Through tomorrow evening, 25 April, at midnight central time, United Airlines is offering a decent (though not a great) deal for the purchase of MileagePlus miles. Through this Facebook link, miles have been discounted 40% off their normal price.
Is this a good deal?
It really depends on how you will use the miles. 100,000 miles will set you back $2257.50, which includes a 7.5% excise tax. If you can find award space (and United now allows you to hold award space online or over the phone if you do not have enough miles in your account, as Continental did for years) and find that you come out cheaper than purchasing the ticket, then obviously it make sense.
But even though $2257.50 is generally a good price for a business class ticket to Europe, particularly if you work in a stopover and open jaw on the ticket (like continental Europe and Iceland or the Balkans or Georgia/Armenia), it has been fairly common the last several years to see discounted Z-fare business class tickets to Europe around that $2200 price range during the summer and holidays. Considering those fares earn quite a bit of miles, I would think twice about dropping down a lot of money just for a mielage award to Europe.
If you are short on miles or do find that a mileage redemption makes sense, remember that you only have one more day to take advantage of this offer. Don’t forget that Qatar Airways award space is now on united.com, giving you further options to use your miles.
Do you have be registered on facebook to take advantage of this offer? Thnx.
@Mike S. — no.
Why I bought: To get 200K UAL balance: 50K credit card bonus, 10K hotel points conversion, 20K from flying, 5K credit card spending, and 115K miles which cost $2575 – purchased at different times. Add $260 taxes for two R/T biz tickets US-Europe, divide by 2 is $1,418 per ticket. My threshold is about $1,500 to pay for a biz ticket. I don’t fly much (I recall when it was fun, think 70s/80s/90s) so at a fair price it’s worth it. In my case, to accumulate lots of miles via runs would take years. Also SA biz saver award seats are readily available.