Buying United Miles

Josh F

Level 2 Member
Charity Forum Mod
1.5 is a genetic overall, you can do much better or much worse depending on your actual usage. I wouldn't buy at 2 cpm in any situation personally since there's much cheaper ways to earn UR/United. However, if you had a specific usage where the cash cost would be more than 2 cpm it could make sense... but I never would speculatively buy at that point or even over 1 cpm.
 

TheBOSman

Moderator
Staff member
Only worth it if you have an award in mind that is currently showing award availability and you're prepared to book and you're worried it won't be there by the time you could get the miles through a cheaper method.
 

newtoca

Level 2 Member
I figure if I buy the max it's 2 cents/mile but TPG says they are worth only 1.5 do it or not?
Buying miles is usually a bad idea, it may be justified in very rare cases when you are few hundred points short of an award redemption and need the points ASAP.
 

Hanoi IG

Level 2 Member
I bought LifeMiles with a 125% bonus and redeemed $8250 worth for flights that would have cost about $50,000
 

Hanoi IG

Level 2 Member
I don't know. It would depend wouldn't it? I just know what I paid and what I got. 2 first class ANA JFK-NAR, one way business UA EWR-HAM, one way business TK JFK-IST plus several other flights in Asia. I can't really fly Coach on long flights but I probably would have settled for business if I were paying my own way. Life Miles seems to have great deals and I got 150% bonus when buying. If I were paying to go to Asia, I'd have taken SQ 25 JFK-FRA-SIN
 

Bury

Level 2 Member
If you're not sure how much you would value these flights at, I'm not sure we can help you determine whether it is "worth it" or not.
 

TheBOSman

Moderator
Staff member
I don't know. It would depend wouldn't it? I just know what I paid and what I got. 2 first class ANA JFK-NAR, one way business UA EWR-HAM, one way business TK JFK-IST plus several other flights in Asia. I can't really fly Coach on long flights but I probably would have settled for business if I were paying my own way. Life Miles seems to have great deals and I got 150% bonus when buying. If I were paying to go to Asia, I'd have taken SQ 25 JFK-FRA-SIN
I've bought plenty of Lifemiles myself, and they do have great deals. Not quite as good as they used to, between the increase in number of miles needed and the closing of several massive loopholes, but still quite good. I've flown F on Star Alliance carriers at least four times using Lifemiles. But I would never pay out of pocket what they wanted for my flights :). I've also flown every carrier in oneworld in F other than QR, including 4 times with CX in F and 7 with QF in F (and just booked my 8th QF F flight), but again I wouldn't have paid the ~$5-10k each for each of these.

I'm basically saying, you didn't save $41,750. You saved (amount you would have paid)-$8250 (cost of Lifemiles). Now, you might have used Lifemiles to pay an economy/premium economy level price but actually flew in first class. This is generally how I view it personally.

The issue is, if you value the first class flights at their face value, then buying miles would make sense even at regular price (assuming award space) 99% of the time. I'd much rather buy 145,000 AA miles (at roughly $3000-5000 depending on the promo) and fly QF F round trip to Australia from the USA, rather than paying $10k-20k for them, as an example. Just trying to help you arrive at a point where you can best decide if it makes sense to buy the UA miles or not :).
 

Hanoi IG

Level 2 Member
OK, I think I get it. Just saying we often fly business on long hauls. I won't fly coach to Asia anymore. Having flown suites in SQ SIN-FRA-JFK, I think business is plenty good enough. For buying miles on a US based carrier, I would only do it if it were Star Alliance and I could use them on perhaps TK or LH. SQ saves all of its awards for Kris Flyer so that is where I put UR points and miles when I pay for other Star Alliance carriers. I "knew" that 150% bonus on Avianca was useful, but not sure about Alaska or United. I do love CX EWR-HKG so I suppose AA might make some sense.

The thing with points is there is a limit to how much I can spend in one year so after the signup bonus it diminishes.
 

MouseStomper

Level 2 Member
I was targeted for the Hertz/United promo at 5250 miles a rental. Found some cheap ones that bring the cost to about 1 cent per.
 
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