Originally Posted by
abcx
IME even paying all of it with TB gets you the bag benefit. You can verify this in the checkout process before you choose your form of payment and then in the subsequent email receipt where it shows charges for bags. There’s 24 hr free cancel so if it doesn’t work with 100% TB you can always cancel and rebook.
I don’t have a card with bag benefit, so can only speak from what I understand, but my understanding is the bag benefit is the single one where [some] payment from associated card is required. Other flight benefits for having the card are tied to FF #. So I don’t believe paying for full amount with TB would unlock bag benefit.
good news is using TB is the one United form of payment where you can choose how much (or little) of your funds you want to use. So you can always set it up to pay up to full amount of ticket minus $1, or $5 (or whatever) to avail that extra to be paid with the card to garner those benefits. FFC you have to use entire value of FFC, for example, so if the ticket is the same or more than FFC, there is no way to use card for partial payment (unless you, for example, buy an ancillary, such as E+ seat, after purchase, which I think will still unlock the bag benefit.