United Airlines MileagePlus is one of the few programs allowing you to purchase miles to redeem on Star Alliance partner airlines like Singapore Airlines, ANA and Air New Zealand. This is especially useful for cheaper Business and First Class redemptions internationally, particularly in Asia and other select international routes.
MileagePlus often runs deals that enable you to purchase miles for cheaper or get a bonus on top. You can check the latest offers in our dedicated guide. This guide explains how to buy the miles and things to look out for with buying United MileagePlus miles.
What do I need to know before purchasing United MileagePlus miles?
First up, the good news. United miles never expire. And you won’t require any annual earn to keep your existing balance. This is useful for people who don’t frequently engage in the MileagePlan program, which would probably include most Australian readers.
You might have the transaction blocked or ‘on hold’ when you first buy miles until MileagePlus can verify your account. This can be frustrating when you’re buying miles for instant redemption. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen too often from what we’ve heard. Also, note that:
- You can purchase a total of up to 175,000 miles per calendar year., including bonuses
- There is a minimum purchase of 2,000 miles per transaction.
- Points.com (the payment processor) usually limits further purchases if you exceed 4 transactions within 30 days on the same credit card. You may be able to get away with this by using a different card for further transactions.
- For those with rewards cards that give bonus points on travel-related spending, buying United MileagePlus miles does not count as eligible spending.
How do I buy United MileagePlus miles?
The most straightforward way to buy United MileagePlus miles is direct from United. It costs around US$37.6 per 1,000 miles, including extra fees and taxes. This equates to roughly 5.8 cents AUD per mile, which isn’t helped by the weak exchange rate at the time of writing (September 2022).
We value MileagePlus miles at roughly 1.6 cents each. The purchase rate of 5.8 cents each is much higher, meaning this is generally not great value unless you are just a little short of your goal. However, these numbers improve when a bonus deal is offered.
For example, when there is a 100% bonus (double points), you can buy 87,500 points for US$3,292.19 and get another 87,500 points for free. That brings the overall cost to 2.90 cents AUD per mile.
Example: Using MileagePlus to book Thai Airways
Thai Airways is a Star Alliance carrier that consistently offers good Business Class availability between Australia and Bangkok. For example, you can redeem 55,000 MileagePlus miles (plus AU$87.18) for a one-way Business Class seat from Melbourne to Bangkok.
With a 100% bonus on miles, booking a one-way Business Class ticket could cost you around AU$1,712, including taxes. Also, consider Air Canada Aeroplan for even cheaper Star Alliance redemptions.
You can buy United MileagePlus Miles in three easy steps:
- Head to the Buy MileagePlus miles page on the United website and log in.
- Choose how many miles you would like to purchase.
- Enter your payment details to complete the transaction.
Note that the transaction is run by Points.com, which is based in the US. Payments are charged in US dollars, so you will get an international transaction fee with Australian cards (unless you use a card that doesn’t charge).
How else can I earn United MileagePlus miles?
If you have American Express Membership Rewards points, you can transfer them to Marriott Bonvoy. From there, you can convert your points into MileagePlus miles at preferred rates. More info on that process is in our guide to transferring Marriott Bonvoy points. You can also credit Star Alliance flights to your MileagePlus account.
Learn more about how to earn and burn United MileagePlus miles in our starter guide to the program. It includes a list of the airlines you can spend your purchased miles on. Finally, if you’re not yet a member of United MileagePlus, sign up for free here.
Summing up
Purchasing United MileagePlus miles can be a good way to accumulate miles for cheap airline redemptions with Star Alliance partners. However, it generally only makes sense to do so when there is a decent buy miles offer and you have a particular redemption in mind.
We don’t usually recommend purchasing miles speculatively, given that programs can be devalued at short notice. United recently changed its flights to dynamic pricing, although partner airline flights are currently unaffected.
It may be worth taking a minute to see if Avianca LifeMiles or Air Canada Aeroplan are also offering bonuses. Both Star Alliance airlines also sell discounted miles for redemptions, though Lifemiles’ website and processes may be difficult to navigate if you don’t understand Spanish.
