United Airlines’ MileagePlus Program 2025 Guide

One of the best ways to use United miles is for free flights on United Airlines or its Star Alliance airline partners. First, let’s look at booking flights on United.

The United award chart used to be the first stop for determining the number of miles needed to book an award ticket. With the move to dynamic pricing, you’ll simply need to head to united.com and plug in your origin, destination and date(s) of travel to find out how much an award ticket costs.

You can book awards over the phone, but United’s website has a sophisticated award search that will return plenty of results — plus, you can avoid the $25 phone booking fee the airline typically charges.

United has two levels of awards for each cabin class: Saver and Everyday:

• Saver awards are cheaper, but availability at this level is limited.
• Everyday award seats are plentiful, but the value per mile is poor.

There’s no difference between the awards aside from these factors.

Because this frequent flyer program uses dynamic pricing, United award flight prices vary substantially. They also vary based on the cabin class and when you’re flying, as well as your city of departure and destination. Consider the following examples to see what we mean.

Example: We found Economy Saver Award prices for an early morning short hop from San Francisco to Los Angeles as low as 7,300 miles in March 2025, while a first-class Everyday Award for the same hop clocked in at 30,000 miles. For either flight, airline taxes and fees were $5.60.

Example: Transcontinental flights from Las Vegas to Newark, N.J., were as low as 15,000 miles plus $5.60 one-way in economy over dates in June 2025. For the same flight in First class, you could fork over 63,900 miles plus $5.60.

Maybe you want to use your miles for a tropical vacation in the Caribbean. In that case, we easily found flights from Newark, N.J., and other major U.S. cities to Aruba in main cabin economy for as little as 22,000 miles plus $16.85 in airline taxes and fees.

Flights between the U.S. and other continents are subject to variable pricing as well. It used to be easy to calculate the cost for a Saver Award using the United award chart, but that’s no longer an option.

Examples: Flight awards between Chicago and Paris can run as low as 37,900 miles plus $5.60 one-way in main cabin economy. However, the same flight can cost 200,000 miles plus $5.60 in United Polaris Business class.

You could also use United miles to fly somewhere more remote than Europe, and potentially get a great deal in the process. For example, we found one-way main cabin economy flights from Newark, N.J., to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for 40,000 miles plus $7 over dates in April 2025. For the same flight in United Polaris Business class, the cost came out to 220,000 miles plus $7.

You could even use your miles to fly from L.A. to Singapore in economy class for a total cost of 60,500 miles plus just $5.60 in airline taxes and fees. This is an excellent redemption for a flight that lasts almost 17 hours and may cost more than $900 if you pay in cash.

United’s airline partners are a big part of what makes United miles so valuable. Booking on Star Alliance partners can offer some of the highest value United award redemptions. You can find especially good values when choosing business- or first-class on airlines known for their incredible in-flight experiences.

As an example, we found nonstop, one-way award flights from Newark (EWR) to Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) on partner airline Lufthansa over dates in February 2025 for 44,000 miles plus $5.60 in main cabin economy and 88,000 miles plus $5.60 in Business class. Considering the cash price of these fares came out to $539 and $2,528 respectively, that means these redemptions work out to 1.2 cents per mile and 2.8 cents per mile.

That’s a great deal for long haul business class, and it goes to show the premium redemptions you can sometimes find through Star Alliance partner airlines.

Apart from a long list of airline partners and the ease of booking online, another factor that increases the value of United miles is its “Excursionist Perk.” Put simply, this perk allows you one free one-way flight embedded within a multi-city award ticket, allowing you to visit two or more cities for the price of one.

As always, though, there are some restrictions:

• Your trip must start and end in the same award region, as defined by United.
• The free one-way ticket using the Excursionist Perk must have an origin and destination within the same award region, as defined by United.
• The cabin of service and award inventory of the free one-way award is the same or lower than the one-way award preceding it (i.e., if your first one-way ticket is in business class, you can get your free one-way flight in either business or economy).
• If multiple one-way awards qualify as an Excursionist Perk based on the above criteria (i.e., by being wholly within a single MileagePlus award region), only the first of these awards will be free. You can ticket extra segments into a multi-city itinerary, but you can’t use the Excursionist Perk more than once on a single ticket.

A common way to take advantage of the Excursionist Perk is to add an extra city into a European itinerary. Here’s an example United provides:

• Chicago (ORD) to London (LHR): 30,000 miles
• London (LHR) to Paris (CDG): 0 miles (this is your Excursionist Perk)
• Paris (CDG) to Chicago (ORD): 30,000 miles

If you want to visit more cities, you can always add them after the Excursionist Perk, but you’ll have to pay the regular price for a one-way award.

If you’re savvy and know what you’re doing, you can do much more with the United Excursionist Perk. The fact that your ticket needs to begin and end in the same region means, for example, you could depart from the U.S. to Europe as your first segment. Then you could return to the U.S. from Southeast Asia — you won’t need to return from Europe.

