United is offering bonus miles on their routes from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Tokyo’s Haneda airport. Since United has gone revenue based for their award mileage accrual on flights, any opportunity to earn some bonus miles on a trip is always going to be of interest to United flyers. This offer is available in increments for certain economy fares, business class fares, and first class fares. If you have upcoming travel to Japan, check out this offer.
Earn Bonus United Miles On Flights Between SFO/LAX And Tokyo’s Haneda Airport
Good Bonus Offer, But Is It Worth It?
This bonus mileage offer runs from now through January 31, 2016. You must register for the bonus offer prior to the ticketing of the ticket (with a blackout period listed below). While this is a nice offer, you should know how much more you may have to spend to get those bonus miles. The minimum economy fare class that will be eligible for this offer is V. When comparing random dates at that fare class level, it showed a fare difference of $900 between the lowest fare class and V fare class! That is saying quite a bit, especially since the difference is $300 more than the cheapest round trip already (fly to Tokyo for only $615 on some days).
Notice the difference between the lowest fare and the bonus-qualifying V fare class
But, if you are flying V class or above, you stand to earn at least 6,000 award miles and as high as 15,000 miles on first class fares (for roundtrip travel). Here are the details and registration information (bolding mine):
– United Promo Registration Link (you must register before booking travel)
- Offer is valid for MileagePlus members who reside in the U.S and travel on United between San Francisco and Tokyo Haneda or on All Nippon Airways (ANA) between Los Angeles and Tokyo Haneda.
- On United- or ANA-operated flights, MileagePlus members can earn:
- 3,000 bonus award miles for segments flown in fare classes Y, B, M, E, U, H, Q and V.
- 5,000 bonus award miles for segments flown in fare classes J, C, D, Z and P.
- 7,500 bonus award miles for segments flown in fare classes F and A.
- To earn MileagePlus bonus award miles on United or ANA, registration on united.com is required before ticketing.
- Offer is valid on tickets purchased between November 1, 2015, and January 31, 2016, for travel beginning on or after November 1, 2015, and completed on or before January 31, 2016. The offer is not valid for any segment flown between December 17, 2015, and December 21, 2015.
- To earn regular miles and bonus miles on your United or ANA flights, provide your MileagePlus number when you make your reservation.
- Connections into and out of Los Angeles, San Francisco or Tokyo Haneda are allowed. However, the bonus is only valid for segments between Los Angeles or San Francisco and Tokyo Haneda.
- You can earn the bonus an unlimited number of times in accordance with these terms and conditions.
- Bonus award miles do not count toward MileagePlus Premier® status qualification or Million Miler status.
- Offer is only valid on United Airlines and on ANA and is not valid on United-marketed codeshare flights or ANA-marketed codeshare flights operated by other carriers.
As you can see, you do not have to fly out of LAX or SFO as your origination point – connections through SFO and LAX are fine as long as your non-stop segment is SFO/LAX to Haneda (HND).
Summary
If you are planning on heading to Tokyo during this promo period, by all means check out the fare prices for the qualifying fares. But, I certainly wouldn’t pay much more to book into V+ just for this bonus. The 6,000 miles earned on a roundtrip fare can easily be earned through spending on various United or Chase cards and is most likely not worth it by flight unless the cost difference between your desired fare and V+ is very small.
But, if you are traveling in one of the qualifying fare classes, by all means register for this and book your trip! The extra miles always come in handy, especially since the shift to revenue based earning.
