How to Use United Miles: The Complete Guide

United Airlines offers many opportunities to redeem MileagePlus miles, but some redemption options are better than others. Learn what the options are so you can choose the redemption that works best for you and provides good value.

In this article, we’ll look at the different ways to redeem your United miles, from the good (e.g., business class award tickets) to the not-so-good (e.g., buying an iPhone).

Keep in mind that NerdWallet values United miles at 1.2 cents each. Ideally, you want to aim for redemptions that exceed that valuation. Generally, you'll find that award tickets booked in first and business class cabins will result in better redemption values in terms of cents per mile.

» Learn more: How much are travel points and miles worth this year?

One of the best ways to use United miles is to redeem them for award tickets on United. As one of the largest U.S.-based airlines (with over 330 destinations worldwide and more than 4,500 daily departures), United's extensive reach provides several opportunities for award tickets.

With a user-friendly website, United has done a good job of designing its award search interface.

To search for an award flight, input your origin, destination and date, then select the "Show price in miles" option and click "Find flights" to see options for award tickets. Below is an example for an award flight search from Chicago-O’Hare to Los Angeles in November 2024.

Awards are provided for each fare class as long as seats are available on the flight. United now advertises a “last seat availability benefit,” which stipulates that any available seat can be booked with miles. That said, just because a seat can be booked with miles doesn’t mean it’s always a good redemption option.

If you’re looking to make good use of your miles, look for Saver Awards, which are the lowest award price on a particular flight. These are capacity-controlled, which means that during popular travel days, they may be difficult to find. Saver Awards can be booked on Star Alliance partners, too. In the example above, the economy award for 15,000 miles is a Saver Award.

MileagePlus Premier members, especially Platinum and 1K elites, have expanded access to Saver Awards, while holders of some of United’s co-branded credit cards can get discounts on them.

» Learn more: How to Book United flights with miles

Searching and redeeming with dynamic award pricing

United no longer publishes a region-based award chart. It now follows a dynamic pricing model, meaning the price of the award seat may fluctuate based on demand.

A search for nonstop award seats from Newark to London-Heathrow in November 2024 reveals the following award seats on United:

There are seven applicable Saver Awards seats at 32,900 miles in economy and six award seats at 135,500 miles in business class. If you’re flexible on your travel dates, you could also pull up the 30-day calendar to look for the price of awards on other days.

A scan of the calendar for the same route illustrates that some days are pricier to travel than others. Note the calendar is filtered by nonstop flights only. If you’re open to having a connecting flight, you’d have more options for lower-priced economy and business class awards.

You’ll generally get the best value when you redeem your miles for a business or first class ticket. Consider the following round-trip Saver Award in business class from Newark to London-Heathrow for 530,500 miles + $333.20 in taxes. The high taxes on the return leg aren’t United’s fault, as the U.K. is notorious for adding high taxes to departing flights.

If you were to book that same business class flight in cash, you would pay $10,564.90 including taxes and fees. Note that the taxes are slightly higher on the flight paid in cash versus the flight paid in miles.

By using miles, you would extract a higher value in points than our valuation of 1.2 cents. Although not everyone is willing to spend over $10,000 on a round-trip business class flight to London, this example illustrates the potential value of redeeming miles for premium cabin awards.

Redeeming for United award deals

United publishes flight award deals to various destinations for as low as 8,300 miles one-way at the time of writing. These are separate from Saver Awards and may be worth it depending on your flexibility.

Select the flight you’re interested in, and on the following results page, choose the 30-day calendar to see if other dates are also priced at the low mileage level.

For example, tickets from San Francisco to Lisbon were listed for as low as 43,900 miles and $44 for travel on April 10, 2024.

When you hover over the flight and click on it, you will see a seven-day calendar across the top, along with tickets priced at the advertised level of 43,900 miles.

You can also choose the "View 30 day calendar" to see other dates.

The calendar shows awards for 43,900 miles available throughout the month as well as some dates for fewer miles — as little as 30,000.

So if you’re seeing an award that isn't on the date you want, it might be worth digging in a little deeper and checking alternative dates for that same, or lower, route pricing.

Buy a United flight with Money + Miles

United's Money + Miles payment method allows travelers to pay for just a portion of any fare with miles, covering the remainder of the fare with cash.

Using this tool at checkout means you can choose the number of miles you'd like to put toward your flight while earning miles on the portion of the fare paid in cash, excluding taxes and fees.

» Learn more: The best airline credit cards right now

United is a founding member of Star Alliance, which boasts 26 member airlines. Due to United’s participation in Star Alliance and its partnerships with 18 additional airlines, United has access to a comprehensive international route network you can earn and redeem United MileagePlus miles with.

Award tickets on all partners can be booked on United.com (just like United award tickets), which makes booking travel convenient.

Here’s a list of all airlines with award tickets that can be booked using United miles:

» Learn more: Sweet spots to get the most value from your United miles

United offers four types of upgrade awards. Complimentary Premier and PlusPoints upgrades are free and don't require MileagePlus miles, so we’ll look specifically at the two forms of upgrades you can use your miles on.

» Learn more: How do I use PlusPoints on United?

MileagePlus Upgrade Awards

These upgrade awards are available on paid tickets on United and United Express flights. Depending on your fare class and cabin, the upgrade cost can be a combination of miles and cash.