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Yes, this is a recent change by United and is now in line with Delta Air Lines that also does not have an expiry of their miles. At present, American Airlines remain at an 18-month expiry policy.
Regards,
Frank.
Anybody know anything about this?
Watch out for United’s website that can catch us out, unaware, require manual over-rides eg:- search for BNE (Brissie) & it sometimes shows you BKK (Bangkok) in next page stage (!); search a new date a month later, say, but it insists – next page – on the date you previously used; search Business, change some detail, like weekly calendar to monthly, & it reverts to ‘economy’ in the search box, regardless; BUT SPECIALLY, searching via the interactive global map approach can 1) show availability on the monthly calendar, but not when you click on that date & NB 2) GIVE QUITE DIFFERENT RESULTS, SOMETIMES, from this way, advised by their web support folk:- start on their home page, change to US$ at the top, click Book with Miles and get ‘real time’ availability! Note, however, seems we cannot limit results to other Star A. carriers, to help dodge flying United.
Love to hear from other members if we can…or more seasoned searching tips for my next time.
(The coveted Nth America, Business, not specifically referred to in this article – eg with Thai/Asiana, though lengthy, OW BNE-LAX- is 90,000 miles it seems from Aus/NZ/Asia. In this promo that was app AUD2550 with fee. Worth watching for again, when direct’s near impossible: unless of course, the new ‘scary’ Avianca buy-miles promo appeals: golly gee, can that really come in at about AUD588 for about the same journey?)
This is really interesting and great value if you get the points at the right price.
Is there options to fly beyond Asia with the miles, eg Europe?
Just to share my experience. I had an old account pre-merger that I only ever had 18k miles on but I was able to reset the account to the new loyalty. I made sure I select the US website not he Australian one and went to buy personal miles and got up to 100%. My account details also list my Australian Address. So maybe just make sure you are on the American Website of United. Cheers, WD
https://promotions.united.com/offers/p2m
I found this link on the PointsHack.nz site.
Am thinking of purchasing miles on my UA MileagePlus account and redeeming for my parents. I won’t be travelling with them. Just checking that UA doesn’t have any funny rules prohibiting use of your miles to book for other people?
I did this last year and it was no problem to buy two tickets in someone else’s name. I did not travel with them.
Is the website doing maintenance or the availability is really non-existence since the promotion?
Thanks!
Whilst I am excited about the BKK-SYD leg, I am equally looking forward to sampling the F on their A-380 during the shorter HK-BKK route. Should be great, cant wait 🙂
Is my maths wrong, or are there additional taxes when buying points too?
Are there any easy tips to find award flights in First Class?
United’s search tends to be among the best for Star Alliance flights. It’s easy to use and tends to show most availability. For finding First Class flights, it depends on the origin and destination. There will be certain routes with no first class cabin, and others which are only first class on some aircraft and therefore some certain flights.
You could use United to find the paid First Class schedule, then use the award tool to find the points availability. That’s how I would approach it. Good luck!
2 sectors first class on Thai’s 747, a day trip to Munich by train followed by a few hours in the LH 1st class lounge (14 hour stopover) dinner, shower, and then South African’s A340 (pretty good product, flown this route a few times) in business to JNB, then a short flight to DUR for under $3600…. can’t complain. One way revenue ticket on ITA is $20,485
Just wondering how many miles did you burn for these flights? I’m quite puzzled here – while searching for two sectors separately, I see there is availability in F class but when I do a single search (SYD-MUC) it only shows mixed-cabin availability. And did you book this through the United’s award search website?
Buy 5,000 – 9,000 miles | Get 20% bonus
Buy 10,000 – 19,000 miles | Get 35% bonus
Buy 20,000 – 100,000 miles | Get 50% bonus
How does united stack up in an around the world star alliance redemption ticket you would think around 150k miles should get you far in J????
http://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morepack.mi
Buy 5,000 – 9,000 miles | Get 20% bonus
Buy 10,000 – 19,000 miles | Get 35% bonus
Buy 20,000 – 100,000 miles | Get 50% bonus
No 74% tier for us.
Thanks for the article, very informative.
