Is United MileagePlus worth using?
Collect it if
- You fly Star Alliance partners in premium cabins and want to search them all in one place.
- You can build a multi-city itinerary that triggers the Excursionist Perk.
Look elsewhere if
- You mostly fly United metal on busy routes, where awards track the cash fare with no ceiling.
- You need a published chart to plan against; United withdrew its own in 2019.
What is one United MileagePlus mile worth?
Short answer
1.35¢ in the Award Rate Q3 2026 model, the median of 16,800 sampled redemptions priced against the cash cost of the same seat on the same route and date. Half of those redemptions returned less than that figure. It ranks 10 of 12 among the airline currencies we value, where the category median is 1.4¢.
How the number is derived
The published Award Rate figure for United MileagePlus, taken as the median of 16,800 sampled award-versus-cash pairs on the same flight, same day, same cabin. Star Alliance partner business class — which still prices off a semi-fixed table — pulls the median up; United-operated awards, which price off the cash fare, pull it back down toward a straight rebate.
United MileagePlus’s pricing mechanism
How does United MileagePlus price an award?
What it means in practice
Chart for partners, dynamic on its own flights. Partner awards price off a table; the program’s own flights price off the cash fare. In practice that means the currency has two completely different values depending on what you book, and the partner side is where the value is.
Read the pricing mechanism before the valuation, not after it. The valuation is a consequence of the mechanism rather than an independent fact about the program: a currency priced off the cash fare cannot beat the cash fare by much, however well you redeem, and a currency governed by a published table holds its value until the table changes.
How to earn United MileagePlus miles
Three routes into a United MileagePlus balance: flying United MileagePlus or its partners, a co-brand credit card, and — where the program is reachable — transferring from a bank currency. For most readers the third is the one that matters, because it converts spending on everything into a balance in a program you might only use once a year.
Cards that build a United MileagePlus balance
The first card earns United MileagePlus directly — the co-brand, which is where the certificates and elite credits come from. The others earn the bank currencies that transfer in. Full terms for each are linked at the foot of this page.
Chase · Visa
- Welcome bonus
- 50,000 / $3K in 3 mo
- Annual fee
- $0 intro, then $150
We are not compensated for this card. It is here because it earned its place.
Terms Apply$0 intro, then $150 annual fee · 19.74% – 28.24% variable APR
See full rates & feesHide rates & fees
- Annual fee
- $0 intro, then $150
- Purchase APR
- 19.74% – 28.24% variable
- Balance transfer APR
- 19.74% – 28.24% variable
- Balance transfer fee
- Either $5 or 5% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater. Chase’s pricing disclosure also notes that this account may not be eligible for balance transfers at all.
- Foreign transaction fee
- None
- Cash advance APR
- 28.49% variable
- Cash advance fee
- Either $10 or 5% of the amount of each transaction, whichever is greater.
- Penalty APR
- Up to 29.99%. Up to 29.99%, variable. Applies if you fail to make a minimum payment by its due date or a payment to Chase is returned unpaid, and can remain in effect indefinitely.
- Late payment fee
- Up to $40
- Returned payment fee
- Up to $40
Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. Offers, rates and terms are subject to change without notice.
Rates and fees reconciled against Chase’s published pricing and terms on . Issuers may change offers, rates and terms at any time without notice; confirm current terms on the issuer’s own page before you apply. Chase rates & terms · Chase card page
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase · Visa
- Welcome bonus
- 75,000 / $5K in 3 mo
- Annual fee
- $95
We are not compensated for this card. It is here because it earned its place.
Terms Apply$95 annual fee · 19.24% – 27.49% variable APR
See full rates & feesHide rates & fees
- Annual fee
- $95
- Purchase APR
- 19.24% – 27.49% variable
- Balance transfer APR
- 19.24% – 27.49% variable
- Balance transfer fee
- Either $5 or 5% of the amount of each transfer, whichever is greater.
- Foreign transaction fee
- None
- Cash advance APR
- 29.99% variable
- Cash advance fee
- Either $10 or 5% of the amount of each transaction, whichever is greater.
- Penalty APR
- Up to 29.99%. Applies if you make a late payment.
- Late payment fee
- Up to $40
- Returned payment fee
- Up to $40
- Minimum interest charge
- $0.50
Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. Offers, rates and terms are subject to change without notice.
Rates and fees reconciled against Chase’s published pricing and terms on . Issuers may change offers, rates and terms at any time without notice; confirm current terms on the issuer’s own page before you apply. Chase rates & terms
Wells Fargo · Mastercard
- Welcome bonus
- None
- Annual fee
- $0
No apply link until we have reconciled this card’s rates and fees against Wells Fargo’s own pricing-and-terms disclosure. The analysis stands; the figures below are modeled, and we will not send you to an application on numbers we have not read off the issuer ourselves.
Terms ApplyNo annual fee · 21.24% – 29.49% variable APRmodeled — see issuer for current rates
See full rates & feesHide rates & fees
- Annual fee
- $0
- Purchase APR
- 21.24% – 29.49% variable
- Foreign transaction fee
- None
- Late payment fee
- Up to $41
- Returned payment fee
- Up to $41
- Minimum interest charge
- $1.00
The Bilt Mastercard is issued by Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated. Rates, rewards and benefits are subject to change.