If you haven’t purchased your ticket, you can find out how many miles you’ll need to upgrade during the search process. After you input your flight search details, you’ll have the option to select an “Upgrade type.” In the example below, we’ve selected “MileagePlus Upgrade Awards.”

After clicking “Find flights,” you’ll see the results page. In the example below, the price for a one-way flight from Chicago-O’Hare to Paris-Charles de Gaulle is $549 in economy. To upgrade to premium economy, you’ll need 20,000 MileagePlus miles. If you want to upgrade to business class, you’ll need to pay a service fee in addition to 20,000 miles.

If you didn’t request an upgrade during booking, you can do so after you’ve booked your flight by calling United Reservations at 1-800-UNITED-1 (1-800-864-8331).

Star Alliance Upgrade Awards

Similar to MileagePlus Upgrade Awards, you could also use your miles to upgrade paid tickets on Star Alliance and partner airlines. Fare classes C and D (business class) and Y and B (economy class) are eligible for upgrades. Additional fare classes may be permitted depending on the airline.

To find out if there’s upgrade availability on your flight, you can complete this form after booking. If there is availability, you’ll be able to request and confirm the upgrade.

» Learn more: Valuable benefits of United Airlines credit cards

You could also use your miles on a variety of flight and airport benefits.

United Club membership

There are more than 45 United Club locations in airports globally. A United Club membership could be a great choice if you fly frequently. An annual membership to United’s Club lounges costs $650 or 85,000 miles, resulting in a value of just under 0.8 cent per mile.

In-flight Wi-Fi subscription

You could also purchase a package for in-flight Wi-Fi, starting at $49 or 7,500 miles a month, resulting in a little less than a 0.7 cent per mile value.

TSA PreCheck

TSA PreCheck expedites your time at the airport and gives you access to a designated line for security screening. Additionally, when you go through security, you don’t need to remove your shoes, laptop, liquids, belt or light jacket. A TSA PreCheck membership is valid for five years.

If you already have Global Entry, you don't need to purchase TSA PreCheck as the benefits overlap. Many premium travel cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve® and The Platinum Card® from American Express offer a statement credit when you use the card to pay for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck enrollment.

If you don’t already have reimbursement through a credit card and are considering TSA PreCheck subscription, you could use 11,000 United miles to pay for the $78 application fee.

Airport dining

You can use United miles to pay your bill at select restaurants at Newark and Houston-Intercontinental airports. You’ll need to scan your boarding pass to start your order; when you’re ready to check out, you’ll be able to select miles or cash to pay for your total bill.

Based on screen shots from the United website, the value is just under 0.7 cents per mile.

In addition to flying and upgrading, there are numerous other ways to use your United miles. Although you'll generally get the most value out of redeeming your miles on premium cabin award tickets on long-haul flights, it's good to know that other methods of redeeming miles exist.

Newspaper and magazine subscriptions

You could use your United miles to pay for a magazine or newspaper subscription. A glance at current subscriptions shows the following options for the Financial Times:

A 24-week subscription to the eEdition of the Financial Times costs $49 or 1,960 miles, reflecting a redemption value of 2.5 cents per mile. This is actually a pretty good value considering that NerdWallet values United miles at 1.2 cents each.

Car rentals

Your miles could be used to book a car rental. To illustrate, a two-day weekend economy rental in November 2024 costs 16,900 miles.

The car wasn’t bookable with cash on the United site, so we went to Avis to compare. If you pay in advance, it would cost you $123.98 to rent the car, resulting in a value of 0.7 cent per mile, which is far below the 1.2 cents per mile valuation.

Use United miles for hotels

You could also redeem your MileagePlus miles for hotel stays. For example, a one-night stay in Scottsdale in December 2024 will cost 42,100 United miles (with a cash cost of $284). If you used miles for this stay, you’d get just over a 0.6 cent per mile redemption, which is subpar.

Shopping and gift cards

United also allows you to use your miles to pay for online purchases, including Apple products. Although you likely won’t extract good value if you use your miles to pay for these, if you don’t expect to use them for travel, it's nice to have other options.

Whether it’s through Apple, the MileagePlus X app or United’s gift card portal, you’re looking at a value of only 0.3 cent per mile.

The rest of the rest

• Experiences: Bid on unique experiences or purchase tickets to events. Value varies based on the cash price of the ticket or auctioned experience.

• Make a donation: Browse through United’s donation search site for a list of current campaigns.

• Transfer United miles to someone else: This is usually a terrible value. Not only will you have to pay a fee for the cost of the miles, but you will also have to pay a processing charge. For example, a transfer of 10,000 miles would end up costing you $180.

• Credit card statements: United credit card holders can use miles for airfare statement credits or to offset the cost of United tickets purchased at united.com. Generally, these uses result in poor value.

• Cruises: You could spend your miles to pay for a cruise. United frequently runs promotions through its cruise website for discounted options.

United offers plenty of opportunities to use your miles. Although the airline now focuses on dynamic pricing, you can still extract some decent value from your miles, especially if you redeem them for premium cabin awards.

If you’d prefer to use your miles on non-flying-related activities, United also offers plenty of redemption options through various partnerships. Surprisingly, using miles for newspaper subscriptions results in a decent redemption.

On the other hand, shopping credits, gift card purchases and hotel awards reflected some of the weakest uses of United miles.

Regardless of which option you choose, there is no such thing as the perfect redemption. Miles are meant to be used and not hoarded, so pick whichever redemption option best suits your needs.

To view rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, see this page.