【2026.3 Update】UA co-branded credit card cardholders are getting a fresh set of perks: you can earn more miles when flying, award tickets get 10%-15% off, and cardholders' children can also earn extra miles when they fly. Finally, some positive changes! All changes take effect on April 2, 2026,

Details are as follows:

  • UA co-branded cardholders can earn an extra 3 miles per dollar: United miles are now earned based on airfare spend. For members without status, you earn 3 miles per $1 spent; if you are a cardholder, you can earn 6 miles per $1. (No need to pay with the UA card.)
  • 10%-15% off award tickets: those without United Premier status can get at least a 10% discount, and those with Premier status can get at least a 15% discount (shown directly on the booking page)
  • Extra mileage benefits for kids too: a cardholder's child can link their United account to the cardholder's account and earn the same extra mileage rewards when flying

Eligible UA co-branded cards include:

About United

United is one of the largest airlines in the United States, with domestic routes serving more than 200 destinations. Its hubs include Chicago (ORD), Newark (EWR), Houston (IAH), Washington, D.C. (IAD), Denver (DEN), San Francisco (SFO), and Los Angeles (LAX). United's biggest strength is its extensive international route network, which makes it especially convenient to use. United is one of the founding members of Star Alliance, the world's largest airline alliance, with 25 member airlines. United also has many non-alliance partners, making MileagePlus one of the most versatile currencies for redeeming award tickets.

To be clear, United miles can be redeemed not only for flights operated by United itself, but also for flights operated by Star Alliance partners and partner airlines, so they are extremely flexible. You can use them for domestic U.S. flights, flights from the U.S. to China, Europe, and the Americas, and even flights from China to Japan and Europe. Even though there have been changes and devaluations over the past few years, United MileagePlus is still one of the easiest frequent flyer programs to earn and use.

Partners

As a Star Alliance member, you can book flights on United's website and enjoy seamless travel across partner airlines. Star Alliance partners include Air New Zealand, ANA, Avianca, Ethiopian Airlines, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, Turkish Airlines, and more.

In addition to Star Alliance partners, MileagePlus also partners with 18 independent airlines. That means when you redeem United miles, you have more than 40 airlines to choose from! With United miles, you can reach many off-the-beaten-path destinations. Independent partners include:

  • Aer Lingus, Air Dolomiti, Airlink, Azul, Boutique Air, Cape Air, Discover Airlines, Edelweiss, Emirates, Eurowings, Flydubai, Hawaiian Airlines, JSX, Lufthansa Citi Airlines, Olympic Air, Silver Airways, Virgin Australia, Vistara

Compared with other programs, United MileagePlus is especially strong in Europe and Africa. It also has many partners on other continents, so you can find United partner airlines in every region of the world.

Earning Miles

UA miles can come from many sources. You can earn UA miles by flying on UA or partner airlines. However, UA has now switched to earning miles based on the price of the ticket, and it's no longer tied to flight distance or time. It's all about the money! In addition, if you have UA elite status, you can earn more bonus miles. Different fare classes, such as business class, also come with bonus earn. Award tickets do not earn UA miles.

For beginners or people who don't fly much, it's best to credit all Star Alliance miles to UA; splitting them up is a waste.

In addition to flying, co-branded credit cards are also a major source of miles. UA co-branded credit cards range from no-annual-fee cards to premium cards, and each offers solid mileage rewards. The best choice for beginners is still the UA MileagePlus Explorer, which has a generous welcome bonus and waives the first year's annual fee.

Apply now

Full review

Chase United Explorer Credit Card

Annual Club Passes; free checked bags; plus plenty of statement credits!

  • Welcome bonus: 50,000 UA miles (spend $3,000 in the first 3 months) + 10,000 (add a supplementary card within 3 months)
  • Rewards: 5x on hotels booked through UA channels; 2x on airfare booked on the UA website, dining, and hotel purchases; 1x on all other purchases
  • Redemption: Redeemable for domestic and international flights on UA and Star Alliance members, valued at 1.6 cents/point
  • Annual fee: $150（Annual fee waived for the first year）
  • Apply now>>

Other cards to consider:

In addition to earning miles directly, UA miles can also be transferred from other programs. The most common option is Marriott, which transfers at a 3:1 ratio, and there are occasional transfer bonuses. Chase Ultimate Rewards can also transfer to UA miles at a 1:1 ratio, and transfers are instant. If you have a large balance of UR, you should definitely learn more about UA miles.

Finally, another way to get a large number of UA miles quickly is to buy points. Based on discounts over the past few years, bonus offers of 60%-100% are common. If you need a lot of miles quickly, buying points can still make sense in addition to transferring points. After all, it's a waste to have a big pile of miles you can't use.

Miles Pooling

The miles pooling feature is now officially live, and you can start creating pools and sharing miles. Note that there is a 90-day cooling-off period every time you change groups, so if you plan to switch, it's best to join before you use them.

