Best Point Earning

Great Deal: Buy United Miles From 1.87 Cents Each – and Get Magazines!

a hand holding a card and typing on a laptop
Written by Charlie

This is a great deal for buying United miles! You can “buy” them from just 1.87 cents each and in as small of quantities as you want – plus you get magazines as well!

There is a sale for United miles going on right now and even if you were targeted for the top bonus of 100%, you still would not be getting as good of a deal as this – and you can buy even in small amounts!

Buy United Miles From 1.87 Cents Each

Link: United MileagePlus Shopping Portal

This is the usual United deal that comes around a few times a year – get 50 miles per dollar at Magazines.com when you start through United’s shopping portal. What makes this more lucrative this time is that you can stack it with the holiday shopping bonus of earning up to 5,000 bonus miles!

That bonus comes in 3 tiers:

  • 500 bonus miles with $150 in spend
  • 2,500 bonus miles when you spend $750
  • 5,000 bonus miles when you spend $1,500

These are cumulative totals so you certainly don’t need to spend $1,500 just at Magazines.com! But, if you haven’t even spent anything through United yet, you could spend $150 at Magazines.com and get a total of 8,000 miles – or miles at 1.87 cents each and magazines!

Buy As Many – or as few – Miles As You Need with this Deal!

This is a great way to increase your mileage total for that next reward – whether you need a lot of miles or just a few to top off the account.

While airlines often have mileage sales that get their miles down to 2 cents each (or even less), that normally requires you to purchase a lot of miles to get to that tiered bonus. These deals from magazine.com are great because you can get as few (or as many) as you want with the deal! So, if you just need 1,000 miles, you only need to buy $20 in magazines.

A great thing with United as well is that I have typically had miles post from portal purchases inside of a week, sometimes in as few as 3 days.

The Exclusions – Read Them Carefully!

  • Not eligible on automatically renewed subscriptions.
  • Orders cancelled within 90 days are not eligible.
  • Not eligible on select Magazine Titles including
    • American Patchwork & Quilting
    • Better Homes & Gardens
    • Country Gardens
    • Diabetic Living
    • Do-It-Yourself
    • EatingWell
    • Every Day with Rachael Ray
    • Family Circle
    • FamilyFun
    • Fitness
    • Martha Stewart Living
    • Martha Stewart Weddings
    • Midwest Living
    • Parents
    • Siempre Mujer
    • Successful Farming
    • Traditional Home
    • Wood
    • Fit Pregnancy
    • Flex
    • Globe
    • Men’s Fitness
    • Muscle & Fitness
    • National Examiner
    • Natural Health
    • OK! Magazine
    • Shape
    • Soap Opera Digest
    • Star
    • The National Enquirer
    • Not eligible on purchases made with coupon or discount codes that are not found on this site.
    • Not eligible on gift cards, gift certificates or any other similar cash equivalents

That’s right – those are a lot of exclusions! Make sure you read and compare that list carefully with the ones you want to buy to make sure you are ok. As to the first detail on the list – automatically renewed subscriptions – this refers to magazines purchased now with the subscription enabled. It means you will get the miles on the purchase you make today but not on the subscription renewal (since that will not have been initiated through a portal).

Good Deals?

Remember that you can often find better prices on magazines at discounted magazine sites or with coupons. Do not play around with coupons on this deal to get a better price as coupons that are not allowed by the portal will eliminate your bonus! It kind of really doesn’t matter what the price is, though, since you are most likely doing this for the miles. So, if you are overpaying by 50%, that isn’t a big deal since the miles are pretty cheap right now.

Give or Donate

You can buy magazines as gifts or even to donate to your library/hospital/school. They would likely be happy to receive them and you will get 50 miles per dollar for your kindness!

If you would like an example, check out this page for the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. It tells you what kind of magazines they would appreciate the most so it could be a good way to get some for something good without waiting to hear back from the organization as to what would be best.

Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock

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About the author

Charlie

Charlie has been an avid traveler and runner for many years. He has run in marathons around the world for less than it would cost to travel to the next town - all as a result of collecting and using miles and points. Over the years, he has flown hundreds of thousands of miles and collected millions of miles and points.
Now he uses this experience and knowledge to help others through Running with Miles.