Do these points work for business class flights from Aus to Europe?
Understandably you may need more points, but perhaps they could be collected over two deals that offered?
Regards,
Skafhold
Yes the same principles apply. The key restriction would be the max number of points you can buy per year (150,000). Ideally you would be looking to optimise each leg of the trip independently. So it could make sense to use this type of promo to get there and another alliance/airline to come back. Or you could buy the points speculatively each year for a big redemption. At 100% bonus (the best they do) this might be worth it, but it still is risky if they devalue the points in the future.
Hope this helps!
In the guide there is a paragraph which says:
“He has often used United purchase miles promotions to take advantage of their key redemption rates between Australia and Asia, proving that travelling in Star Alliance business class is totally possible for not much over an economy ticket. ”
Based on the current promotion each point is ~2.15 US cents or ~2.87 points ($AUD). Based on a return business class ticket to South Asia this equates to ~$1720 AUD (60000 points x 2.87 cents). An economy airfare can be had from anywhere from $700-$1000 AUD. Whilst $1700 is a pretty good price for business class, I don’t think the above quote is particularly true when the price in points is still almost double the cost of an economy ticket. Or am I missing something?
Ryan
The statement is still somewhat true, but varies depending on your price sensitivity. When I purchased my miles, it was at a 100% bonus which tends to happen about once per year. The current promo isn’t quite as good. The AUS/USD was also around 80c-85c when I purchased, which made it a bit cheaper too.
But mostly, I usually redeem one-way award fares, which would be $860 in your example instead of maybe $350/400 in economy. On this basis it’s totally worth it. Considering a return redemption, I would personally take it but if I was ‘buying’ the miles for myself AND my wife return…well it’s easy to question whether the entire experience is worth it. I’m with you on this one.
A key thing for me is simply this: if the flight needs to be a red-eye all-nighter, business class is worth it for me. I’m fine flying through the day economy, particularly to Asia where there is little time difference. However a little-sleep economy night flight costs me a lot more over a few days of feeling a bit ‘meh’. That’s just me personally 🙂
Yes the AUD/USD rate is a killer at the moment. A few years back when we were at parity, 2.15 US cents = 2.15 AUD cents which would make a return in business at $1290. Now that would’ve been a bargain !
Good luck and happy travelling!
Thanks for your article.
Am considering flying to the US in early May, 2017 and wanting to buy points either for Business or First Class for myself + wife.
Is United the way to go or AA, considering the imminently expiring mileage buying promotions?
Any thoughts on what availability will be like?
Destinations in the USA will be SFO &/or NYC.
Many thanks in advance for a prompt answer and appreciate your thoughts.
Honestly, I’m not the best person for availability or optimisation between Australia and the US. Most of my travel is Asia and Europe. I would suggest reading the guides here on Point Hacks as there are some good comparisons for redemptions and availability. Generally, I look for availability FIRST and then consider buying the points. Unless I have experience with claiming at a later date and know that availability ‘opens up’, I wouldn’t speculatively buy points.
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help on this matter Darshak.
The reason I ask is to save on the overall points redemption if it was treated as 2 separate fares. thanks
http://travelisfree.com/2014/08/26/united-routing-rules/
Does anyone have evidence that disputes this claim?
The alternative is to fly via BKK with Thai and having read reviews about their dated planes on the ex Mel route – I’m not too keen (even at the reduced price)…
First class redemptions would be almost impossible but business should be possible and I have read about people doing this. How many times have you called United? I’ve heard of people calling 5-6 times to find someone who is willing to help them out. Here is one idea:
Start your search on Singapore Airlines to ensure availability, then look to see if it’s bookable via Virgin Velocity. With that in hand you should be able to call United and say that you know the partner seats are available because Virgin will give them to you.
Will this work? Not sure, but might be worth trying. (It’s how I would approach it)
Now to be honest, I’ve flown Thai airways 4 times and each time has actually been pretty good. It was twice in First Class (A380 and 747) and twice in Business (777 both times I think). Not sure what the status of their aircraft is at the moment, however the flight from SYD-BKK was still worth the points.
