Along with flying and upgrading, there are many methods to use your United miles.
Although you’ll generally obtain the most value out of redeeming your miles on premium cabin award tickets on long-haul flights, it’s good to know that other ways of redeeming miles exist.
Here, you can search for different products and filter by the number of United miles you wish to use.
Available merchandise includes travel products, electronics, and even wine.
When you’re prepared to make a purchase, simply select the item(s) you want and go through the checkout process.
- This includes flights with a partner-operated short-haul segment.
- United also offers over three dozen Star Alliance and non-alliance airline partners with whom MileagePlus members can accrue miles when traveling.
- The latter costs $650 or 85,000 miles, meaning you’re only getting 0.76 cents per mile in value, which is definitely not worth it.
- You can actually earn miles and redeem them anytime to book your flight, upgrade a flight, or any valid activity according to the rules.
There will be no extra mileage charge for the London to Paris flight.
This booking and pricing are built into the excellent MileagePlus flight internet search engine – the best way to explore options is to try different routes there.
The best booking class (Y and B for economy class and C and D for business class) could be upgraded with all participating airlines.
With this particular dynamic pricing, you may expect the quantity of miles necessary to increase as the cash price of tickets rises.
Be aware that having some flexibility in departure times and routes could make an impact to the mileage required.
So, your purchase won’t qualify for any standard travel category bonus.
However, if you hold a United co-branded credit card just like the United Explorer Card, purchasing miles will qualify as a United purchase, earning the appropriate multiplier.
Just How Much Are United Miles Worth?
With the shift to less transparent pricing, partner flights have a tendency to offer the best value for longer flights, but there are exceptions.
You can find other uses as well, including the right value upgrading options.
This guide takes a consider the main ways to spend miles, and where the cost effective lies.
Along with it, you’ll get an enormous signup bonus where you could earn up to bonus miles on spending $3000 on the purchases you do within the initial three months.
Additionally, you’ll get bonus miles if you spend $6000 in the 6 months of joining the card.
How Do I Use United Miles For Merchandise?
You typically obtain the most value for the miles by using them for award tickets, but redeeming them for gift cards may be the closest substitute for a cash redemption.
United MileagePlus is the loyalty program, sometimes called a frequent flyer program, for United Airlines.
It’s free to join and will be offering opportunities for members to both earn and redeem United MileagePlus miles.
Your MileagePlus number is the frequent flyer account number assigned to you for signing up to the reward program.
You should have a contact containing your number, or you can call customer service to get it as well.
Depending on your frequent flyer status and current flight conditions, you could be charged a redeposit fee of up to $150.
Using British Airways Avios is frequently the most talked-about way to take short flights while abroad.
However, Star Alliance carriers may be more convenient for the itinerary.
United MileagePlus permits you to book flights under 800 miles in economy from 8,800 United miles.
Before you can start earning miles with United Airlines, you’ll have to join a MileagePlus frequent flyer account.
It’s free to join, and you will register for an account here.
With the switch to revenue-based redeeming, other ways of using miles have become more important.
This is especially if you don’t get the chance to be flexible with redemption on partner airlines, where the best value usually lies.
To check rates, it is advisable to search using the MileagePlus search tool just as you do for United Airlines flights.
However, there’s more uniform and fixed pricing used with partners.
Award pricing for several partner flights (including both Star Alliance partners along with other airline partners) now operates using dynamic pricing.
There are no longer fixed rates guaranteed for several routes, nor are there any tables of award pricing published.