(EXPIRED) (Targeted) United: Earn 3x, 5x Or 7x Bonus Miles

United is targeting some MileagePlus members with an offer to earn 3x, 5x or 7x bonus miles per dollar on flights taken by the end of August.

The Deal

• Earn 3x, 5x or 7x bonus miles on United flights.
• Direct link to registration.

Key Terms

• Only original offer recipients can register for and participate in this promotion.
• Member must register for this promotion on or prior to August 31, 2020. Only Trips (defined below) booked after registration and completed on or prior to August 31, 2020, will qualify toward satisfaction of the offer requirements.
• For Qualifying Trips (defined below), promotional bonus award miles will be credited at 5 times the fare.^*
• “Trip” is defined as each unique travel itinerary as documented by United with a confirmation number.
• “Qualifying Trip” requirements:
  • Trip booking must be made after registration.
  • All flight activity for applicable Trip must be completed on or prior to August 31, 2020.
• *For this promotion, only dollars spent on the “fare” on eligible flights operated by United^® and United Express^® will qualify toward promotional bonuses. Certain specialty tickets, including but not limited to unpublished, consolidator/bulk, group, tour and opaque fares, will not be counted towards this promotion. Dollars spent on tickets purchased for flights operated by Star Alliance™ member airline or a United MileagePlus® partner airline with tickets issued by United (ticket number starting with “016”) will not qualify for this offer. The “fare” is the base fare of the ticket plus carrier-imposed surcharges, excluding any government-imposed taxes and surcharges. For tickets purchased in a currency other than U.S. dollars, we will convert the purchase to U.S. dollars using an industry standard exchange rate. Please note that the price displayed when purchasing a ticket on united.com includes up to a 7.5% U.S. Federal Transportation Tax on the base amount of the fare on itineraries wholly within the United States. This tax also applies to certain itineraries between the United States and Canada or Mexico.
• Registered members can earn a maximum of 50,000 bonus award miles in accordance with this promotion and these terms and conditions.
• Offer is not valid on government fares.
• Flights on award travel tickets do not qualify for meeting the requirements of this offer.
• E-Ticket purchase is required. Service charges for ticketing with a United representative in the 50 United States, District of Columbia and Canada are $25 by phone, $30 at a City Ticket Office and $35 in person at the airport. Ticketing charges may vary outside of the U.S. and Canada and based on MileagePlus status level. The ticketing service charge does not apply for tickets purchased on united.com. Service charges are subject to change without notice.
• Miles earned through this promotion do not count toward Premier^® status or Million Miler status and do not apply to class-of-service bonus miles, Premier bonus miles or promotional Premier qualifying miles.
• Qualifying activity must be posted to the applicable member’s United MileagePlus^® account in order to qualify for this offer.
• Bonus award miles will post to your MileagePlus account six to eight weeks after the promotion ends.
• Offer ends at 11:59 p.m. (U.S. Central Time) on August 31, 2020.
• This offer is not combinable with other non-combinable offers.
• If transactions are reversed or canceled or refunds occur after the promotional timeframe such that the offer requirements are no longer satisfied, applicable miles will be deducted from the MileagePlus member account.
• All calculations and other determinations made in connection with this offer will be made by United^® in its discretion and are considered final.
• Offer is subject to cancellation or change without notice. Other restrictions may apply.

Quick Thoughts

I received an email about this offer a few days ago as I was targeted to earn 5x. Doctor of Credit has since reported that other people are being targeted with an offer for 3x or 7x bonus miles.

Even if you didn’t receive an email about the promotion, it’d be worth seeing if you’re able to register because I saw a data point that someone saw in the United app that they were targeted despite not getting an email.

If you were needing to fly and United was already your best choice, this is a nice bonus. Unless you’d be booking an expensive flight though, it might not be enough to move the needle rewards-wise. For example, booking a $300 flight earning 5x bonus miles means you’d earn 1,500 bonus miles which are worth ~$20. That’s good, but if there are alternative flights which are cheaper and/or have a better routing, points worth ~$20 might not be worth choosing instead.

Something else to bear in mind is that United isn’t blocking middle seats at the moment, whereas some airlines like Delta or Southwest are blocking middle seats to help provide some element of physical distancing on planes.

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