Tagging Miles

Targeted: Spend on your United Explorer Card, earn up to 4,000 Bonus United Mileage Plus Miles

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Like many, I’m a huge fan of getting the greatest value from every dollar I spend. This is one of those cases, where I’ll reintroduce a card into my wallet, specifically the Chase United Explorer Card. Why? Because Chase is running a promotion with the United Explorer Card that means you can earn up to 4,000 Bonus United Mileage Plus Miles. 

earn up to 4,000 Bonus United Mileage Plus Miles

Important Details to earn up to 4,000 Bonus United Mileage Plus Miles

The key details are pretty easy on this one:

  • Spend $2,000 or more in a single transaction, and earn 1,000 United Mileage Plus miles – you can do this for up to 4 transactions for a total of 4,000 bonus United MileagePlus miles
  • Register by 30 June 2018
  • Make your $2,000 or more transactions between 4/15/2018 and 6/30/2018

Don’t forget to read the Terms and Conditions (highlights are mine):

* Additional 1,000 miles on purchase transactions of $2,000 or more: To be eligible for this bonus offer, you must log on to the website referenced in this offer and enroll by 06/30/18 11:59 p.m. ET. You’ll earn an additional 1,000 miles, up to a maximum of 4,000 miles, for the entire promotional period, on purchases of $2,000 or more when you use your United MileagePlus® Explorer or Awards Card credit card for transactions from 04/15/2018 through 06/30/2018. A purchase transaction must bill and post to your account in an amount that is equal to or greater than $2,000; for example, purchase transactions with items that ship at different times and bill in amounts less than $2,000 will not qualify for this bonus. Your bonus miles are calculated each billing cycle based on the number of purchase transactions of $2,000 or more during the promotional period that falls within that billing cycle. Miles earned in a monthly billing cycle are generally available to be used at the beginning of the next billing cycle; bonus miles earned on purchases made near the end of a billing cycle may take up to one additional billing cycle to become available. You’ll see miles you’ve earned on chase.com and on your monthly card billing statement. See Rewards Program Agreement for details on qualifying purchases. Bonus miles are subject to the Rewards Program Agreement. Credit card product changes during the promotional period will forfeit this bonus offer. To qualify for this promotional offer, account must be open and not in default at the time of fulfillment. This promotional offer is non-transferable. This is a limited time offer. United and MileagePlus are registered service marks. Miles accrued, awards, and benefits issued are subject to the rules of the United MileagePlus program. Taxes and fees related to award travel are the responsibility of the passenger. Additional terms may apply. For additional details of the MileagePlus Program go to united.comOpens Overlay.

Bottom Line

While 4,000 miles aren’t amazing, every little bit helps, and when you do pursue these types of promotions, the miles start to accumulate quickly. For 4 transactions of $2,000 or more, you can essentially earn a minimum of 1.5x on your spend, if you do $8,000 total in spend across those 4 transactions. 

Were you targeted to earn up to 4,000 Bonus United Mileage Plus Miles? Will this bonus be enough for you to put your United Explorer card back in your wallet? 

Earn up to 10x United Miles with MileagePlus X App

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There’s a great promotion going on at the moment with the United MileagePlus X App, where you can earn up to 10x + 25% miles per dollar spent. It titled the Father’s Day Promotion, so I suspect it will be ending soon.

About the United MileagePlus X App

The United MileagePlus X App is a way for you to earn miles for purchases that you might make in store or online. You are essentially buying a gift card from the app, then using it either in store or online. There are drawbacks to this of course, you lose purchase protection, things may get awkward if you do a refund, and it is another step in making a purchase.

How to find the Father’s Day Promotion

Unfortunately, United didn’t make it easy to find the promotion. It takes a few taps to find it, but I’ll save you the time with this walkthrough:

First open the app and select the index button (the 3 horizontal lines) – then you’ll get this screen:

 United MileagePlus X App

Next select “Catalog” and scroll down a little to find “Father’s Day Promotion” 

United MileagePlus X App

Finally, click on “Father’s Day Promotion” and you’ll see the various options – the screenshot below is only a selection:

United MileagePlus X App

Wrapping Up

As you can see – there’s a great opportunity to pick up some additional United MileagePlus miles. There is an added benefit if you have a United credit card, because you will also get a 25% bonus on top of the x miles per dollar. I’ve already found myself accruing so many United Miles as we get closer to the end of the year, and its always fun to fly Lufthansa First Class home from the Christmas Markets. 

Do you have plans to leverage this great MileagePlus X App promotion? 

FIA a week late, Tons of meet-ups, Traveling safely, Charles Schwab Accounts, Boeing 100th Anniversary!

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 The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.
If you’re in the DC area – there is a meet-up schedule for 24 August in Crystal City, VA, hosted by Jeanne of Le Chic Geek, and Ed of Pizza in Motion – I really recommend attending events like these, it’s a great opportunity to network, which is the true force multiplier!
If you’re in Michigan this weekend – there’s a great meet-up in Ann Arbor – I wanted to make it this year but too much travel overwhelmed me. There’s a great line-up of presenters, and even more super smart people. I’m convinced that Michigan is one of those concentrated areas of mile and pointers, kind of like Austin.

