Summary

• United Airlines offers monthly promotions, allowing Mileage Plus members to buy miles with bonuses.
• This month, the yearly limit on purchasing will be upped to 250,000.

Frequent flyers will know that airlines often let you purchase extra miles on their rewards program. For a set fee, customers can buy several thousand miles or points to top up their account and later book reward flights. United Airlines is a carrier that allows members of Mileage Plus to do so. They organize monthly promotions offering a 100% bonus when buying miles or a 50% total award flight cost reduction. This month, the airline is back with another exciting deal.

According to loyalty specialists and LoyaltyLobby, the airline typically limits an account to buying no more than 175,000 miles per calendar year. However, for this month's promotion, the airline bumped it up to 250,000 for this sale. Readers who wish to take advantage of this sale have until April 30th.

Should a frequent flyer buy miles?

The answer will depend on what their intent is with the program. We covered this subject in May 2023. But to resume, here are some essential tips to make the most of buying extra credits for your next adventure.

• Never buy miles or points speculatively, no matter how good the deal might be. Airlines have the power to devalue miles overnight. It would be unfortunate to miss you on your dream flight because of this.
• Be on the lookout for promotions like the one mentioned above. United gives a 100% bonus when buying miles, meaning you get double the miles you were paying for.
• Use them for premium classes in most cases; buying miles to fly in economy class doesn't make sense. Airlines often do sales on economy class cash deals anyway. Instead, purchase miles during sales to travel in premium classes like business class or even first class. Some carriers will also do promotions on reward flights in premium cabins.

If you want to see what traveling in United's domestic first class is like, please check out this video.

Bottom line

United is offering MileagePlus customers a promotion where anyone who purchases miles until the end of the month will get a 100% bonus. This deal is excellent if you know how to use it.

For example, if you know you are only a few thousand miles away from being able to redeem a flight on your bucket-list business class product like Lufthansa's Allegris or United's Polaris. Using the miles to buy economy class would only make sense if you want to try a new Star Alliance airline like Singapore Airlines or Eva Air.

You should use your miles to try out new or improved experiences. But regardless of what you do with them, you should always try to maximize their use. The most important thing in air travel, especially as an aviation fan, is to enjoy every minute of the trip.

Are you a member of a frequent flyer program, and if so, with which airline? What has been your favorite reward flight so far? Feel free to let us know in the comments!