United Airlines MileagePlus Award Booking Instructions

United Airlines is considered one of the “Big 3” U.S. airlines (alongside American Airlines and Delta Air Lines), which makes sense considering that United operates over 4,500 flights every day to over 300 cities across the globe. Thus, United is not only one of the largest airlines in the U.S. but also one of the largest in the world. And, like most other major airlines, United has its own frequent flyer program, called MileagePlus, that allows members to earn reward miles for qualifying activities and spend those miles in a variety of ways, including booking free flights with United and its airline partners.

While there are many ways to redeem United miles, the best way to maximize the value of your United miles is to purchase award flights on United Airlines or one of its airline partners. Since United is a member of Star Alliance, United miles can be redeemed for flights on any Star Alliance member airline. United also has several airline partners outside of Star Alliance with which you can book award flights using United miles.

Frequent flyer programs can sometimes be difficult to navigate. Luckily, the United MileagePlus program offers a pretty simple user experience that makes booking award flights easy. Nevertheless, in this article, we’re going to give you step-by-step instructions on how to book an award flight through the United MileagePlus program as well as how to actually sign up for the program and earn miles.

Joining United Airlines MileagePlus

Before you start earning or redeeming miles through MileagePlus, you’ll need to be a member of the program. So, if you don’t already have a MileagePlus account, you can enroll by heading to the United Airlines website and clicking the icon on the top-right of the homepage that looks like a human. Then, you’ll need to select the “Create a MileagePlus account” option from the menu that appears.

Once you click that button, you’ll be redirected to a page where you’ll be asked to enter some personal information, such as your name, title, email address, phone number, date of birth and gender.

After that, you’ll need to provide information about your home address and country of residence. Finally, you’ll need to create a username and password that you can use to sign in to your MileagePlus account in the future.

Once you’ve done all that, you’ll receive a unique MileagePlus account number, which you’ll need in the future to earn miles. And you’ll be a member of the MileagePlus program, which means you’ll be able earn and redeem reward miles.

How To Earn United Airlines MileagePlus Miles

There are many ways to earn miles through the United MileagePlus program. However, some methods of earning United miles are much more effective than others. In particular, the best ways to earn miles through MileagePlus are to transfer points from eligible credit card rewards programs, to spend money on a United Airlines co-branded credit card or to take paid flights with United Airlines or one of its airline partners.

In the following sections, we’re going to look at the best ways to earn United miles so you can quickly earn enough for your next award flight.

Transfer Credit Card Points

One of the best ways to earn United miles is to transfer points from the Chase Ultimate Rewards program, the only credit card rewards program that allows transfers to the United MileagePlus program. So, if you don’t have a Chase credit card, you won’t be able to transfer credit card points to the United MileagePlus program.

However, if you do have a credit card that earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points, you can transfer those points to MileagePlus at a 1:1 ratio for free. For example, if you had 70,000 Chase points in your account (perhaps earned from the welcome bonus from the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card), you could transfer those points to the United MileagePlus program for free and receive 70,000 United miles in your MileagePlus account within seconds.

If you want to make a single redemption through the MileagePlus program without having to commit to MileagePlus as your frequent flyer program of choice, transferring points from the Chase Ultimate Rewards program is the best way to do so.

United Airlines Co-Branded Credit Cards

In addition to converting Chase Ultimate Rewards points to United miles, you can earn United miles directly for your credit card spending by signing up for one of the many United Airlines co-branded credit cards available to U.S. consumers. United currently offers six different co-branded credit cards (four personal cards and two business cards), all of which are issued by Chase.

Annual fees for these credit cards range from $0 to $525 and the spending bonuses and benefits also vary widely. So, depending on how often you fly with United, how large of an annual fee you’re willing to pay and how much you’re going to spend on your credit card annually, you should be able to find a card that works for you. The following table includes the main features of the four personal United Airlines co-branded credit cards:

As you can see, with these co-branded credit cards, you can quickly earn lots of United miles on your everyday spending. And, in addition to the benefits and spending bonuses listed above, each of these credit cards offers a typical welcome bonus of tens of thousands of United miles to new cardmembers who spend a certain amount on their card in a specified amount of time after account opening. For example, here’s the current welcome offer from the United Club Infinite Card:

With these welcome bonuses alone, you can earn enough miles for one or more award flights through the MileagePlus program.

Flying With United Airlines and Partner Airlines

Another effective way to earn United miles is to book paid flights with either United Airlines or one of its airline partners. To do so, you’ll need to select MileagePlus as your frequent flyer program of choice and enter your account number either when booking your flight or when checking in.