These figures model Wells Fargo’s published terms and have NOT been reconciled against Wells Fargo’s pricing-and-terms disclosure. Last edited (not verified) . Confirm current terms on the issuer’s page before you apply. Wells Fargo rates & terms
How to move points into United MileagePlus
2 transferable bank currencies reach this program. The last column is what one bank point becomes once it lands here, at our Q3 2026 valuation of 1.35¢ per mile.
| Source currency | Ratio | Transfer time | One point becomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chase Ultimate Rewards | 1:1 | Instant | 1.35¢ |
| Bilt Rewards | 1:1 | Instant | 1.35¢ |
The redemptions that make United MileagePlus worth collecting
A currency is worth collecting because of specific redemptions, not because of an average. These are the ones that justify United MileagePlus, ranked by what one transferred point is worth when it lands.
Chase Ultimate Rewards United MileagePlus
Multi-city Star Alliance awards that trigger the Excursionist Perk, where a whole segment in a second region prices at zero miles. Partner business class to Europe also prices off a semi-fixed table rather than the cash fare.
Bilt Rewards United MileagePlus
Excursionist Perk itineraries, where an entire segment in a second region prices at zero miles.
Marriott Bonvoy United MileagePlus
Topping up for an Excursionist Perk itinerary where you are a few thousand miles short. The conversion loses value; finishing the award recovers it.
What United MileagePlus does well, and what it does badly
The weaknesses below are the reason the strengths are worth believing. Every one of them is something we have watched cost a reader money or a booking.
What United MileagePlus does well
- The Excursionist Perk is the last free-stopover-style benefit in a US program: on a multi-city award that begins and ends in the same region, one segment wholly inside a different region prices at zero miles.
- Star Alliance partner awards — Lufthansa, Swiss, ANA, Singapore, EVA — still price off a semi-fixed table, so a partner business seat costs a predictable number of miles even on a week when United’s own fares have doubled.
- No award change fee, no cancellation fee and no close-in booking fee, so holding a speculative award while you wait for better space costs nothing but the miles sitting still.
- united.com shows partner award space for most of Star Alliance without a phone call, which is the single biggest practical advantage over American and Delta.
- Miles never expire, which makes MileagePlus one of the few airline balances that is safe to build slowly.
What United MileagePlus does badly
- Awards on United-operated flights are priced off the cash fare with no published ceiling, so on a busy route the mile behaves like a 1.2–1.4¢ rebate rather than a lever you can pull.
- Saver partner space in premium cabins is routinely withheld until inside two weeks of departure, and United quietly charges non-elite members a mileage premium on many partner awards.
- Lufthansa first class does not release to partners until 15 days out, which makes the best redemption in the alliance effectively unplannable.
- Only two transferable bank currencies reach the program, and one of them — Bilt — is capped in practice by what you pay in rent.
- The published partner table is not published: United withdrew its award chart in 2019, so partner pricing is knowable only by sampling, and it moves without announcement.
Do United MileagePlus miles expire?
Policy in full
Miles never expire. United removed all mileage expiration in August 2019 and has not reintroduced it; an account with no activity for years keeps its full balance. Miles are forfeited only if the account itself is closed.
Expiration policy is the fact most worth checking before you build a balance and the one most often stated loosely elsewhere. An inactivity clock that any qualifying activity resets is a mild inconvenience; a hard deadline that runs from the day the points land is a different kind of risk entirely, and it changes whether a speculative transfer into this program is defensible at all.
Policy above verified against the program’s own terms on . If it has changed since, tell us and we will log the correction.
Frequently asked questions
How much is one United MileagePlus mile worth?
1.35¢ in the Award Rate Q3 2026 model. That is the median, not the maximum — half of the redemptions behind it returned less. The published Award Rate figure for United MileagePlus, taken as the median of 16,800 sampled award-versus-cash pairs on the same flight, same day, same cabin. Star Alliance partner business class — which still prices off a semi-fixed table — pulls the median up; United-operated awards, which price off the cash fare, pull it back down toward a straight rebate.Is United MileagePlus better than Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, Air Canada Aeroplan, Alaska Atmos Rewards, American Airlines AAdvantage, Avianca LifeMiles, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, British Airways Executive Club, Southwest Rapid Rewards, Air France-KLM Flying Blue and Delta SkyMiles?
Not on value per mile. United MileagePlus is worth 1.35¢ against 1.4¢, the median of the other 11 airline currencies we value, and Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles leads the category at 1.6¢. Per-point value is not the whole comparison — how fast a program earns, and whether it has properties or routes where you actually travel, can outweigh it — but it is the part that is comparable, and this is where it lands. Every currency we value, side by side.Should I move Chase Ultimate Rewards or Bilt Rewards miles in first?
Chase Ultimate Rewards, on the arithmetic: it moves at 1:1, so one bank point lands as 1.35¢ of value here, against 1.35¢ from Bilt Rewards at 1:1. Where two ratios are equal the tie-breaker is what else each currency can do for you: spend the one with the thinner list of alternative uses and keep the flexible one. Either way the transfer is one-way, so price the award seat first. Both routes, with transfer timesWhat is the biggest mistake people make with United MileagePlus?
Redeeming on United-operated flights when the cash fare is high — which is exactly when the award price is high too. It is the failure mode we see most often, and in a program with dynamic pricing there is no chart to fall back on when it goes wrong.