Travel:

  • Nice happened and other bad things happened in the past couple of weeks. Whether you’re traveling in the US or abroad, it makes sense to be smart. Rapid Travel Chai shares some great tips. I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit to not having a security belt/wallet. I do however secure my back-ups elsewhere, fact is, have them. One thing that I’ve missed is blood type and insurance information. It makes perfect sense in hindsight.
  • Rapid Travel Chai adds some significant value with respect to a checking account that I’ve been meaning to get. Definitely give this a read. The Charles Schwab Checking account is a favorite for travelers, due to no international fee. With a $100 credit for new customers, now is a great time. I know I’ll be jumping on this, especially with the update in the post!

Miles and Points

AvGeek

Farnborough International Airshow

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Note: We’ve also opened up additional slots for the Mile High Reselling Club, if you’re interested, check out the link and send us an e-mail!

Opportunity cost decisions among Shopping Portals

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Game Changer

Back in June, Doctor of Credit (and many others), wrote about a great feature of the Discover IT card, at first for any card holder, then later for only new cardholders. That is the Discover Double Cash Back (receiving that second half of cashback 13 months later). This has been absolutely huge in my opinion, because it really changes the math, especially for resellers.

Cut to today, and I happen to see a FrequentMiler QuickDeal that United is offering 10x at Sears today. At first I’m looking at this and saying to myself “Wow, I could totally leverage this to get myself another Lufthansa First Class flight.” But then I start thinking to myself, if I were to do go ahead and go through the United MileagePlus Shopping Mall, what would I be giving up?

Let’s look at the math:

Since Sears lets you buy gift cards and get miles, you should do that, so we start out at 10x.

Lets assume you get giftcards for exactly the same amount as the product you’re going to buy, now you’re 10x.

If you do as FrequentMiler advises, and use your DiscoverIT (if you haven’t already burned through your $1,500 of 5x w/ another 5x in 13 months), that kicks yourself up more. Yeah, United has a Back to School bonus, but, for me that’s kind’ve in the weeds.

So, here I have it. I could have 20x United miles or I could have 40% cashback, with the second half of that cashback coming in 13 months. Let’s leave the whole Time/Value of Money consideration out of here, and ignore all risk of Discover somehow shutting down or not paying that second half. That roughly equates to valuing a United mile at 2 cents. United themselves value their miles when they sell them on special, like their flash sale earlier this week for 2.3 cents per mile.

Wrapping Up

Thinking all that through, I have to say, I’m sticking with Discover Cashback. I feel like its a no brainer for me. Maybe before United’s devaluation that nearly doubled most of the premium cabin awards, I would’ve felt differently, but having just burned 130k miles per person to fly Thai and Lufthansa First from Bali, I’m feeling like United has effectively cut the value of their miles by roughly half. For me, regardless of what the “market cost” of the award is, I feel like United miles are worth less than a penny. Not that I bother with outlining point valuations.

Follow-up to Pursuing United Miles Credit Card Smackdown

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United cards

So my post on Pursuing United MileagePlus Miles through Manufactured Spend on either the Barclay Arrival or United Club Card (or Chase Sapphire Preferred) got some great comments and feedback. I’m grateful for the feedback, whether it comes via comments on the blog or via twitter.

Reader @Saianel commented:

So I thought I’d dive a little deeper. In my last analysis, I didn’t incorporate a spend threshold bonus.

The United Explorer card, with an annual fee of $95, has the same “payback point” as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, but just for a reminder:

United Club Card vs. United Explorer (same as Chase Sapphire Preferred).

United Club Card vs. United Explorer (same as Chase Sapphire Preferred).

They key however, in the fact, as @Sanianel rightly highlights: The United Explorer gives you 10k more United Miles if you spend $25k on the card. So lets look at how that matches up:

United Club Card vs. United Explorer at $25k Spend.

United Club Card vs. United Explorer at $25k Spend.

With the above chart, I’ve went ahead with the assumption that you’d spend $25,000 on the particular card. I’ve used the “direct buy” cost of 3.76 cents per mile, then subtracted the Annual fee, $395 for the Club Card, and $95 for the United Explorer. You can see that at that spend level, you’d get more miles, but less “value” with the United Club Card. For the United Explorer, you get more than $200 more “value” for 2.5k miles less earned.

Wrapping Up

What this further match-up tells me, is that you’d need to spend roughly $28.7k on the United Club Card to match the same value that $25k spend gets you on the United Explorer. That said, beyond $28.7k in spend, you’ll be generating more value with the United Club Card. Its clear though, spend thresholds matter, but for them to be truly meaningful, you need to be prepared to meet that threshold and shift your spend to other cards immediately.

 

 

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