An email from United Airlines this morning gave me pause. The primary call to action (the offer) is to purchase miles in the next 3 days to receive an extra 30% "bonus miles." If you need miles, that's actually nothing to sneeze at because the cost of miles is downright ridic. But, it's the secondary offer on the page that was more interesting to me:
Trade your unused gift cards in for miles. That grabbed my attention because I sit on gift cards all the time and could probably benefit more from the miles than the credit at stores I don't frequent. Let's put this in perspective: buy 2,000 miles (the smallest increment available) on UA.com and it costs $75.25 plus 7.5% excise tax, whatever that means. Trade in a gift card, and receive the following in return:
You'll get more miles by trading in a gift card than if you were to buy the miles outright! (Note: the 30% bonus offer on buying miles directly only kicks in at the 10,000 mile level and you can only get that offer through the link in the email I was sent).
Plus, there's a fairly exhaustive list of acceptable retailers open for trade - from Zappos to UA theaters, to Pottery Barn and Four Seasons hotels!
It's unclear how long this gift card/mileage exchange will be occurring. However, the 30% extra bonus miles on the gift card offer is only good until 11:59 p.m. central time on November 18 (this Monday!). So if you've been waiting to wrangle some extra miles, the time is....NOW.
Very cool! Thanks for posting.
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