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United Airlines MileagePlus Program Review

Gabi Logan

United Airlines has good domestic coverage, with several hubs in the middle of the U.S. for varied domestic and international routing options, and a very wide network of international air and hotel partners through Star Alliance and individual partnerships.

No matter where you fly to or whose planes you fly on, United won’t charge a fuel surcharge on the award, making it ideal for overseas trips. With some of the lowest mileage redemptions on long-haul flights to exotic locations in the South Pacific, and flexible routing and stopover rules, it’s a no-brainer for building dream trip itineraries.

Booking awards, even complex ones, on United is quite straightforward, as partner availability and booking is largely available online so focusing on United is great for people looking to get into the mileage game easily.

PROGRAMALLIANCECURRENCY
MILEAGE PLUSSTAR ALLIANCEMILES
POINTS TRANSFER PARTNERS
CHASE ULTIMATE REWARDS;
SPG STARWOOD PREFERRED
AIRLINE PARTNERS
Aer Lingus
Germanwings
Great Lakes Airlines
Island Air
Jet Airways
Silver Airways
Adria Airways
Aegean Airlines
Air Canada
Air China
Air India
Air NewZealand
Avianca




Copa Airlines
Croatia Airlines
Egyptair
Ethiopian Airlines
Eva Air
LOT
Lufthansa
Scandinavian Airlines
Shenzhen Airlines
ANA
Asiana Airlines
Austrian
Brussels Airlines		Singapore Airlines
South African Airways
Swiss
TAP Portugal
Thai Airways
Turkish Airlines
Aeromar
Air Dolomiti
Azul
Edelweiss
Eurowings
Cape Air
Hawaiian Airlines

Hubs:

How Can You Use United MileagePlus?

Frequent flyers love United because it has some of the most flexible awards out there, which can easily be molded into free one-ways, European city tours or round-the-world adventures. Sweetening the deal is a huge partner network that always books in the lowest award category.

Program Perks:

Booking Quirks:

Best-Value Awards:

Redemption for North Asia, Japan and Oceania (one of the most expensive places in the world to fly to on a revenue ticket) start at 35,000 miles one way, just a bit more than a flight to Europe and less than the Middle East.

But while United is one of the best options for getting to Southeast Asia, it recently changed its routing rules making it more difficult to route creatively and visit Europe en route, slightly diminishing the value of these awards.

Worst-Value Awards:

Awards to Hawaii are quite overpriced in comparison to other airlines and the rest of the United award chart. You’ll pay significantly less miles from Seattle to Belize than from Seattle to Hawaii.

Standard awards are pricy on any airline, but disproportionately so on United. It’s common for standard awards to be twice the saver award redemption, but on United, they’re more than twice the saver fare across the board, so on United, it particularly pays to keep checking until you find a saver fare or be flexible in your dates.

The Good Stuff: Upgrades and Elite Status

Upgrades on United are complicated affairs, tied into the booking class on your ticket starting. This is the order of the upgrades: J, C, D, Z, P, Y, B, M, E, U, H, Q, W, S, T, K, L, G, or N.

If you purchased an expensive ticket the miles required to upgrade can be quite low and there’s no co-pay required. Cheaper tickets can require hefty co-pays of up to $600 along with 30,000 miles on long-haul flights.

Unless you’re flying domestically, the complex system and high co-pays make upgrading United flights with miles an inefficient use of miles.

United MileagePlus Elite Levels and Perks

Each level includes the perks of the previous category.

Associated Credit Cards

From Chase, two main cards offer perks on United: the United MileagePlus Club Visa and the United MileagePlus Explorer Visa, which are also both available in business versions.