United Airlines Sending Big Mile Offers – See If You Are Targeted!

On the heels of United Airlines giving me some status again (Premier Silver), they are also sending out some big mile offers! The great part is that it is not just me – many customers are getting these offers. Find out how you can see if you did and if the offer is waiting for you!

United Airlines Sending Big Mile Offers

These big mile offers are assigned to various levels of spending on United flights. The nice part is that the miles you can earn with these offers really drives up the incentive to fly more United flights and pay for them as it drastically changes the revenue-based earning system that United uses for award miles on flights now.

My Big Mile Offer

Here is what my offer was for:

• Spend $500 – Receive 10,000 bonus miles
• Spend $1,000 – Receive 15,000 additional miles
• Spend $2,500 – Receive 25,000 additional miles
• Total: Spend $2,500 and receive 50,000 bonus miles

The offers have varied for different customers with some not receiving any offers at all. I have to say, this offer is a bit tempting for someone who uses United miles exclusively for family travel.

The Math

Let’s check the math on my offer and see what you should be looking for.

It breaks down to 5 cents per mile. That is not good for mileage running for award miles – in the past. Now, we are in the United Airlines revenue based earning system so that is actually very good.

With the revenue-based earning, a general member earns 5 miles per base dollar on United. As a newly gifted Premier Silver member, I actually earn 7 miles per base dollar on United. That means my total earnings from just the revenue side equals 17,500 award miles. That is before the 50,000 mile bonus above. That brings my total spending for these miles down to 3.7 cents per mile – much better!

Details About the Offers

But, there are two big details to see with these offers!

One is that spending is only on the “fare” of the United ticket. Here is what United says about the fare: “The “fare” is the base fare of the ticket plus carrier-imposed surcharges, excluding any government-imposed taxes and surcharges.” In addition to that, they also say this “Please note that the price displayed when purchasing a ticket on united.com includes up to a 7.5% U.S. Federal Transportation Tax on the base amount of the fare on itineraries wholly within the United States. This tax also applies to certain itineraries between the United States and Canada or Mexico. The U.S. Federal Transportation tax will not count toward meeting any spending milestone.”

The second detail is that this is only valid for flights flown by United or United Express. So, you need to make sure that a flight you pick (like a recent deal from Seattle to Manilla) is not on a partner (that one was on ANA).

An Earning Example

Let’s look at an example fare to see what the above means. We will take a deal posted by TheFlightDeal for Fort Lauderdale to Denver. The total cost is $166. The base fare $128 with the rest being taxes. So, that $128 is the part that will go towards your threshold bonuses.

If I purchased enough of these tickets to get to the $2,500 amount, I would actually have spent $3,240 instead of only $2,500. That brings my earning rate to a total of 4.8 cents per mile, still pretty good but not as cheap as it may initially look.

How To See If You Are Targeted

To find out what your own targeted offer is, head over to this United page. It appears that only the people that United targeted with elite status offers and Economy Plus subscriptions are receiving this offer so if you were not targeted for those offers, chances are that you won’t be targeted for this one.

Only flights booked and flown after you register are eligible for this offer and all flights must be flown by November 30, 2016. So, get registered!

Did you get targeted? What was the amount for?

HT: The Points Guy