Planning a trip to Japan for the upcoming cherry blossom season but slightly short on miles? For 4 days only, you can buy United miles with up to 67% bonus or gift United miles at 40% discount. This promotion however is not nearly as good as the one United did in January, when they offer up to 75% bonus.
[SEE ALSO: When is buying airline miles worth it? In ONLY these 3 instances…]
[SEE ALSO: Best routes and cheapest miles to Japan from mainland U.S. ]
Buy miles and get up to 60,000 bonus miles
Receive a bonus when you buy United miles for yourself:
- Buy 5,000 – 14,000 miles, receive 20% bonus up to 2,800 bonus miles
- Buy 15,000 – 29,000 miles, receive 40$ bonus up to 11,600 bonus miles
- Buy 30,000 – 90,000 miles, receive 67% bonus up to 60,000 bonus miles
Gift 2,000 miles or more and get up to 40% discount
You need to log in to see the discount.
Key terms of the offers include:
- Offer expires at 11:59 p.m. CT on February 9, 2017.
- Miles are available in increments of 1,000 up to a maximum of 90,000 miles.
- Bonuses will be calculated on a per transaction basis only.
- Bonus miles count towards the 150,000 mile annual limit per account.
- You can purchase up to 150,000 miles per account per calendar year.
- Purchase is non-refundable.
- Purchased miles do not count toward MileagePlus Premier® status.
- Transaction is processed by Points,com.
Cost comparison of buying miles vs gifting miles
Out of curiosity, I compared the cost of buying miles versus gifting miles. In the example I picked below, they came out the same:
- Buy 30,000 miles and receive 20,100 bonus miles for a total cost of $1,128,75
- Gift 50,000 miles at 40% discount, the total cost would also be $1,128.75.
Cost is exactly the same, but buying miles gets you 100 additional miles versus if someone gifts you the miles.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
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