How to redeem miles with the
United MileagePlus program

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United Airlines is a member of the Star Alliance team (which consists of 26 members), so this means is that you’ll have plenty of options to travel wherever these airlines fly!

United Airlines is also one of the three big airlines in the US (besides Delta and American Airlines) and its also a transfer partner of Chase making it easier for you to redeem those Chase Ultimate Reward points for flights!

In this post, I’ll explain how you to redeem points with the United Mileage Program.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to redeem miles with the
United MileagePlus program

1. Go to United.com and create an account.

Click “Join now”

2. Once you’re finished creating an account, make sure to check the box where it says “Book with miles”.

For this example, let’s say you want to book a one-way flight going from the US to Paris. Let’s also say you live in Los Angeles so the airport closest to you is the Los Angeles International Airport (airport code is LAX).

Then, we did a little research and the airport closest to Paris is Charles de Gaulle
(airport code is CDG).

Fill out the rest of the details afterward.

For this example, we want to book a one-way flight from LAX to CDG in economy:

4. If you have United Premier status or have a United credit card associated with your MileagePlus account, you'll want to log in before searching. Cardholders and elite status members gain access to additional award inventory on United-operated flights.

United displays flights at the center of the page alongside prices. One nice thing about the United search engine is that it shows a week's worth of award pricing at the top of the screen.

3. Click “find flights”

You can also “sort” and find the cheapest award flight by clicking the blue tab on top of the flight options.
In this example, let’s click the “Economy” tab:

Once done, you’ll see all of the 30K flights sorted on top. You just then pick whatever works for you :)

You can also do a month’s calendar view by clicking the “30-day calendar” button.

You’ll see the full month’s view afterward:

How to redeem miles to book a
Business Class or First Class flight

1. Log in to your account
2. Make sure to check the box where it says “Book with miles”
3. Fill out the rest of the details. In this example, we’ll be flying one-way from San Francisco (airport code SFO) to Tokyo (airport code HND)
3. Select “Business” in the drop down menu

4. Click the “30-day window” view

If you also look at some of the other dates, there are 2 business class flights that you can book at 72.8K and 70K.

Let’s go ahead and click the flight on April 17 where you only need 70K points and $11.20 in taxes.

3. The key to finding the cheapest award flight available is being flexible with your travel dates.

Business class flights usually cost around 60K to 90K+ points depending on the partner airline.

In this month’s view, you’ll see a lot of award flights at 92K points.

4. The next step is to sort and find the cheapest business award flight. To do this, you need to click the blue “Business (lowest)” tab.

Once done, the cheapest business award flights will be sorted at the very top. As you can see in the photo, there are at least 3 options that you can book for 70K points!

One important thing to note is you need to check the flights that has “Mixed cabin” note in it. When you see this, there’s a good chance that some of the flights are not entirely in business class.

To check more information, click the “Details” drop down button.

Then you’ll see this afterward. Notice that one of the flights is in economy.

One solution for this is that you can always check for another date OR if you have extra points/miles, you can book the 90K award flight.

For me, this is not too bad because the flight is only 2 hours and 38 minutes. You also will have a connection of 13 hours and 23 minutes so you can either stay at the airport and chill at a lounge somewhere (you can have access to lounges if you have a premiere card like the American Express Platinum, Chase Sapphire Reserve, etc.) or go explore the city and make the most out of it!

Once you’re done with the layover, you’ll be flying in United Business class (“United Polaris”) for about 12 hours. When flying in a Polaris cabin, you’ll get a lie-flat bed, lounge access, two free checked bags, and you'll be presented with a chef-designed menu listing meal selection.

What a way to get spoiled going to your destination! : )

When booking for a First class seat, it can be a little challenging because airlines are usually stingy and only release a number of award seats.

Some of them are somewhat bookable but you may need to be really flexible with your travel dates because they sometimes release first class flights just “days” of departure.

It’s still possible to find these first class flights but you may need to be diligent and check each date to find an availability. On this example, I still found 1 First class ticket with ANA Airlines for 121K miles from San Francisco (SFO) to Tokyo (HND)!

How to Earn United MileagePlus Miles

Signing up for a credit card is the fastest way to earn points/miles.

I’ll start with Chase cards first because collecting Chase Ultimate Rewards points gives you the flexibility to transfer points to its many different airline and hotel partners, including United Airlines.

Chase points transfer at a 1:1 ratio to United - you can watch this video to learn how to transfer points from Chase to its airline/hotel partners (click)!

United MileagePlus Credit Cards

There are several MileagePlus credit cards that help you to directly earn United miles. Click the links below to find out more about them and their benefits:
United℠ Explorer Card
United Quest℠ Card
United Gateway℠ Card
United Club℠ Infinite Card
United℠ Business Card

Conclusion

By being a part of the Star Alliance, you can utilize United Airlines and its other 25 members to fly almost anywhere in the world! Earning miles is made a lot easier because you have plenty of options with Chase cards and several United MileagePlus cards!

The carrier's award search engine is one of the best out there, and the program charges low taxes and fees compared to other Star Alliance mileage programs.

I hope this post help you a little bit in understanding how to use United Airlines and use your points/miles to go to that dream destination you’ve been wanting to go to!