Mile Play Promotion (9/2018)
Sep 13, 2018, 7:42 am
#91
Join Date: Mar 2018
Posts: 26
4 trips >$275 for 3,300 miles. I actually have a 4 trips to book and complete in the upcoming weeks but the last one may or may not hit by October 31st. It isn't worth it to me to cramp up my schedule and squeeze it in for this promotion. Come on United! My last offer (which I wasn't able to meet at that time) was MUCH better at 2 trips for 15,000 miles.
Sep 13, 2018, 8:27 am
#93
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: CHS
Programs: UA GS, Bonvoy Amabassador, Hertz PC
Posts: 2,589
So I am just trying to understand this promo.
UA offers me 9000 miles for spending a minimum of $3000 on four flights. How does this make any sense at all? UA should know from my history that I actually might spend $3000 in 45 days if they offered me a big chunk of miles. But 9000 points is no incentive at all. It's actually kind of insulting. So with 1K already cleared, and a bunch of J tix booked on foreign carriers, UA will likely get nothing (or close to nothing) more from me through the end of the year.
Meanwhile, some are getting multiples of the miles offered for a tenth of the spend. Congrats on the good fortune. But how does that make any sense at all? Does UA think that someone who's induced by an offer of 90,000 miles to buy two Y tickets for a total of $300 will be so blown away by the quality of the United economy product that they will suddenly start spending thousands per year on UA?
The logic simply escapes me.
UA offers me 9000 miles for spending a minimum of $3000 on four flights. How does this make any sense at all? UA should know from my history that I actually might spend $3000 in 45 days if they offered me a big chunk of miles. But 9000 points is no incentive at all. It's actually kind of insulting. So with 1K already cleared, and a bunch of J tix booked on foreign carriers, UA will likely get nothing (or close to nothing) more from me through the end of the year.
Meanwhile, some are getting multiples of the miles offered for a tenth of the spend. Congrats on the good fortune. But how does that make any sense at all? Does UA think that someone who's induced by an offer of 90,000 miles to buy two Y tickets for a total of $300 will be so blown away by the quality of the United economy product that they will suddenly start spending thousands per year on UA?
The logic simply escapes me.
Same offer - 9000 miles isn't worth my time to read the email.....
Sep 13, 2018, 11:11 am
#94
Join Date: Mar 2005
Programs: Continental Onepass, Hilton, Marriott, USAir and now UA
Posts: 6,447
Mine is book 5 trips in premium cabin, each trip needs to be $900, get 50K bonus miles. (Spend $5000 minimum, get 50K bonus points).
Too bad it didn't start 3 days earlier. I would have had 2 trips already. I don't even think I will even have 5 trips between now and the end of Oct. (I only count 3 so far, and one is on AA!)
Sep 13, 2018, 11:29 am
#96
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: DEN
Programs: UA 1K 0.7MM (trying to get to 1MM!)
Posts: 1,272
Mine is...
Book and take a trip 3 times by October 31, 2018 to get 15,000 bonus award miles. Each purchased fare must be a minimum of $400 to qualify. Pretty sure I'm not going to get this one!
For reference, my previous offers were as follows. I completed the first 2, but didn't complete the 3rd:
I think I'd rather have your offer of 50k miles and spend $4.5k (at 9CPM) rather than get 9k miles after spending $3k (at 33CPM). 
lol
Book and take a trip 3 times by October 31, 2018 to get 15,000 bonus award miles. Each purchased fare must be a minimum of $400 to qualify. Pretty sure I'm not going to get this one!
For reference, my previous offers were as follows. I completed the first 2, but didn't complete the 3rd:
- March promo: Book and take a trip 2 times by March 11, 2018 to get 21,000 bonus award miles. Minimum fare $400.
- May promo: Book and take a trip 1 time by May 13, 2018 to get 8,600 bonus award miles. Minimum fare $275.
- August promo: Book and take a trip 1 time by August 12, 2018 to get 20,000 bonus award miles. Minimum fare $500.
lol
Sep 13, 2018, 12:09 pm
#97
Join Date: Apr 1999
Location: Homosassa, FL & Ringwood, NJ -UA-G(Lifetime); SPG-Plat (Lifetime)
Posts: 6,120
Book 3 times at least $175 ea and get 2500 miles. Wow. How can they be so generous. 
