What Is A United Airlines Mile Worth And Collecting Them

Posted by Reshav Singh on September 26th, 2015

I thought I would take a look at another airline rewards program. This time it is the United Airlines Mileage Plus Program. After doing some calculations I valued one of the United Airlines Miles to be worth 1.28 cents or --content--.0128 when you redeem your miles for flights and up to 5 cents or --content--.05 when redeeming for restaurant certificates. I know that seems like a small number especially with how many decimal places I have gone to, but they add up when you are talking tens of thousands of miles to fly somewhere.

Keep in mind when I say the 1.28 cents/mile is for flights that is a rough estimate based off of a flight I found (the cheapest flight for specific dates as well). Using it for other rewards will also change its value. I find travel is one of the worst uses for it in terms of monetary value. Entertainment rewards are usually the largest value/mile (probably because of the high markup with their prices). Using mileage plus miles for restaurant certificates on Restaurant.com, it appears that you can get anywhere from 2.5 cents/mile to 5 cents/mile. Significantly higher value for your Mileage Plus mile.

I was not able to check electronics as they are not immediately accessible anyways until you reach Elite status. You collect Mileage Plus miles a variety of ways as well.

What Is The Value Of A United Airlines Mile?

Travel

I priced out a flight from New York to Los Angeles and back using Mileage Plus miles and just paying for it regularly. To try and be a bit more fair, I found the cheapest flight I could for a one week round trip as well.

The price to leave 2 weeks ahead was US8.80 for a round-trip. The price in United Airlines Miles was 25,000 miles and no booking fee because I booked far enough in advance.

If you do a bit of math you find the 8.80 divided by 25,000 will give you the price per United Airline mile (I will just say price per mile from now on.

This number if US8.80/25000 = --content--.0128/Mile. This is rounded to the nearest 100th of a cent.

Keep in mind this is the value of an Mileage Plus Mile for this specific flight. You can calculate the value for any flight or any other products by taking the amount of money that would have come out of your pocket that you have saved by using the miles and dividing it by the number of miles you used. This will tell you the value per mile on that product. Some flights are better than others. Electronics are typically a lower rate of return for you mileage plus miles, but entertainment is better.

Entertainment

Advertised on the website are restaurant certificates from Restaurant.com. These are gift vouchers for partnered restaurants that you can search for on their website.

The gift vouchers are for 1,000 miles or 0 for 2,000 miles. divided by 1,000 and 0 divided by 2,000 give you 2.5 cents and 5 cents per mile. That is a very good return compared to the flight, but you have to remember you are getting food and that is it. Depending on what you are looking for, you are going to spend your miles on what you want.

If you like eating out and like traveling, it tells you to use your miles for eating out and just pay for your plane tickets out of your own pocket.