pbjag

Did a search, but did not see a thread on this yet. Just received the email:

Now through December 31, select Mileage Plus(R) members can
redeem miles for gift cards. Choose from retailers including
Macy's, Williams-Sonoma, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, and
Wine.com.

Redeem for gift cards today. Scroll down and select Gift
Cards from the list of categories.
http://link.p0.com/u.d?mYGvWemalVSrDX88v8S1=410

Hurry -- order by December 16 to receive your gift cards by
December 24!

as219

It's not necessarily a bad deal, actually: $100 giftcards for 13k RDM.

Not that I would take that deal, but still. I often pay $250 for a transcon MR that gets me that many RDM. Getting $100 back on that isn't horrendous.

neuron

I looked at them and thought the redemption rate was pretty poor. I usually go by 1cent/mile for redemption, and these fall into the 1.3-1.6c/mile range.

Miles Heighway

I would trade 56k miles for a 500 GC to be honest, it's about 1.1. I have a ton of miles but no time to travel.

On the other hand, this is great for people with orphan miles.

exerda

The rates look similar to what ThankYou currently offers for gift cards (and ThankYou had that infamous devaluation a few years ago, too).

That said, if you've got miles sitting around which you aren't using, the rates are generally better than for straight-up merchandise via the Mileage Plus Mall (as you'd expect for gift cards). I may order a few to stuff stockings for some relatives who are tough buys for the holidays.

drummingcraig

I wouldn't want to redeem too many of these, but 7k miles for a $50 iTunes card makes a great stocking stuffer. Considering I don't pay for 95% of my flights its a good deal for me.

gomike

That is a horrible offer. Costco sells these everyday for $47. You can also find them very cheap on ebay and sell.com

drummingcraig

Everyone sees value differently. All things equal - yes, I could get a better dollar-to-dollar value on an iTunes gift card.

But...
1) I cannot sell/trade miles for dollars
2) I have an abundance of miles
3) I do not have an abundance of dollars

Therefore...

4) Trading miles for gift cards is a good value to me.

exerda

It all comes down to how you value your miles. If you have a lot and don't redeem them for award travel (I rarely do--mine almost exclusively go to upgrades, and with copays + the fact I'll have 10x CR1s over the next 13 months I won't do that as often), you can "afford" a worse redemption rate.

Better than just letting them sit, accumulate, and devalue as MP raises redemption levels over time. @:-)

I redeemed for an entry-level DSLR via the same site a few years ago; the exchange rate (around 100k miles for a camera that retailed for $800 at most discounters) wasn't great, but I also didn't have $800 to spare at the time--and it got me into doing serious digital photography (which has paid back substantially since).

INDEXP

My mile are all with American, but I have a family member with about 1.5 million United miles and they would like to exchange them for retail gift cards. For instance they recently exchanged about 70k American miles for $400 in TJ Max gift cards. Is it possible to do the same thing with United? I have found the United merchandise site (http://www.mileageplusawards.com/ualoyrewards), but I would like to get gift cards and not be limited to what is on the site.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.