BBSHOPSINGER

One thing about the newly designed website that I thought was interesting was the ease of downloading my mileage activity. As a silver, I don't fly enough to earn a ton of miles through flying, but I still do fairly well in piling up enough miles to take a nice trip every two or three years with my wife. I don't do the credit-card churning, but do use my Club Card for almost every purchase I make. I decided to use a little basic SAS programming to classify and summarize my mileage earning over the past two years. Here's what I came up with. Interesting that my miles earned via flying stayed very consistent over the two years - 10.7% of total in 2017 and 10.9% in 2018. So almost 90% of my miles come from sources other than flying.

StuckinITH

Mine is 100% by flying UA. I guess I should consider getting the credit card.....

brp1264

The club card is actually not a very good card for earning United miles.

The better option is to get two credit cards - the Chase Freedom Unlimited and the Chase Sapphire Reserve.

CFU earns 1.5x miles per dollar spent that can be redeemed for travel or transferred 1:1 to United (so long as you also hold the CSR).

CSR earns 3x miles per dollar spent on ALL travel and dining, including airfare, Uber, rental car, train, tolls, all international restaurants. You can redeem them for travel in the Chase portal or again, transfer them 1:1 to United.

Repooc17

Doesn't necessarily have to be the CSR, Other cards like CSP, Ink Biz Preferred. OT, but CSP is the perfect starter credit card for anyone wanting to get value out of travel redemption.

100% of my miles come from flying. No co-branded credit cards so no miles have been earned there.

BThumme

BBSHOPSINGER

I naively thought that if I uploaded a document, it would be readable to those reading the forum without having to download. Behind credit card miles, Hertz was my next biggest miles earner. Other earning methods included Mileage Plus Shopping, Mileage Plus X, Mileage Plus Dining, RocketMiles, and even surveys.

As far as the Club Card is concerned, it may not earn the most miles, but the combination of miles, club membership, and other benefits (like two free bags) make it the best one for me.

If I really wanted to play the mileage game, I guess I could churn cards for the bonus offers, but I really don't like to play those games.

uastarflyer

ContinentalFan

jtka

i have a chase card but get 99% of mine flying non-united SA. I thankfully am waived from PQD because I am a resident outside the US (a LH/LX/OS hub) now.

i actually hadn't flown united for a few years until last summer, and was kind of dreading the UA flight to the US with the family, when at boarding we were all upgraded to polaris business (no miles or GPU involved). That was the last time I was on united metal. I'm still 10k from 1mm and think i'll finally crack it this year.

Dublin_rfk

99% of my miles are form actual BIS flying and 108 out of 112 flights were UA. There are a few K from MPdining. I'm just too lazy to chase the other methods.

BBSHOPSINGER

The PQD waiver is huge for me. Last year is the first year that I actually would have qualified for Silver with PQD. All other years I was dependent on the waiver.

plc44

This was fun, my mileage earning for the full year 2018 was as follows:

Flying - 87,745
Credit Card - 70,628
MileagePlus X - 8,096
MileagePlus Dining - 1,609

BBSHOPSINGER

Here's the information in my document attached at the beginning. As you can see, not many actual miles earning from flying!
2017Source of Miles Redeemable Miles
Credit Card 97,496
Hertz 47,500
Flight Miles 22,344
Mileage Plus Shopping 9,717
Mileage Plus X App 9,462
Flowers 5,790
Hotel 5,439
Other 5,080
Mileage Plus Dining 3,931
Rocketmiles (Hotel) 2,000
Total 208,759

2018 Source of Miles Redeemable Miles
Credit Card 115,527
Flight Miles 22,063
Hertz 19,000
Mileage Plus Shopping 11,811
Rocketmiles (Hotel) 10,000
Mileage Plus X App 9,066
Surveys 5,303
Flowers 4,260
Mileage Plus Dining 2,956
Other 2,072
Hotel 1,030
Total 203,088

kittiyut

These numbers are for United only.

2017
Flying: 1,442,905
Credit Cards: 994,894
Hertz: 20,000
Hotels & Others: 8,893
Total: 2,466,692

2018
Flying: 1,324,416
Credit Cards: 538,631 (transferred a lot to SQ & NH)
Hertz: 13,750
Hotels & Others: 7,922
Total: 1,884,719

n198ua

I used to get a ton of miles from double dipping with Hilton Honors, but since they got rid of that 4/1/18 about 90% of my miles comes from BIS UA metal. The other 10% from various sources, ie FTD flowers, Hertz, and MileagePlus X app.