost their Premier Qualifying Points (PQP) balances while the third promotion offers an opportunity to earn bonus redeemable miles through MileagePlus X.

United MileagePlus is currently selling miles with a bonus of up to 85% and an annual purchase limit of 175,000 miles. This isn't the best deal we're likely to see United offer before the end of the year (we've already seen a 100% bonus offer earlier this month) but as the math will show, there are definitely going to be times when miles purchased in this sale will save you money.