You can also add as many “open-jaws” (i.e., breaks in your segments) into your itinerary as you’d like. The Excursionist Perk segment doesn’t even have to be in the same destination zone of your first qualifying one-way award. Here is a more advanced use of the Excursionist Perk:

• Chicago (ORD) to Copenhagen (CPH) in Brussels Airlines business class: 88,000 miles plus $30.90
• Transit overland to Paris by train, stopping in Amsterdam for a couple of days along the way
• Paris (CDG) to Singapore (SIN) on a separate one-way ticket
• Singapore (SIN) to Hong Kong (HKG) in business class: 0 miles (this is your Excursionist Perk)
• Hong Kong (HKG) to Taipei (TPE) on a cheap cash ticket
• Taipei (TPE) to Chicago (ORD) in United economy: 55,000 miles plus $39.01

There’s even more you can do with the Excursionist Perk — go play with the multi-city award search tool.

You can also use your miles to make your upcoming flight much more comfortable and luxurious by snagging space in a premium cabin. Here are four ways you can get an upgrade with United miles:

1. Get a United upgrade during booking. You can request a United upgrade award during booking. To do so, sign in to your MileagePlus account and choose “Advanced search options.” Search for your flight and choose “MileagePlus Upgrade Awards (MUA).” If no flights show upgrade availability, you can book and request an upgrade later.
2. Request a United upgrade after booking. You can get an upgrade after booking in several ways: You can sign in to your MileagePlus account and pull up your reservation to make the request online, call your dedicated Premier elite service line or United Reservations at 800-UNITED-1 (800-864-8331) or talk with a United representative at a check-in counter or at the gate within 24 hours of departure.
3. Choose a PlusPoints upgrade. You can also get what United calls a PlusPoints upgrade during or after booking a flight on United or a partner airline. However, this option is only available to eligible elite status members.
4. Get a Star Alliance upgrade. You also may be able to use United miles to buy a one-cabin upgrade on eligible flights on certain Star Alliance partner airlines. You can request these upgrades for up to four people on the same itinerary.

Using United miles for upgrades can be a good way to use your rewards and, depending on the upgrade and the flight, can offer an excellent value.

Award flights are by far the best way to redeem your United MileagePlus miles, as you’ll generally get more than 1 cent per mile based on LendingTree’s valuation. However, there are other redemption options if you don’t wish to book flights, including:

• Car rentals: You can use miles to book a rental car with Avis and Budget through the MileagePlus Car Awards booking portal.
• Checked bag fees: Use your United miles to pay for checked bag fees.
• Cruises: Redeem your United miles for cruises to many destinations.
• Experiences and events: You can use your miles to book unique events and experiences.
• Hotel stays: You can use your miles to book stays at hotels and resorts around the world by using the United Hotels booking portal.
• In-flight Wi-Fi: Use your miles to pay for in-flight Wi-Fi on United flights.
• Magazine subscriptions: Use your United miles to subscribe to your favorite magazine(s) or give a subscription as a gift.
• Gift cards: Use your United miles to buy electronic gift cards from a variety of retailers and restaurants, from Apple and Lowe’s to Starbucks and Walmart.
• Merchandise: You can use the MileagePlus Merchandise Awards portal to shop with United miles for merchandise, from electronics and luggage to jewelry and sports equipment, from a variety of retailers.
• TSA PreCheck: Use your United miles to give yourself the gift of a speedy and more convenient trip through airport security.
• United Club membership: Redeem United miles for an airport lounge membership so you can have space to rest or work between flights.

Generally speaking, redeeming miles in these ways will yield less value than award flights. For example, redeeming United miles for hotel stays, car rentals or TSA PreCheck membership will typically yield less than 1 cent per mile. That’s why it’s highly recommended you redeem your miles for award flights over other options.

You can check out all the ways to redeem miles here.

Consider getting a United credit card if you want frequent flyer benefits like free checked bags and priority boarding. You should also note that airline credit cards let you earn miles for each dollar you spend, and United credit cards offer generous sign-up bonuses on top of miles for regular spending.

It’s totally free to sign up for United MileagePlus, so you can get a frequent flyer number and start earning miles that can get you free flights and other rewards. However, you’ll need to spend money with United and its partner airlines, or sign up for a United credit card, in order to earn enough miles to make the program worthwhile.

If you’ve misplaced your MileagePlus number, head over to the Forgot MileagePlus number link. From here, you can enter your first name, last name, email address and date of birth and click the “Submit” button. United will then send you an email with your MileagePlus number. If you don’t get an email or still need help finding your MileagePlus number, you can call the MileagePlus service center at 800-421-4655.

You can transfer MileagePlus miles to another member. Transfers start at 500 miles and go up to a maximum of 100,000 miles. Mileage transfers cost $7.50 per 500 miles plus a $30 processing fee per transaction.

You cannot add family members to your MileagePlus account. Each family member ages 18 and older must create their own account. You can also create an account for your children if they are under the age of 18.

United Airlines MileagePlus members can submit a request for mileage credit online for United flights dating back 12 months. To request mileage credit for other travel bookings, you must call the MileagePlus Service Center at 800-421-4655.

You can request to merge United Mileage accounts if you have more than one account. Requests can take up to seven days to process. Note that your full name and birthdate must match between the accounts to be eligible to merge them.