The detailed rules are as follows:

  • The pool leader must be 18 or older and can invite up to 4 other people to join (no age limit). Pool leader must be 18+ but can invited up to 4 other people to join of any age (total of 5 people in the pool)
  • A person can only join one pool at a time.
  • If you want to switch pools, you need to wait 90 days. If someone leaves your pool, you need to wait 90 days before adding a new member.
  • Pooled miles can only be used to book United and United Express flights. Pooled miles cannot be used to purchase upgrades, seat assignments, onboard food and beverages, inflight Wi-Fi access or anything else.
  • Contributing miles to a MileagePlus miles pool will not affect an individual member’s Premier® status.
  • Only the person who actually travels on the ticket can earn elite-qualifying miles; nothing other than miles can be pooled. Only members who travel on a ticket using pooled miles will earn any eligible Premier qualifying points (PQP), not the member who contributed them. Members cannot pool PQP, Premier qualifying flights (PQF), PlusPoints, or TravelBank cash.

Using UA miles

UA miles used to have a lot more ways to be used, but since they switched to a dynamic award chart, it basically leveled the playing field between experts and beginners, and everyone just books awards the straightforward way. Dynamic pricing means award tickets between two cities do not have a fixed mileage cost; the miles required are based on the ticket price at the time. For example,

  • Originally, a UA economy award from Beijing to Los Angeles was fixed at 35,000 miles, but after the change, the required miles vary based on actual ticket prices during off-peak and peak seasons. Sometimes it is 30,000 miles, and sometimes it is 50,000. The final decision is up to UA.

So if you want to use UA miles, just search for flights directly on UA’s website. The calendar will show exactly how many miles each date requires.

In the results, if you check flexible dates, it will show all dates with award availability within 15 days before and after your selected travel dates. You can see that the base level starts at 55,000 miles and goes higher from there. It really is tied to the price.

If you click on a specific day, you can see the mileage required for each cabin. Pay attention to the Saver award here, which is the best award seat we want to find. If there is no Saver award, it is usually best not to use UA miles. That is because regular award seats can cost as much as 150,000 miles. Also, there is no Saver option for business class here, so we do not recommend redeeming it. For the economy Saver awards we recommend, if you hold a UA co-branded card or Premier status, you may see additional Saver seats. These seats cannot be redeemed even with miles from other Star Alliance programs.

So what is the cash price of a UA Saver award ticket? Based on the lowest price on the official site for the same day, it is about $967. That means 55,000 UA miles redeemed for nearly $1,000 in value, or about 1.7 cents per UA mile (this is just an example; the actual value depends on the route and the flight). If you insist on redeeming business class, UA miles can still be a decent value even without Saver availability — a $10,000 ticket only requires 363,000 UA miles, which works out to 2.7 cents per mile, even better than economy.

However, for business class redemptions, we usually use programs with fixed award charts, such as ANA or Singapore Airlines miles, and we generally do not consider UA miles.

One more note: in addition to pure award tickets, UA also supports miles + cash redemptions. The redemption value of UA miles is fixed at 1 cent per mile (100 miles = $1), so UA miles at least have a floor value of 1 cent per mile.

Best UA miles redemptions

Although mileage pricing is tied to the fare, there is still a general pattern. The following are some of the better redemptions; all of these are Saver awards, and award space can be very hard to find during peak seasons. In addition to the examples below, you can compare the UA miles cost with the cash price of the ticket you want to book. If you can get more than 1.5c per mile from UA miles, that is already a good redemption.

  • United Polaris business class from the United States/Canada to Europe, 80,000 miles
  • Star Alliance partner business class from the United States/Canada to Europe, 88,000 miles
  • United business class from the United States/Canada to Central and Southern Africa, 88,000 miles
  • Business class from the United States to South America, 60,000 miles

In addition, UA still offers a perk that is great for travel enthusiasts, called the United Excursionist. If you book an award ticket with three cities, the fourth segment can be free. The rules are as follows:

  • Your trip must begin and end in the same region.
  • The free Excursionist Perk flight must begin and end in the same region.
  • Your trip must begin in a region different from the free Excursionist Perk flight.
  • The free Excursionist Perk flight must be in the same or a lower award level or cabin as the preceding flight.
  • Official explanation here

Of course, if you are more imaginative, you can also redeem something like this:

Only 25,000 miles

United elite status

At the beginning of 2020, United made some major changes to its elite program. The new system puts more emphasis on how much you spend on United flights rather than how many times you fly.

  • You earn 1 Premier qualifying point (PQP) for every $1 spent on United flights, and 1 Premier qualifying flight (PQF) for each segment.
  • You earn 1 PQP for every 100 miles redeemed for an award ticket, and 1 PQF for each segment redeemed (only on United and United Express).
  • If the ticket is eligible for mileage accrual, you can earn PQP on partner flights as part of the award miles earned (the rate depends on the partner), and 1 PQF per segment.
  • You can earn PQP by purchasing certain incidental charges, including Economy Plus seats or Economy Plus subscriptions, preferred seat purchases, paid upgrades on flights operated by United and United Express, and MileagePlus upgrade award co-pays.
  • Earn elite status by reaching a higher PQP requirement or by combining lower PQP and PQF totals.

The specific chart is as follows

The specific qualification thresholds are as follows. I won’t go into the details here.

Summary

In fact, after all these years, United miles have not really changed in nature. Award tickets are easy to find in the search results, and there are no complicated rules, so you could say they are one of the most beginner-friendly miles programs. In terms of earning them, the main source is credit card sign-up bonuses. Combined with everyday spending on the United co-branded card or Chase-related credit cards, you can earn a large number of United miles, which can then be redeemed for China-U.S. flight tickets.

Airline Mileage Program Guides Roundup

Getting Started

Star Alliance

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