If you can’t get the MEL-SIN flight worked out, see if the MEL-BKK-SIN works for you. Or alternatively, I just saw you could fly to Aukland and fly Air New Zealand. Check Point Hacks reviews for that flight.
One last tip: I remember when I flew I did a combination of United and Thai airways in first and business and it turned out only a fraction of the cost more than business (maybe 5k points extra). The benefit here was getting access to the Thai Airways Royal First lounge (massage and all!). You may need to call and see if they will give you a first ticket on one leg of the trip that will ensure you get access during the layover.
Good luck!
U.S. and Canada reservations assistance
Phone number 1-800-UNITED-1 (1-800-864-8331)
Just Googled ‘United Airlines Australia’ and navigated to this:
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contact/reservations/australia.aspx
Australia – Reservations
AU: 131-777
Hours: Monday – Friday, 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. Australian Eastern time
Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Australian Eastern time
I was looking at the current offer and the 100% bonus gets you to 150,000 miles for about AUD$3,800.
The only problem is that a business class flight to the U.S is 160,000 miles and you can only buy 150,000 miles per year.
Is there a way around this?
First point is that I did a search PER – LAX and it showed ‘Business Saver Award’ as 80k miles per person one-way and 175k for ‘Business Standard Award’. Never book a standard award unless you have absolutely no other option. I’m assuming you’re looking at the 80,000 x 2 for West Coast return, or for two people.
There are four ways that come to mind:
(1) Buy them now and more next year
(2) Do a domestic or international paid flight to bump up the extra miles
(3) Buy some other miles in another account and transfer to yours
(4) Split your trip into multiple bookings and buy in another account to let that account book the ticket for you
1 – this isn’t ideal if you want to travel/book before next year. But worth mentioning anyway.
2 – From Australia you could fly to the following (kinda) close places to earn the additional miles and credit them back to United: New Zealand (Air New Zealand), Thailand (Thai Airways), Singapore (Singapore Airlines), Japan (ANA), China (Air China or Shenzhen Airlines), India (Air India), Korea (Asiana Airlines), Taiwan (Eva Air).
In this scenario you could consider doing a status match (if you have another status with any other airline) to boost your earning potential during the match period. If you don’t have status, it could still work (just slower). As the earn rate is based on dollars spent, the standard 5x $ spend could be increased to 8x if you could do a Gold status match challenge.
3 – whilst this is possible, it’s usually only a good idea if you need to buy like 600,000 miles for a round the world trip and then time it with their other ‘transfer miles for less’ promotion. Takes a lot more planning. Normally you would pay US$7.50 per 500 miles + $30. In your case, the extra 10k miles from someone else’s account would cost an additional $180 to transfer (on top of the purchase costs)
4 – this could be the best case if you have a friend or family member who buys the miles under their account (think they already need account before the promotion…) and they book your return ticket. I did this for Keith (of Point Hacks) where he used my United Miles to book his ticket.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the detailed reply
It was for a trip within the next year and wanted to go all out on this one!
It looks like option 4 is the only feasible one here. It is for 2 people so would need 320,000 miles. The only problem is that you don’t get the economics this way because the less miles you buy the more expensive they are. You can’t use 150,000 miles per account and somehow pay for the remaining 10,000 when you book I assume?
Anyway, it’s not looking good! Thanks for your help
That makes use of the most efficient point rate without any waste. Just need the UA accounts!
Another option would be to fly direct at least O/W with United as as this only requires 70K Miles.
All other Star Alliance partners require 80K Miles AU/NZ to North America.
If booking a return award, you could even do there direct with United for 70K and return via Asia with a short stop-over on Star Alliance partners for 80K at a total of 150K Miles each. Just a thought if you’re wanting to go all out.
The other suggestion Clayton put forward was that if you flew out from East Coast AU it would only be 140K points per person. Therefore if you did buy 150k max points per person, you could consider returning via Asia for only 10k points more, hence better ‘value for money’.
Super-valuable discussion here for WA Australians!
Not ideal but saves purchasing an extra 10K miles and perhaps better than having to open extra accounts and book 4 O/W awards or having to pay to buy points and then pay again to transfer points over to another account to book a return.
