Want to accumulate MileagePlus Miles (by UNITED AIR) frugally

[regular]

Dear all,

I want to collect at least 17500 MileagePlus Miles during 2022, as frugally as possible. I am open to credit card referral links as I do not have any MileagePlus credit card yet. TJKansai mentioned Saison MileagePlus card, giving 15 miles for 1000 yen spending. My annual card spending is around 1.7 - 2.0 million yen, so this could yield some benefit for 7150 yen annual fee.

Right now I accumulate T-Points (1% of spending) via Yahoo MasterCard, which our family use to buy trinkets. However, I do not need to pay any annual fee for my cards (as of now, including Gold cards) and so, paying will be hard if the benefits are not very clear.

I recently bought some MileagePlus miles needed for an one-way award ticket, but had to spend 21000 yen for only 6500 miles, so want to do better. Any ideas?

Sincerely

R

[RetireJapan]

United sometimes has mile sales, where you can get them for up to half off. At the larger end of the scale, this can be a good deal if you are going to redeem for business class or first, or for last minute travel, or for domestic Japanese flights on ANA (via Star Alliance). Sign up to their mailing list to get notifications.

Otherwise the Saison credit cards can be a good option, or earrning miles through Star Alliance flights.

[vapid]

Are you a US citizen? If so, you can try to apply for the cards based in the US, the $0 annual fee one gets you 60,000 miles right now after spending $3000 in 3 months or something like that.

Otherwise the Saison card and purchasing the miles. But at that point you might be better off just buying the ticket.

[regular]

Vapid, I am not a US person, so US-based cards are NG.

Ben, I actually bought 5000 miles when they were having a sale, and even with 30% bonus, turned out to cost me 188.13 USD or 21357 yen. I needed those miles to add to existing miles to buy a HND-YVR one-way ANA flight. So damn expensive that I am now looking for alternatives. Did you mention any other mile sales? if yes, please point me to an URl and to the email of that mailing list.

I have multiple credit cards including several from Saison too but nothing from MileagePlus. I do have time to accumulate 17000 miles now from our usual shopping and so may contact saison if there are no other ideas.

[RetireJapan]

I actually bought 5000 miles when they were having a sale, and even with 30% bonus, turned out to cost me 188.13 USD or 21357 yen.

I only buy miles when they are on sale with a 100% bonus (tends to happen a couple of times a year). I just get an email from the MileagePlus (I imagine there is a setting on your account to enable or disable emails).

However, I buy hundreds of thousands of miles because I want to use them for business/first class travel with my wife. Buying premium tickets with miles (if you can find availability) can be very cost-effective. Generally speaking when using miles business class only costs 1.5x the miles of economy, while first costs 2x or so. Buying tickets directly with money business seems to cost 3-5x, and first 10x+ the price of economy.

Some blog posts on the subject here: https://www.retirejapan.com/blog/air-miles-revisited/

Given limited availability, taxes and fees, and constant devaluation, I don't think it is generally worth using miles for economy tickets unless you naturally accumulate them or have them lying around anyway.

[captainspoke]

ANA is wonderful, but as a crotchety old person I mumble to myself that I'll never fly a US carrier again. (and United specifically)

[RetireJapan]

ANA is wonderful, but as a crotchety old person I mumble to myself that I'll never fly a US carrier again. (and United specifically)

Oh, I wouldn't fly on a United plane

I use United miles to fly on ANA or Lufthansa usually

[kizuki]

Dear all,

I want to collect at least 17500 MileagePlus Miles during 2022, as frugally as possible. I am open to credit card referral links as I do not have any MileagePlus credit card yet. TJKansai mentioned Saison MileagePlus card, giving 15 miles for 1000 yen spending. My annual card spending is around 1.7 - 2.0 million yen, so this could yield some benefit for 7150 yen annual fee.

Right now I accumulate T-Points (1% of spending) via Yahoo MasterCard, which our family use to buy trinkets. However, I do not need to pay any annual fee for my cards (as of now, including Gold cards) and so, paying will be hard if the benefits are not very clear.

I recently bought some MileagePlus miles needed for an one-way award ticket, but had to spend 21000 yen for only 6500 miles, so want to do better. Any ideas?

