Odd pay with miles pricing for subscriptions
 

I was on the United homepage and the Economy Plus subscription caught me eye – I see it's not new, but I hadn't noticed it advertised before.

When I was poking around the subscriptions page, I noticed very odd pricing for the options to pay with miles on some of the other subscriptions.

For example:
Global annual WiFi is $689 or 100,000 miles (0.69 cents per point)
United Club subscriber only membership $600 or 77,000 miles (0.78 cents per point)

Two things struck me as odd: 1. the significant difference in redemption valuation with these pay with miles options, and 2. how low the redemption value is – I'm used to seeing pay with miles options on other airlines of at least 1 cent per point.

So, I get that United contracts out it's WiFi service to multiple providers, so the cost of offering a WiFi pass might be higher than the cost of offering lounge access. But the pricing seems oddly stingy.

This mileage redemption cpms are consistent with MP Shopping and Hotel redemptions with MP miles

for flights yes, but for items where UA (or other airlines) have to pay a third party, sub-1 cpm is common.

You are mileage rich and have no better use for the miles? (and yes, there are some like that.)

I guess I'm just used to Delta where any pay with mile option for Delta products/services is at least $0.01 per point. For example, buying a Sky Club membership with miles is exactly $0.01 per point and in the Sky Club you can buy top-shelf liquor at better than $0.01/point.

Yeah, we have so many miles between my wife and me that my perception of the marginal value of a few thousand miles here or there is close to zero. So I always use miles to pay for United WiFi. Although she sees it differently and refuses to use miles to pay for United WiFi. ;)