When flying with United Airlines, the number of miles you’ll earn depends on the cost of your airfare and your status in the MileagePlus program. Here’s how many miles per $1 spent you’d earn at each status tier in the MileagePlus program:

• Basic: 5X miles
• Premier Silver: 7X miles
• Premier Gold: 8X miles
• Premier Platinum: 9X miles
• Premier 1K: 11X miles

For example, if you paid $200 for a United-operated flight and you didn’t have any elite status in the MileagePlus program, you’d earn 1,000 miles on that flight ($200 x 5 = 1,000 United miles). However, if you had Premier Platinum status and you took the exact same flight, you’d earn 1,800 miles ($200 x 9 = 1,800 miles).

You can also earn United miles on flights operated by a wide variety of partner airlines. Since United Airlines is a member of Star Alliance, you can earn United miles on flights with any Star Alliance member airline. Here are the airlines that are currently members of Star Alliance:

In addition to the Star Alliance partners listed above, United Airlines has partnerships with many different non-Star Alliance airlines that allow you to earn United miles on their flights, including the following:

The number of miles you’ll earn on a partner-operated paid flight depends on which partner airline you’re flying with, your fare class and the price of your airfare. To see exactly how much you’d earn on a partner flight, you can visit the airline partners page of the United Airlines website and click on the specific airline that you plan on flying with. Then, scroll down to find that partner’s earnings chart.

Other Ways To Earn

In addition to the three earning methods described above, there are many other ways to earn United miles through the MileagePlus program, including shopping, dining, booking hotels and vacation rentals, renting cars, booking cruises and many more. Unfortunately, none of these methods are likely to earn you a ton of points.

But, if you planned on doing some of these miles-earning things anyway, such as booking a vacation rental with Vrbo or going out for dinner, you may as well earn some extra United miles while you’re at it and get a little bit closer to your next award flight.

How To Book Award Flights Through United Airlines MileagePlus

Now that you’re familiar with how to sign up for a MileagePlus account and you know how to effectively earn United miles, let’s look at the process of actually redeeming those miles for award flights. The first thing you’ll need to do is visit the United Airlines website and sign in using your MileagePlus account credentials.

Once you’re signed in, return to the United Airlines website homepage and locate the search tool, which gives you the option to search for flights, packages, hotels, cars and cruises. Select the “Flights” option and check the “Book with miles” box in the top-right corner of the flight search tool box. Once you’ve done that, you can search for flights as you normally would.

You can enter your departure and arrival airports, whether you’ll be flying round-trip or one-way, your travel dates and the number of travelers. Then, once all of that information is correct, you’ll click the blue “Find flights” button.

Then, you’ll be redirected to a list of flight results that match your search query as well as the mileage required for a seat on each flight in each available cabin class. These results include flights operated by United Airlines and all of its eligible partner airlines. You can choose to filter these flight results by factors such as best match, miles required, flight duration, departure time, arrival time and number of stops. You can also filter for connecting airports, mixed-cabin flights, type of aircraft and wheelchair accessibility.

When you find a flight that matches your requirements, select the cabin class that you want for that flight to add it to your itinerary.

Once you’ve selected both your departing and return flights, you’ll be automatically redirected to a new page, where you can review the details of your award itinerary and the total number of miles required as well as the applicable taxes and fees.

If your flights and the pricing information look good, scroll down and enter traveler information for anyone on the itinerary. You’ll need to include yours and your traveling companions’ name, date of birth, gender, frequent flyer program of choice and your membership number for that program, phone number, email address, TSA PreCheck number (if applicable) and any special assistance or special meal requests.

Once you’ve entered all of that information, continue to the next page and enter a payment method to cover any applicable taxes and fees. After you’ve done that, you can confirm your flight purchase and you’ll receive a flight confirmation number, which you’ll need to check in to your flight. You should also receive an email containing your flight confirmation number.

The cost in miles for the flight should be immediately deducted from your account balance.

The Bottom Line

The United Airlines MileagePlus program is a highly rated frequent flyer program for many reasons. For one, United Airlines has a ton of airline partners, both Star Alliance and non-Star Alliance, meaning that you can earn United miles with over 40 different airlines and redeem those miles for flights on over 40 different airlines. And, although the MileagePlus program uses dynamic pricing for its own awards as well as partner awards, you can still often find decent award rates through this program.

Another reason that MileagePlus is a solid frequent flyer program is that it’s easy to search for and book award flights through the United Airlines website. The process is essentially the same as booking cash flights, and the website allows you to sort and filter flight results by a number of factors, allowing you to find the perfect flight to meet your needs.

Navigating airline websites can be complicated. So, if you have any confusion, you can always refer to this step-by-step guide to booking award flights through the United MileagePlus program.