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Through September 30, 2015, United is offering up to a 75% bonus on purchased miles. The size of the bonus depends on the number of miles you buy, with the largest 75% bonus kicking in at 40,000 miles purchased (70,000 total miles after the bonus.)
United miles normally cost 3.5 cents per mile plus a 7.5% tax, bringing the full price to 3.76 cents each. During the sale the bonuses are:
That makes the per mile prices 3.01 cents, 2.51 cents, and 2.15 cents respectively.
Buying 40,000 miles–the fewest you need to purchase to get the biggest bonus–costs $1,505, which is 2.15 cents each for the 70,000 United miles you get.
Is This a Good Deal?
No, this is a terrible deal. Since United’s huge devaluation last year, I value United miles at around 1.5 cents. The bottom line on all mileage sales is that they’re a good deal if you have an immediate, high-value use and not a good deal otherwise.
There are a few United awards for which you’ll get more than 2.15 cents of value per mile, but even in those cases, you’d probably be better off buying LifeMiles for 1.4 cents each and redeeming them for the exact same award.
Math
To figure out if you have a high-value use, use this simple expression:
(A – B) / (C + D)
- A: Value of the award. Important: this is the lesser of the cash price and your subjective value.
- B: Taxes on the award
- C: Miles used on the award
- D: Miles you would earn if you purchased the award ticket with cash
This will spit out the dollar value you are getting for your miles. If that number is greater than 0.0215, and you can book the dream award now, and LifeMiles somehow is offering a worse deal, buy during this promotion. Otherwise, don’t buy.
Bottom Line
You can buy 148,750 United miles for 2.15 cents each. That’s way too high to buy speculatively.
United sales are processed by points.com, so you do not get category bonuses on cards that bonus airline or travel purchases like the Citi Prestige® Card, which offers 3x on purchases from airlines. (By contrast, AA’s sale of miles for 2.00 cents each is processed by AA, so you do get bonus points for buying the miles with a Prestige.)
Just getting started in the world of points and miles? The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the best card for you to start with.
With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel℠ and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!
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Agree that LM is a better deal. UA wins by the ability to mix cabin and allow transit >8hr. But their award chart is quite terrible.
Eg. If you want to fly F between USA and AUS, you’ll need to route through Asia (as UA stopped flying F to SYD), and you’ll need a mixed cabin booking with OZ or NH as neither of those use F to AUS. ie. USA-NRT/ICN in F and NRT/ICN-SYD in J.
For LM you would need 2 awards, but as they only charge 90k in F USA-North Asia and 40k in J N.Asia-AUS, the total mile is same as what UA would charge in F. ie, 130k.
As LM is 0.75 cents cheaper than UA per mile, that’s a difference of $975, and you can get a stopover on Tokyo or Seoul if you want.
BTW I used USA-AUS as an example because routing through Asia is probably the only way where you can find award availability easily now on this route.