Starting Now United Airlines Miles Won’t Expire and You Can Buy Back Expired Miles at a Discount

  • Jason Stauffer

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    INSIDER SECRET: One of the best ways to make your United Airlines miles more valuable is by having a United Airlines credit card because when you do, you’ll have access to an increased number of award seats.

    It used to be that United Airlines miles expired after 18 months of inactivity, but today United Airlines announced that effective immediately United miles will no longer expire. Even though it wasn’t hard to keep your miles active, this is good news.

    If you happen to have let your miles expire in the past 18 months there are a couple of ways to get them back, you can buy them back or complete a reinstatement challenge and right now United is running a 30% off promotion for either option.

    United Airlines Miles Won’t Expire

    Now that United Airlines miles don’t expire that puts them on par with Delta and JetBlue which are the only other two major US airlines with miles or points that don’t expire.

    In conjunction with this news, United is also giving you a chance to get your miles back for less than the normal cost and according to View From the Wing United will be automatically reinstating any miles that expired in July or August of 2019.

    You can buy back up to 750,000 United miles at the following discounted rates:

    If you have more than 20,000 United miles to reinstate it could be much cheap to complete a reinstatement challenge. With the reinstatement challenge, all you have to do is pay a nonrefundable fee of $70 (normally $100), then complete one of two activities within 90 days :

    • Take a United flight

    Or

    • Apply, get approved and make a purchase with a United credit card that was opened after payment of the registration fee

    If you want to power up your United Airlines miles having a United credit card is a great idea because it will give you access to an increased number of award seats. Some United Airlines credit cards include:

    The information for the United Club and United Club Business has been collected independently by The Million Mile Secrets. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

    If you need help deciding on a card, the United Explorer Business Card has an all-time-high bonus of up to 100,000 United miles after meeting tiered minimum-spending requirements. You can earn:

    • 50,000 bonus miles after spending $5,000 on purchases in the first three months
    • 50,000 more miles after spending an additional $20,000 ($25,000 in total)on purchases in the first six months of account opening

    You can also transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to United at a 1:1 ratio.

    To learn more about the United Airlines MileagePlus program, check out these guides:

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