Should be able to be booking on United with the Multi-city search tool and I’m sure would still allow the one free stopover for return award bookings.
Great idea also from Todd for West coasters to utilise an Amex Platinum edge free return flight for connecting onto alternative options from the east coast.
What I can tell you is that it is not easy finding the United-only 70k awards from Syd/Mel to NY. For example, in April 2017 it is all mixed cabins.
However, looks like there is availability to LAX from SYD fairly easily at any time.
The LAX/SFO – NYC direct is always difficult to find business/first award options because the Americans always snap them up as domestic awards quick.
If you can’t find availability when you want it try looking at 2 sectors i.e LAX/SFO-ORD & ORD-NYC.
Try a separate search on United LAX/SFO -NYC and the engine should display all indirect options which you can then take note of the connection that best suits your arrival time into the US from AUS.
You can then use these flight details and the United Multi-city search to force the engine to find these flights i.e search SYD-LAX on preferred date then LAX-NYC for second sector, the search engine will apply the 70K miles to the SYD-LAX and then add the domestic for 0 miles (if it does display a miles amount at first don’t worry it will remove when you get to the total booking page)
Also getting to NYC via a domestic connection in J will allow you to access the United lounges too as the entire journey involves an international sector, where as if you were forced to take a direct LAX-NYC flight in Y they likely wouldn’t let you into the lounge, but you’d still be paying the same amount of miles.
As far as sitting together, not sure if you can join the individual bookings but as you will be flying business you will be able to pre-elect your seats so can make sure you select seats together.
Sorry long winded answers but there are many ways to get around things and the United award search engine is one of the best IMO.
I am trying to get from Perth to Shanghai in business but all of the options seems to have long waits at the airports (10+ hours). If that has to be the case I would rather spend a night as a stopover rather than sit at the airport for that long.
They definitely have flights that have a 1-2 hour stop over for a same-day flight. Or, you could spend a day exploring the tastes of Singapore 🙂
Look for availability on Singapore airlines website to get your flight numbers and call United to see if they can see this availability. Otherwise you probably have to fly to BKK and then onwards.
I have been a member since last year with no points or activities.
Anyone missing out on this bonus offer ?
I’m definitely waiting for the 50% off or 100% bonus 🙂
Anyone (Keith?) had experience flying with Infants (under 2) on First/Business Class via United? United are quoting me ~800 AUD return for my infant (almost a third of the money I spent buying miles). Does that seem right?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u3n5776yb5fgcn2/United%20MileagePlus%20Receipt.png?dl=0
If you do call, remember you shouldn’t pay the customer service fee because this redemption wasn’t possible for you to book online due to not showing availability.
Yes, they do open up space as it gets closer. See my reply to Adam above. In our case we booked economy just because we wanted to do the trip but found we could effectively cancel and rebook the ticket in First class 2 days before liftoff.
It can be hard to find space, but it will open up at some point. Some special events can mess with availability though.
Good luck!
We are stoked to have scored what we see as a good deal, but spewing this 100% bonus came straight off the back of the 80% promotion expiring. It cost us an extra US$350!
Also, one leg of our trip (a short flight) is in economy. Whilst we are on the waitlist for upgrade to business, we pushed for the 5k point discount mentioned in the guide, but United wouldn’t give it to us. Not sure what you have to say to get this, but it didn’t work for me.
Has anyone ever been able to squeeze some free points/extra benefits out of United for rolling out a better promotion immediately after another one?
I hear you about the 80% to 100% bonus. The way I see it is that I try average for about a 90% bonus (or 45% discount) – picking up a combination of 40% discounts, 50% discounts, 80% bonuses and 100% bonuses. Play the long game 🙂
For the 5k point discount, I assume you mean the part where I wrote about adding on Hong Kong to the trip for an extra 5,000? If so, I did this at the point of booking, my experience is that they rarely accomodate requests like this on the ground during the trip – it all has to be done beforehand online or on the phone.
