United is offering a 72 hour flash sale (though July 30) on purchased miles.
You’ll have to provide your account number and password to reveal your offer. Some folks are receiving a 50% bonus on points purchased. I was offered a 35% discount:
Both a 50% bonus and a 35% discount work out to be the same ~ 2.5 cents per mile cost. The bonus is better because you can actually buy more miles through it — you’re capped at 150,000 miles excluding the bonus, so with a discount you can’t net more than 150,000 miles but with a bonus you can.
Here are the terms of the offer:
I’m not a buyer of United miles at 2.5 cents, on average I value them at 1.6 cents apiece. I have plenty of United miles for my needs still.
However, the value of miles is much greater as you approach the number of points needed for an award. It’s a good opportunity to top off towards a specific premium cabin award you may be planning to redeem for.
Since United doesn’t add fuel surcharges to awards, and availability in business class to both Europe and Asia through Star Alliance partners is good, it remains a very useful program.
Mediocre offer, but beautiful photo of Stockholm.
Please correct me if my logic is off. 150,000 miles will be $3,500. This is almost enough miles to cover an award ticket in Business/First to Southeast Asia (160,000 miles). That is quite a bit less money than most Business/First tickets if you had to pay for them. So isn’t this a good deal if used solely for that purpose?
@Chris it can be, but bear in mind that you don’t have access to the same tickets you would if you were paying cash and you can often find business class paid tickets around that price though specific city pairs will matter.