Limited United promo: Buy miles and get a bonus of up to 60% more award miles

It appears United is running another limited time promotion for up to 60% more miles when you purchase miles depending on how many you buy. This promo is running from June 6 - June 13 and the details are as follows:

• Buy 5,000 - 9,000 miles | Get a 15% bonus
• Buy 10,000 - 24,000 miles | Get a 30% bonus
• Buy 25,000 - 93,000 miles | Get a 60% bonus

That means if you max out the promotion and buy the full 93,000 miles for $3,255 + $244.13 tax = $3,499.13 total you'll receive an additional 55,800 bonus miles for a total of 148,800 miles (the maximum number of miles you are allowed to buy in a calendar year is 150,000) which amounts to a cost of exactly 2.35 cents per mile which is not really that great of a deal. This offer is set to expire at midnight on June 13th, 2016 although United seems to run these types of promotions frequently so if you miss out on this one you can always just wait until the next one comes along. And just a reminder that these points do not count toward MileagePlus Premier status and are also processed by a third party so do not count as direct United purchases.

Bottom Line

This is not that great of a deal considering that United often runs much better promotions such as their 100% award bonus last month which brought the cost of each mile down to a reasonable cost of 1.88 cents per point. However, that doesn't mean that you can't find instances in which taking advantage of this promotion makes sense but I am in the group of people that believes you shouldn't buy points speculatively unless you have a specific redemption in mind. Otherwise, I'd wait until the next promotion comes along. And remember, you can always transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to United as an option at a 1:1 ratio or Starwood points at a 2:1 ratio but there are probably better options available to use your Starwood points.