Sincerely

R

Usually any mile accumulating CC worth having will come with a fee since miles are usually valued at more than 1 yen each. e.g. It is common to see CC such as Rakuten which has zero annual fee and gives 1% worth points (1 point equivalent to 1 yen) but I am not aware of any CC which has a 1% mile accumulation rate with zero annual fee. In most cases miles are valued at ~2 yen or much higher for international travel depending upon class. Compared to Saison, JCB might be cheaper as they have a card at 5,500 yen annual fee with 1% accumulation and 16,500 yen annual fee with 1.5% accumulation - https://www.jcb-card.jp/united/?18460442402100
If your annual spend on the card will be ~1million yen or more, I would suggest going for the 1.5% one.

Another potential option is Amex SPG which gives a conversion rate of 1.375% for United miles and has annual fee of 34,100 yen. But comes with a free night stay every year at any Marriott hotel, automatic permanent Gold Elite status at Marriott group and 15% discount on food and beverages at any Marriott hotels/restaurants. Depending on your spending pattern and lifestyle this might be a better deal. I personally use this one because it gives me the flexibility to convert the CC points to any mileage program and is not limited to United. For me, I think United works well for domestic travel on ANA but using United miles is inefficient and more expensive for my international travel compared to ANA. Hence I convert to ANA miles when I want to use for international travel and United when booking domestic. Let me know if you need a referral as they usually have 30,000 - 70,000 bonus points campaign ongoing when you join and spend a minimum of 100,000 - 300,000 yen within 3 months. (60,000 points converts to 27,500 United miles)

It does not make sense to buy miles at 3-4 yen per mile, especially for United where your already accumulated miles never expire. I would never pay more than 2 yen per mile (and that too only if I am planning to use the miles for flying business class or higher). For CC like Amex SPG they usually have bonus points campaigns running 3-4 times a year where the effective rate comes to around 2 yen per mile (~1.8 yen in case of United). Just like Ben mentioned, these are quite efficient to accumulate the miles if you are planning to utilize for business class or higher.

[TJKansai]

Dear all,

I want to collect at least 17500 MileagePlus Miles during 2022, as frugally as possible. I am open to credit card referral links as I do not have any MileagePlus credit card yet. TJKansai mentioned Saison MileagePlus card, giving 15 miles for 1000 yen spending. My annual card spending is around 1.7 - 2.0 million yen, so this could yield some benefit for 7150 yen annual fee.

Right now I accumulate T-Points (1% of spending) via Yahoo MasterCard, which our family use to buy trinkets. However, I do not need to pay any annual fee for my cards (as of now, including Gold cards) and so, paying will be hard if the benefits are not very clear.

I recently bought some MileagePlus miles needed for an one-way award ticket, but had to spend 21000 yen for only 6500 miles, so want to do better. Any ideas?

Sincerely

R

Try the Mileage Plus shopping portal. There are some offers for 5-10x miles spent. The trick is only to do essential shopping you, not go on a spree and buy stuff you wouldn't normally.

[TJKansai]

Another potential option is Amex SPG which gives a conversion rate of 1.375% for United miles and has annual fee of 34,100 yen. But comes with a free night stay every year at any Marriott hotel, automatic permanent Gold Elite status at Marriott group and 15% discount on food and beverages at any Marriott hotels/restaurants. Depending on your spending pattern and lifestyle this might be a better deal. I personally use this one because it gives me the flexibility to convert the CC points to any mileage program and is not limited to United. For me, I think United works well for domestic travel on ANA but using United miles is inefficient and more expensive for my international travel compared to ANA. Hence I convert to ANA miles when I want to use for international travel and United when booking domestic. Let me know if you need a referral as they usually have 30,000 - 70,000 bonus points campaign ongoing when you join and spend a minimum of 100,000 - 300,000 yen within 3 months. (60,000 points converts to 27,500 United miles)

I have considered this since the transfer options are good, but the fee seems too high to justify it. Of course, if you aren't able to access the American offerings there may not be many other good choices.

Like others, I use my MP on other Star Alliance airlines (Lufthansa, Asiana etc), ideally business class . Also recently did the ANA domestic booking. In the past the taxes/fees were around $40 and it didn't make sense, but now at $4 it is a pretty good deal for tickets over ¥10,000.