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,

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 earned Millages
 

For the majority of airlines, there is no way to earn elite status other than flown miles. So if you don't fly a lot, not going to get it. Credit card miles and purchased miles don't count.

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.

thank you guys so much! That was very helpful.

You could also argue: If you do not fly much, status doesn't matter. Interesting is that a lot of people chase status and even burn money on it while it does exactly nothing for them. Often enough, instead of spending a couple of extra dollars for a decent meal and drink in a good airport bar, people spend hundreds of Dollar to get access to miserable lounges ;)

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?