Edited to add, my wife received "book 1 time at least $175 and receive 5100 miles.
It is beyond bizarre how they come up with these.
Edited to add, my wife received "book 1 time at least $175 and receive 5100 miles.
It is beyond bizarre how they come up with these.
Sep 13, 2018, 12:56 pm
#99
Join Date: Jul 2015
Programs: UA Plat
Posts: 154
And mine:
"Book and take a trip 4 times by October 31, 2018 to get 20,000 bonus award miles...Each Trip must have a fare equal to or greater than $500."
"no partial credit given"
One can only imagine marketing cooking up the miles/trip cost algorithm based on one's current travel patterns.
It's definitely not worth it when one has existing booked travel and the miles can be purchased for less.
"Book and take a trip 4 times by October 31, 2018 to get 20,000 bonus award miles...Each Trip must have a fare equal to or greater than $500."
"no partial credit given"
One can only imagine marketing cooking up the miles/trip cost algorithm based on one's current travel patterns.
It's definitely not worth it when one has existing booked travel and the miles can be purchased for less.
Sep 13, 2018, 1:10 pm
#100
Join Date: Sep 2018
Programs: UA 1K, LH FT, Marriott Plat, IHG Gold, Hertz PC, Avis PPlus
Posts: 72
Most of my travel is at very short notice, usually I book within 1-2 days of travel. And I never was targeted for this promotion. On top of that I would have 3 "premium" international flights that I haven't booked yet until october, easily matching any given criteria... bummer
Sep 13, 2018, 3:26 pm
#102
Join Date: Dec 2017
Programs: MP 1K, NH Diamond, EK Gold, IHG SA, Marriott Gold, SPG Gold, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 26
Sep 13, 2018, 3:44 pm
#103
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 19,510
At this rate they're going to wear out their Magic '8' Ball.
Sep 13, 2018, 3:47 pm
#104
Moderator, Omni, Omni/PR, Omni/Games, FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Between DCA and IAD
Programs: UA 1K MM; Hilton Diamond
Posts: 67,145
1 trip in premium cabin, $1200 or more, 48k miles.
This is a far better offer than I received in the previous quarter, more on par with the ones I got in Q1 and Q2 (neither of which I completed, but both of which I had travel booked toward which would have qualified had I not cancelled the trips).
Either UA is being very random, or they are looking and saying, "Huh, in Q1, you booked 2x $700+ premium cabin trips, even though you later canceled them (and paid us change fees, muahahaha); but in Q3, being offered only 4k miles, you didn't even try to book a qualifying trip."
I actually think the former is more likely, but am happy to have an offer I'll likely take. I was already planning a paid F trip to California in mid-October, and that's right in line with the cost for most destinations I was considering. Pretty much all of my completed travel this year has been in paid premium cabins at $1200+ per trip; I had one work trip in Y ($600-ish) and one GPU-d trip to Asia ($1k-ish) and two mixed-GPU/mixed-paid-C trips (both around $1.4k), so targeting $1200 is par for the course to capture behavior I already do and perhaps get me to book 1 more trip without saying, "Why bother?"
This is a far better offer than I received in the previous quarter, more on par with the ones I got in Q1 and Q2 (neither of which I completed, but both of which I had travel booked toward which would have qualified had I not cancelled the trips).
Either UA is being very random, or they are looking and saying, "Huh, in Q1, you booked 2x $700+ premium cabin trips, even though you later canceled them (and paid us change fees, muahahaha); but in Q3, being offered only 4k miles, you didn't even try to book a qualifying trip."
I actually think the former is more likely, but am happy to have an offer I'll likely take. I was already planning a paid F trip to California in mid-October, and that's right in line with the cost for most destinations I was considering. Pretty much all of my completed travel this year has been in paid premium cabins at $1200+ per trip; I had one work trip in Y ($600-ish) and one GPU-d trip to Asia ($1k-ish) and two mixed-GPU/mixed-paid-C trips (both around $1.4k), so targeting $1200 is par for the course to capture behavior I already do and perhaps get me to book 1 more trip without saying, "Why bother?"