Credit Card earned Millages
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 13
Credit Card earned Millages
Hello All,
If I buy mileages from UA or open a MileagesPlus credit card. Does the mileages I buy or earn by using the credit card count towards my membership status, say silver or gold. Or do I have to actually fly in order to earn that kind of milages.
Thank you guys so much,
If I buy mileages from UA or open a MileagesPlus credit card. Does the mileages I buy or earn by using the credit card count towards my membership status, say silver or gold. Or do I have to actually fly in order to earn that kind of milages.
Thank you guys so much,
#2
Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 90
Credit Card earned Millages
No. Flying is the best way to earn status miles, although some of the better familiar members here could prob advise how to earn status miles other than actually flying.
Credit card/purchasing are good for redeeming award flights.
Credit card/purchasing are good for redeeming award flights.
#4
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: SFO/SJC
Programs: UA Silver, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold
Posts: 14,854
Credit Card earned Millages
UA does have a couple of ways to earn PQM (mileage towards status) without flying, but typically, they are earned by flying (and can be earned more cheaply that way).
UA almost always offers an opportunity to buy PQM when you have an upcoming flight with them. In the reservation on the website, there is almost always an ad-style button offering to sell you extra miles for $X. If you click on there, it will offer you two different amounts of mileage you can buy - these are RDM (redeemable mileage only). But if you select one of them, it will offer you Premier accelerator for $Y additional dollars - this will also get you the same amount of miles toward Premier status. Note these are an expensive way to do it - typically, the cost will be between 12 to >20 cents/mile. This can vary based on several factors, including time of year (toward the end of the year, the cost tends to go higher), status it will get you, and potentially more. Typically, the amount of miles you can buy are based on the length of your trip, IIRC, usually 2x or 3x the amount of miles of your trip.
In addition, holders of some legacy cards (which you can no longer apply for) allow earning PQM. For example, I have a UA Select Visa, which gets me 1 PQM for every $ I spend on United's web site, up to 5,000 PQM a year. Other cards get you PQMs for hitting a certain amount of spend per year (IIRC, it's 35,000 though I'm sure someone else can confirm). However, there is no way to get these cards anymore.
UA almost always offers an opportunity to buy PQM when you have an upcoming flight with them. In the reservation on the website, there is almost always an ad-style button offering to sell you extra miles for $X. If you click on there, it will offer you two different amounts of mileage you can buy - these are RDM (redeemable mileage only). But if you select one of them, it will offer you Premier accelerator for $Y additional dollars - this will also get you the same amount of miles toward Premier status. Note these are an expensive way to do it - typically, the cost will be between 12 to >20 cents/mile. This can vary based on several factors, including time of year (toward the end of the year, the cost tends to go higher), status it will get you, and potentially more. Typically, the amount of miles you can buy are based on the length of your trip, IIRC, usually 2x or 3x the amount of miles of your trip.
In addition, holders of some legacy cards (which you can no longer apply for) allow earning PQM. For example, I have a UA Select Visa, which gets me 1 PQM for every $ I spend on United's web site, up to 5,000 PQM a year. Other cards get you PQMs for hitting a certain amount of spend per year (IIRC, it's 35,000 though I'm sure someone else can confirm). However, there is no way to get these cards anymore.
#6
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: AGH
Posts: 5,948
Anyway,...
There are some cards which give you a booster e.g. the SAS American Express Elite card will give you 20.000 miles (Automatic *A silver) towards status every year. So you just need 25k miles earning butt in the seat SK*G.
Anyway, you need a Swedish person number (social security number) for that. There are also ways to get those cheap, like setting up a small business, buying a property there (can even be a run down crappy barn for a couple of hundred SEK). In the end, probably not worth the effort.
But perhaps there are similar offers around in your region?