Cheapest United awards ever: Flights from 3,000 miles!

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The pandemic has forced airline award programs to get creative to keep customer’s attention, and we’re seeing that play out today with an amazing sale from United. The airline is offering drop-dead cheap cash fares and award flights in honor of “National Plan your Vacation Day”.

Award flights are available for as low as 3,000 miles one-way and cash tickets for just $29. United occasionally drops award flights to 5,000 miles one-way, so this is up to a 40% discount on those award prices! This is the lowest I’ve ever seen United price an award flight.

The biggest caveat with this deal is that you’ll have to travel in the near future while the pandemic still rages. Make sure you feel comfortable booking a flight and weigh the risk factors before getting on a plane. The sale is only available if you book your flight today, Jan. 26, for domestic travel between Feb. 9 and May 26, 2021.

United flights from 3,000 miles or $29

You’ll want to do some searching for your preferred flight to see if it’s pricing at 3,000 miles, but it appears that many domestic routes are on sale. Short-haul and even transcontinental flights are available at these low prices. Here are a few examples of what you can book:

Los Angeles to Orlando for 3,000 miles one-way (6,000 miles round-trip):

Newark to Fort Lauderdale for 3,000 miles one-way (6,000 miles round-trip):

San Francisco to New York for 4,500 miles one-way:

Los Angeles to San Francisco for $29 one-way:

Using the Excursionist Perk to maximize the deal

Per Frequent Miler, these new low award prices are a great way to take advantage of United’s unique Excursionist Perk. The Excursionist Perk allows you to tack on a free one-way award flight to your booking of a round-trip flight between two regions.

However, that extra flight actually doesn’t have to be between the same two regions.

So what you can do is book a round-trip flight between Los Angeles and Orlando for 6,000 miles, and then add on another flight that’s in a different region without shelling out any additional miles (you’ll still have to pay any taxes and fees though). It could be an intra-Europe or intra-Africa flight for instance.

For example, take the round-trip flight from Los Angeles to Orlando — you could add London to Istanbul for just the taxes and fees through the Excursionist Perk. Normally you’d have to pay 15,000 miles for just that flight alone.

Remember, you’ll see extra saver award availability if you have a United credit card, like the United Gateway℠ Card — so make sure to log into your United account as you search.

You can also transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards to United at a 1:1 ratio. And if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or Chase Sapphire Reserve®, you can take advantage of the cheap cash fares and book through the Chase Travel Portal and book a flight for as little as 2000 Chase points.

Bottom Line

Now is a fantastic time to book United awards if you feel comfortable traveling — just remember that you’ll need to book by tonight, Jan. 26, to take advantage of these deals. And subscribe to our newsletter for United Airlines travel tips and tricks to getting the most from your miles.