Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
After 2021 was the indisputable “year of the 100K offer”, 2022 is starting off on a high note with the Chase United Business card now offering an intro bonus of up to 150K United MileagePlus miles. While I’ll always prefer transferable currencies over individual airline miles and this offer requires a lot of spend, it is nonetheless a chance to earn a lot of miles that are very easy to use.
The Offer & Key Card Details
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
75K Miles ⓘ Affiliate 75K miles after $5K spend in first 3 months.$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $99 After clicking through, be sure to click the link at the top that says, "Are you a small business owner?" to see the business card offers that include this card. You are not eligible for the bonus if you have received the bonus on this card within the past 24 months. Please note that the United EXPLORER Business card (no longer available) is a different product and does not affect your ability to get the bonus on this card. FM Mini Review: Decent perks such as enhanced access to United saver level economy awards makes this a keeper for some. Earning rate: 2X at restaurants including eligible delivery services , gas stations, and office supply stores ✦ 2X United ✦ 2X on local transit and commuting, including taxicabs, mass transit, tolls, and ride share services Card Info: Visa Signature issued by Chase. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Big spend bonus: $100 annual United travel credit after 7 United flight purchases greater than $100 ✦ Earn up to 1,000 PQPs per year: 25 PQPs per $500 spend Noteworthy perks: ✦ Improved economy saver award availability ✦ Unlocks complimentary elite upgrades on award tickets ✦ Free first checked bag ✦ Priority boarding ✦ No foreign exchange fees ✦ 2 United Club passes per year at anniversary ✦ Free DashPass for one year (must activate by 12/31/27) ✦ Primary auto rental collision damage waiver ✦ 5,000 bonus miles at anniversary when you have this card and also a personal Chase United credit card. ✦ 25% back as a statement credit on United in-flight and Club Premium drink purchases |
Quick Thoughts
United isn’t known for having the sweetest of sweet spots, but they are known for having miles that are very easy to use and no fuel surcharges on award tickets. The total bonus here, combined with the miles you’ll earn from meeting the spending requirement, is enough for round trip business class to much of the world. That can be great value for those able to leverage it.
One area where United does have a potentially interesting sweet spot is in the Excursionist Perk. That program feature was probably mainly meant to make it possible to visit two cities on a round trip award, but Greg has shown how it can be leveraged to save you a bundle of miles with a creative itinerary.
Keep in mind that the welcome offer on this card does require a lot of spend. While the initial $5K for 75K miles is very reasonable, you’ll need to spend an additional $15K (for a total of $20K spent) within the first 6 months to get the full 150K. That’s certainly not bad if spending that much on the United card won’t impact your ability to meet spending requirements on other cards you want to open.
Keep in mind that you’ll need to be under 5/24 to be approved. It’s also worth noting that if you don’t value the United-related benefits of the card, a different option to effectively generate the same number of miles with less spend would be to open both the Ink Business Unlimited and Ink Business Cash cards. Each of those cards requires $7,500 in purchases in the first 3 months, but if you opened them in back-to-back 3 month periods, you would end up with 150,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards points with only $15K total spend and those points could transfer 1:1 to United (and you would also likely have a nice chunk of points from spend given that the Ink Business Unlimited offers 1.5x everywhere and the Ink Cash offers 5x at office supply stores and on Internet / cable / wireless phone services.
Overall, I’m just glad to see an airline card exceeding 100K points. Will we see a 200K airline card offer pop up this year?
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Say we have multiple businesses (e.g. LLC), and already had this card / received the promo on business “A” in the last 24 months. Can we still get the promotion on business “B?” In other words, is the promo offer tied to the business owner? Or the business name? Thanks.
Thought about this for quite a while and decided to go ahead mainly because I want a Chase personal card and am bumping up to 5/24 so this will still allow another card in a few months. Also, even if you only spend $5K in 3 months it’s still a decent offer.
I guess I should save it for an “Ask me anything”, but what do you think the multiplier needs to be in order really to be legitimately called an “intro bonus”?
If you did see a 200k offer, which called for $100k in spend, would you call it an “intro bonus?” Where do you draw the line between a true welcome offer and a “We’ll give you an additional bonus but you have to spend a ton to get it” offer?
Any data points on credit limit being given for this? I was recently given only 3k for Chase Ink Cash so a similar limit would make it hard to hit 20k/6 months
Just got 5K, a bit disappointing particularly with such a high spend requirement.
I have this card but love that offer. How would you suggest getting that? Apply for one? Cancel then apply? Apply for a second one?
Note that 1st year AF not waived on this offer. Personally I’d prefer the 75k/$5k, 0 1st year AF. I’d rather save $99 than have the option for 5x bonus on exactly $15k. That $15k could go towards easily another 3 SUBs in those 6 months.
yep, wish that offer with a waived AF were around; i overlooked & missed out..
a housemate ponders a mail offer for a personal card that has a $250 stmt cr, 35k miles & waived AF with a min spend of $2k; btwn that & a public offer of 60k miles with a min spend of $3k but w/o waived AF, he likely goes with the mail offer
It’s actually 6x on that extra 15K as you get the 1x for the spend plus the bonus. But still a lot of spend. It’s much better than 150K for 20K spend because you could still bail after spending $5K and getting 75K miles.
So, if you spend $5K or more in 3 months and 20K total in 6 months you will land up with 170,000 miles or more if you can spend in any bonus categories.
I look at this and say Wow, if I just paid my taxes with 2% fee it would be $400 plus $95 for a round-trip business class ticket to Europe. Or, as I think of it, a European trip in Business Class for the price of Economy.
Not for everyone, but perfect for me.