What’s the deal???
United is offering a 40% discount for purchased miles. The offer is valid until through 11:59 p.m. CDT on August 22, 2012.
Is it a good deal?
Meh… nope. With this offer, you are basically buying each mile for 2.2575 cents each.
To put that into perspective, a round trip coach ticket from the US to Europe costs 60,000 miles.
If you bought 60,000 miles for 2.2575 cents, you would have paid $1,545… for a coach ticket to Europe! As you can see, not a great deal because you can just outright buy a revenue ticket for much much less.
Wrap Up
Buying miles directly from the airline is rarely a good deal. This is no exception.
In the end, I would pass on this deal, but it’s good to see United offering discounts on buying miles.
In the meantime, I’ll stick to earning miles with my Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
nice. i always try to do these cost analyses things in my head. so engineery of you!
Thanks! I *was* an engineer for a semester or two 😉
It definitely makes things easier for people to understand.