I love credit card bonus offers that can give me enough miles to do something internationally. The current offer on the United MileagePlus Explorer card does just that. With a sign-up offer of 50,000 miles, another 5,000 miles for adding an authorized user, and the additional 3,000 miles from the required $3,000 in spending for the bonus, you will end up with 58,000 miles.
What Does This Offer Get You?
That is 500 miles more than what you need to travel to Europe from the US in business class on United’s own planes. That is just 2,000 miles shy of getting a roundtrip ticket to Europe in economy and it is certainly more than enough miles to fly you one way to anyplace in the world. All of that and they will give you a $50 statement credit and waive the annual fee for the first year – that is a great bonus!
Chase has had the end of June 2 on the offer for a while. Normally after one of these offers disappear, there are some other links that exist for a day or two but it is better to not take chances. If you want this card, now is the time to get it.
You can get the simple offer of the miles and no statement credit through any link for the card you see. But, it takes just a minute of work to get the offer with the $50 statement credit. Here is the process to do so.
How To Get The 55,000 Mile + $50 Credit Offer
Step 1 – Go To United.com
This offer can only be seen/applied for when searching for a flight so head over tounited.com
Step 2 – Search For Any Trip
Just start searching for a ticket – to make it simple, just use something like your home airport to Chicago (ORD). It can really be any airport, though.
Step 3 – Click On The Improved Offer
Before you even select a flight (so you are not even making a reservation), you will see the offer for the miles and statement credit. Click on it and apply!
Why Two Offers?
It can be confusing sometimes given the amount of different offers for the same exact card (look at the marriott card – 4 different offers!). Why do issuers, especially Chase, do this? Part of it has to do with marketing/advertising dollars. In this case, the general offer of miles (no statement credit) is largely available as an affiliate link that bloggers/websites with affiliate relationships with the issuers are compensated for when you apply with their links.
This offer, the $50 statement credit, is an offer that is made only available through United’s website. In this case, the savings of not paying a commission to an affiliate is partially made available to you, the applicant, in the form of a statement credit. Even offering a $50 credit still allows the issuer to save more money since the affiliate payout is greater than that.
So, when you see separate offers, sometimes it may be because they are targeted at elite members, but most of the time, it has to do with where the issuer is putting their marketing/advertising money. Of course, as a former Chase affiliate, I liked that money coming to me. 🙂 But, as an applicant, I like it coming to me as well and that is largely better for the applicants as a whole. Still, if you do not want to go through the (simple) process of getting the statement credit, I would ask you to consider applying through frequent miler’s affiliate link – here. It is not easy to make known an offer that does not compensate, believe me! But, I always appreciate when both offers are mentioned. Frequent Miler does that consistently.
Summary
Even since the great devaluation of 2014, I still love United miles. They are the easiest to use online amongst the American carriers and there is still some great value to be had with them. For our travel habits as a family, it is really the only way to go. If you like free miles, jump on this deal before Tuesday! After that, it will drop to the usual 30,000 miles and you will have lost 20,000 miles on the offer!