I recently had an example where I booked 2 x economy tickets on Thai airways from BKK to Sydney because there was no Business or First class for the flight we needed to come home on. About 2 days before we took the flight (hanging out by the pool in Bangkok at this stage) I went online to find that first class availability had opened up. So I upgraded the ticket, paying with the extra miles I had in my account.
In terms of getting more benefit, my only advice would be that if you have a trip booked and you needed to booking a leg on Economy or Business and you really want to upgrade, then take advantage of putting some extra points in your account – just in case 🙂
If I’m buying tickets for both my partner and I, can I buy all the extra points on my account and then buy 2 tickets (for the 2 of us) as he doesn’t have a United account ?
The website also says that it may take up to 2 days for points to be transferred to our MileagePlus account, what’s everyone else’s experience with the points appearing the account for usage, does it take that long? I’m a bit concerned as I can see availability on Thai Airways first class on the date we want but if they’re not there by the time I purchase we may as well use our Qantas classic award.
Thanks
Irene
The short answer to your first question is: yes! In my family, I buy the points and book tickets for myself and my wife.
On your second question, I found the points to be there almost immediately. I think the two days is their safety net. It turns out that you can actually put the award booking on hold. Here is a link to check out: http://thepointsguy.com/2015/09/put-united-award-tickets-on-hold/
Good luck!
Todd
1) I assume you either mean a first class one way ticket to Japan, or a return Business class ticket. In both cases, I assume you are referring to the ‘Saver Awards’, not ‘Standard awards’ which are much more expensive.
2) The Taxes should be about US$80 each way for an award ticket.
3) Pending availability, you ideally would want to Fly ANA direct, not via Thai airways which would require more time. However this limits availability.
4) Checking ANA, a return business class ticket would cost AUD$4,782. A Thai Airways first class ticket would cost $4000 and return approximately $5,100
5) I note that from Melbourne you would need to fly to Sydney before flying to Tokyo so you may not see ANA availability on the United tool (Virgin isn’t part of Star Alliance)
So at this stage it looks to be much better to go with the award ticket. Which airline could get you there for around the $2500 mark?
As for going to the US, Qantas just released 50% using Qantas points. See it here:
https://www.pointhacks.com.au/deals/deal/50-off-qantas-points-on-classic-flight-rewards-to-the-us/
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/mileageplus/rules/default.aspx
Here is the answer:
28. Mileage accrued shall only be subject to expiration on the last day of the eighteen (18) months after the last account activity in the member’s account. Activity includes flying, using your MileagePlus credit card and more (see rule 10). In cases where mileage is for any reason removed from an account, such as for the redemption of awards, and later returned, the return of the mileage to the account shall not count as account activity.
So you should be fine. However I would suggest the not so obvious ‘expiry’ is when the programmes can devalue and push up the number of miles needed for a certain route. This happens every few years and although United did this at the end of last year, it could happen again.
Best rule of thumb: buy when you have a specific route in mind, not speculatively.
Good luck!
I still just see $35 per 1000 miles.
Snagged a Thai Business Per-Bkk-Per on the exact dates I wanted in Feb/Mar 2016. Ex Rate a bit sick now but all up less than A$2k for a A$3.4k flight. Helped to have an existing UA/CO membership.
My wife and I needed a very specific fare from Bangkok to Sydney next month and they only had economy. With gritted teeth I booked the ticket – using the points it was still cheaper than any other ticket I could have purchased…and I can always buy those points back.
Travel hacking is as much about being open-minded and flexible as it is about snagging ridiculously great experiences.
Have a great one Dave!
You’re right, the promotion that was alive at the time of writing this article has now finished (31st Aug) however there should be another one coming up in the next month or so. Keep an eye on your inbox and United Airlines will send you something when it’s out.
You’ll note that different people generally get different offers. However this isn’t based on any complex logic (as far as I can tell). I received the 100% bonus offer before I ever flew United, accumulated any miles, or really any activity. Then since I’ve had other sub-par offers, and more recently the 50% off.
Good luck!
Todd
@annie, you have to call to find out the availability of SIA. Or you could check on Virgin Australia for SYD-SIN who also show some of the availability that Singapore has available. However Thai Airways can also be a fantastic option, it’s just a little bit longer of a flight.