United 75% Bonus on Purchased Miles Now Open to Everyone!

by Gary Leff

75% Bonus on Purchased United Miles Through September 30

United was offering a targeted 75% bonus on purchased miles, but now it appears open to everyone. I received the email this morning:

The bonus is tiered based on the number of miles you buy. You need to buy at least 40,000 to get the full 75% bonus.

The full cost of the largest purchase (85,000 miles) is $3198.13 including taxes and fees. That nets you 148,750 miles at a cost of $0.0215 per mile.

That isn’t the absolute cheapest I’ve seen United sell miles, but it’s not especially far off. Personally for Star Alliance awards the LifeMiles 135% bonus offer tempts me while this one does not — though it’s useful for topping off a United account, and United miles are surely easier to use than LifeMiles.

Terms and conditions
• Promotional offer valid until 11:59 p.m. CT (Chicago local time) on September 30, 2015.
• Miles are available in increments of 1,000 up to a maximum of 85,000 miles.
• Bonus miles will be credited to the recipient’s account when the transaction is complete.
• Bonus miles count towards the 150,000 mile annual limit per account.
• Purchase up to 150,000 miles per account per calendar year.
• Credit card will be billed immediately upon purchase.
• Mileage rates and other fees and offer terms are subject to change.
• Allow 48 hours for miles to process and post to your MileagePlus account.
• Miles are nonrefundable.
• Purchased miles do not count toward MileagePlus Premier® status.
• All MileagePlus Program Rules and terms and conditions apply.
• GST/HST is charged to Canadian residents.
• Powered by Points to purchase United MileagePlus miles. Transaction will appear as ‘Points United Miles’.

75% Bonus on Purchased United Miles Through September 30

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  2. FWIW, my email from United has an 80% bonus, Gary. I’m a 1k, so maybe that has something to do it. My bands (15-19, 20-39, 40-80k miles) are the same you show above, but my bonuses for each are 50%, 75%, 80%, respectively. I’m still not a buyer at these levels.

  4. I bought a few months ago when it was 100% bonus and I am not sure it was worth it.
    115,000 miles at 1.85cents a piece and I end up paying about the same as if I would have bought the cheapest Business class to Europe anyway.
    UA would have to sell the miles at TACA/Avianca prices to make it worthwhile.

  5. This CAN be a pretty good deal for those of us who already have 150-200K miles sitting and doing nothing. For $1500- I can buy 70K miles, which can then top off existing miles and turned into 2 J class award tix to Asia or Europe.

  6. I’m being offered 80% on max 80,000 purchase (so total 144,000 miles) for $2,800.
    Bargain or not Gary?

  9. I wonder what united’s mileage sales are like after they made their big devaluation two years ago.
    Anyway we can find that out from their financials?I’m just curious if mileage devaluations have an effect on mileage sales like this from an airline perspective. It would be good to know and draw lessons from it.

  10. Question for you? Have you heard this to be true?

    “HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUES NEW ID REQUIREMENTS FOR NEW YORKERS—AND THOUSANDS OF OTHERS—HEADING TO THE AIRPORT”

    Thank you,

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